Page:Early History St Louis and Missouri.djvu/21

HISTORY OF ST. LOUIS AND MISSOURI. officer to administer an authority without the approbation of his superiors. When he had instituted a government, things assumed a more flattering appearance, and several merchants of considerable wealth became residents of the village and built more commodious habitations. Until their advent the house of Liguest, which had the walls of the first story built of stone, while all the other dwellings had their walls built of flattened logs set with one end about two feet in the ground, and the interstices filled with small stones and mortar.

In 1766 St. Agne de Bellerive, having organized his system of government and procured that now venerable and well known book called Livre Terrien, commenced making grants of land, hoping for a retrocession of the country to France, when the grants would be legalized by a confirmation.

The First Marriage and First Dedication of a Church in St. Louis—The Death and Burial of the Great Ottowa Indian Chieftain Pontiac and his Dear Friend St. Ange de Bellerive; Bath Buried in St. Louis

The first marriage in the new colony was celebrated on the 20th of April, 1766, more than two years after its settlement, Toussaint Hanen and Marie Baugenon being the parties to the contract. The first mortgage was recorded as made on the 29th day of September, 1766, by Pierre Berger to Francis Latour, two merchants engaged in the peltry trade; it does not specify any particular article, but pledges all the goods of the mortgagor as security to the mortgagee for the payment of a specified number of bundles of deer skins at a specified time, but without any stipulated value being mentioned in the