St. Louis traded not only with New Orleans but with Canada as well. The Indians gave no trouble up stream or down. The Spanish Government wanted settlers, and was liberal in granting land. We read that "there were no mails or taverns, but every house was a welcome house to new comers." In 1798 the population of Upper Louisiana was 6028, of whom 1080 were colored. The population had risen in 1804 to 10,340. In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase was made, and in 1804 St. Louis "contained one hundred and eighty houses built of hewn logs and stone, the latter being generally the rendezvous of the most wealthy, and surrounded by a wall of the same material, enclosing the whole block, which continued in use many years, protecting the fine fruit trees, which shaded the mansion." Frame houses became fashionable after the transfer to the United States. "There were but one bakery, two small taverns, three blacksmiths, two mills, and one doctor in the town." Coffee and sugar were $2.00 per pound, and everything else was costly in proportion. The United States took possession March 10, 1804, when Major Amos Stoddard assumed the duties of Governor of Upper Louisiana. Then history began to make quickly.
Near St. Louis, Lewis and Clark organized their expedition via the Missouri and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean, departing in May, 1804. In August Lieutenant Zebulon Pike started to explore the Mississippi to its source. The Mississippi was opened up to free navigation. General William Henry Harrison came from Indiana to preside over the district. He was succeeded by General James Wilkinson, and the region formerly known as the District of Louisiana became known as the Territory of Louisiana. Later a strangely handsome, dark, romantic man, much honored by every one and indescribably fascinating in manner, visited the town and was fêted. He was entertained by General Wilkinson, through whom it is believed the authorities at Washington first learned of that vast, vague treason which Burr—for it was he—conceived in his restless brain. Wilkinson was later appointed to watch Burr and was succeeded as Governor by Captain Meriwether Lewis, fresh from his adventures in the mysterious Northwest. A ferry had been established in 1797, and at the same spot there is to-day a ferry operating, one of the most profitable of the vested interests of St. Louis. The post-office was established in 1804. In 1810 the population was fourteen thousand. In 1808 was founded the first newspaper, which exists to-day as the St. Louis Republic, a daring enterprise begun when the whole country was suffering from the embargo and non-intercourse with England. The great New Madrid earthquake shook the little city in 1811. The battle of Tippecanoe had been fought a little before the earthquake, and in the same year appeared the first steamboat in Western waters. In 1813 the Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of Missouri, and in June of that year the Bank of St. Louis was founded. The year before that the Governor of the Territory had gathered in the city of St. Louis the chiefs of the Great and Little Osages, the Sacs, Foxes, Delawares, and Shawnees, made peace with them, then conducted them to Washington, arriving there just before the declaration of war against Great Britain, in time to conclude a peace which saved the country from any such conspiracy as had been formed among the Indian tribes to the east, under the leadership of the great Tecumseh.
Being a frontier town, St. Louis was of course a resort for trappers and traders but, unlike the frontier towns of to-day, not for desperadoes. The early settlers seem to have stamped upon the place its distinctive quality of quietness. Here the North American Fur Company had its headquarters for a long time, and from this point the adventurous subordinates of John Jacob Astor went forth in all directions in search of peltries. One of these, a Colonel Russell Farnum, leaving St. Louis afoot reached Behring Strait in 1813-14, crossed over the ice, traversed Siberia and, arriving at St. Petersburg, was presented to the Emperor. This memorable journey was the wonder of Europe at the time, for Farnum went from St. Petersburg to Paris and then came home by way of New York. He wrote a record of his adventures and sent it to a New York publisher but it was lost and the writer died before he could again transcribe his narrative.
The War of 1812 with Great Britain for a time was of small concern to St. Louis. Later, however, the Indians of Missouri were armed by the people and pitted against the Indians employed by the British. The trading-posts in which St. Louis was interested extended twelve hundred miles to the north and there agents from St. Louis counter-plotted against the British. The Yanktons and Omahas were matched by the Americans against the Iowas and several battles were fought in which the British-bought savages were worsted. The war coming to an end, Indian hostilities ceased and the fur trade throve under the peace. Rivals to the American Fur Company were started. The business expanded, and soon the necessities of commercial intercourse led to the organization of two banks, the second of which, known as the Bank of Missouri, was organized February 1, 1817. Inflation was the order of the day. The town took on airs of magnificence and extravagance. Wealth accumulated so rapidly that some seemed at a loss to spend it, and gave entertainments in which the tasteful and the barbaric were strangely mingled. The United States held sales of public lands and there were "rushes" such as we have seen in recent years in Oklahoma. Building was undertaken in a lordly fashion and extravagant prices were asked for everything. The demand for money was so great that recourse was had to lotteries to raise funds for an academy at Potosi, to provide fire-engines for the city, to erect a Masonic Hall. The lotteries soon got into politics and were not dislodged until late in the seventies, after a fight not unlike that waged for many years in Louisiana. It was in 1817 that the Legislature of Missouri established the public-school system and incorporated the institution which persists to-day in the St. Louis Board of Education, though it was many years before there was a public school in the city. In the same year, in St. Louis, Thomas H. Benton, afterwards United States Senator from Missouri for thirty years, leaped into notice, engaged in a quarrel with Charles Lucas, United States Attorney for the Territory of Missouri, and in a duel across the river, or rather on an island in the river that has since become joined to the Illinois shore, killed him. The place where the duel was fought became the rendezvous for duellists and was called "Bloody Island." In 1817 the first Bible Society in the Territory of Missouri was formed. The inflation of the day ended as usual in collapse, but St. Louis and Missouri suffered less harm than other sections.
When, in 1818, the Territory of Missouri applied for admission to the Union the slavery question arose. There was a slight preponderance of sentiment in favor of slavery, but very slight. The Missouri Compromise left its mark on Missouri and St. Louis. The State was always regarded, however its representatives stood, as doubtful on the slavery issue. From 1820 to the breaking out of the Civil War it was always a compromise State and in that war it was ever between two fires, furnishing soldiers in startling abundance to each side and sympathizing with both. St. Louis suffered in that long drawn out situation. A paralyzing incertitude was bred in the city's mind, even toward progress. The people, especially the French, did not take kindly to steamboats. "When Missouri was admitted to the Union," says Elihu Shepard, "there was no steamboat owned in the State and but one steam mill." The assessed valuation of the town property was less than $1,000,000 and the whole corporation tax less than $4000 per year while Missouri remained a territory. The town contained six hundred houses, one third of which were of stone or brick, the remainder wooden, one half of which were framed. The population was estimated at five thousand, one fourth of whom were French. The estimated annual value of the trade was $600,000. Steamboats from the Ohio River took the carrying trade between St. Louis and New Orleans, and the imports were estimated at $1,000,000. All these conditions, while due in some measure to the extreme conservatism and self-satisfaction of the dominant French element, were undoubtedly due in larger measure to the hard times that prevailed when Missouri became a State. St. Louis was incorporated as a city December 9, 1822. A spice of adventure always entered into the then predominant business of the community, for the fur companies fought with each other, and all of them made common cause against the great Hudson Bay Company in the North, with its headquarters in Canada. The people of that time thought little of distances which even now seem great. Traders and trappers went without hesitation through the wilderness to the very surf of the Pacific and the people of the city never dreamed that what we now call Yellowstone Park was very far away. Often enough the adventurous commercial traveller who left St. Louis came back without his scalp or never came at all. The city was picturesque. Men clad in buckskin and carrying rifles in their hands elbowed representatives of first families attired in the fashion that came from Paris, via New Orleans, or consorted with red Indians in paint and feathers—and too often, too, in liquor. St. Louis and Missouri were "big" in politics about that time. Missouri was for Clay, but Missouri's representative did not vote for him and John Quincy Adams was chosen President. After this Missouri became a Jackson State, and committed herself to the South.
A patch of color in the drab details of the history of St. Louis for the few years after the incorporation was the visit of Lafayette to the city on April 29, 1825, and his sumptuous entertainment by the enthusiastic inhabitants, most of whom, probably, loved the Frenchman more than the friend of Washington. In June, 1825, the first Presbyterian church was consecrated by Rev. Solomon Giddings, who "had a very respectable congregation" for a city which was preponderantly French and Roman Catholic. The French language was spoken in the homes of half the families of the town. There were less than a dozen German families in a city which now is more distinctly Teutonic than any other in the country, except Milwaukee. The slavery issue was all the while growing, and in 1828 there was formed at St. Louis a branch of the American Colonization Society, the purpose of which was to further the settlement of free blacks in Liberia. Many of the largest slave-owners in the city and State were members and officers of the society. Between 1820 and 1831, a progressive movement started. The new Court House was dedicated in 1829, and the work of opening and paving streets was pushed with energy. The old French families resented the new life and moved into the country. The pace was too fast for them. The hunters, trappers, voyageurs and bargemen began to disappear. The city took on a truly American aspect, but the increase of population was slow. Between 1820 and 1830, the population increased only 2000, but between 1830 and 1840 the increase was nearly 10,000, reaching the total of 16,649.
Gradually Americanism made its impress. The wharf was lined with steamboats and the levee with great stores. Steam ferryboats multiplied. The city became a great river town, second in importance only to New Orleans. The lead mines to the south of the city were productive. Manufactures of various sorts sprang up. An insurance company was incorporated. Prosperity was checked by fear of the great Black Hawk, who, at the head of the Sac and Fox Indians, took the war-path in Illinois. Immigration and transportation of goods to and from the North was checked till Black Hawk was defeated and his tribe transported to the other side of the river, where the influence of Great Britain could not reach them. No sooner, however, had the city recovered from its slight panic than there came another and graver excitement, another lull in business. Jackson's bank veto was the cause. As if this were not enough to discourage the community, along came the cholera, which in five weeks destroyed four per cent of the population. Cholera has reappeared since, from time to time, the most serious visitation being in 1866, but the city as it grew began to pay attention to the sewage question and in half a century had perfected such a sewer system as is not surpassed in any city in the world. In 1835 the City Council sold the town Commons, a tract of about two thousand acres, and devoted nine tenths of the proceeds to street improvements and one tenth to the public schools, and from this small beginning arose the system which to-day directs the education of the children of a city of 575,000 inhabitants. In 1829 the St. Louis University, a Jesuit institution, was founded, which has been since a centre of higher education for the sons of the well-to-do Roman Catholics of the entire South and Southwest. Considerably later was founded the institution now Washington University, one of the best endowed educational establishments in the country, with a manual training department famous the world over, and with its Mary Institute for girls ranking with the best seminaries of the country. At an early day the Roman Catholic religious sisterhoods of charity and instruction established branches here. The Sisters of Charity founded a hospital in 1832, aided by the liberality of John Mullanphy, which has been in continuous service ever since. The Sisters of the Visitation came later and established their convent for the higher education of girls and did for the girls of the West and South what the St. Louis University did for the boys. Still later came the establishment of medical colleges, one in connection with the St. Louis University, and later the institutions founded by McDowell and Popé, from which grew the swarm of large medical and surgical colleges which now make St. Louis one of the most important centres of medical education in the land.
[WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AS PROJECTED, NOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION.]
![[WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AS PROJECTED, NOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION.]](#5548097350089155992_illo_401.jpg.id-2987115907154814980.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Events moved rapidly after 1835. The growth of river traffic was steady. The drift of emigration westward was beneficial to St. Louis in every way. Men and money flowed in from the East and the South. There were rumors of railroads, and, in April, 1835, a convention was held by representatives of eleven of the most populous counties of the State to take steps to induce the construction of railroads in the State and to and from the city. The modern spirit manifested itself in every direction, and the year 1836 found the people regarding St. Louis as a metropolis, though in that year occurred an incident demonstrating that the taint of barbarism lingered to some extent among the people. A negro who had stabbed a constable was seized by a mob and tied to a tree and burned to death, amid a chorus of execrations,—an episode only too frequently duplicated in different sections of the country of late years. At this time St. Louis had 15,000 inhabitants, but it was not till the year following that a theatre was known. In the same year a brick fire-engine house was built, and leading citizens were proud to be members of the company and "run with the machine."
St. Louis was much interested in the Texan war of independence, and from its stores supplies went to the followers of Houston, while many of the younger men of the community left to join the Lone Star warriors in their struggle. Later, when the war with Mexico began, there were multiplied activities in the city, because the Government here outfitted many of its troops. Here next were heard the first mutterings of the storm that broke in 1861. Elijah P. Lovejoy, anti-slavery in sentiment, edited the St. Louis Observer. On the night of July 21, 1836, persons unknown broke into the publishing room and wrecked the establishment, scattering the type into the street. No one was punished for the offence. Lovejoy went to Alton, where later he was slain by fanatical opponents of his abolitionism, who unwittingly wrote his name high on the list of the martyrs to freedom. St. Louis had its first daily mail September 20, 1836, and on the same day the Missouri Republican commenced the publication of a regular daily edition. In 1837 Daniel Webster was banqueted, and it was estimated that there were more guests at the banquet than there were inhabitants of the city when Lafayette was fêted twelve years before.