Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/115

 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 55 the territory dealt with a firm hand with these matters and so we find that Barou Carondelet while in command in St. Louis organized the inhabitants of the various posts throughout his territory into companies of militia for the purpose of resisting and chas- tising the Indians. One of these companies was organized at Ste. Genevieve and we find records of its actual participation in the In- dian troubles. On one occasion induced by a particularly flagrant outrage committed near New Madrid, all the companies of Southeast Missouri assembled for the pur- pose of inflicting punishment on the authors of the outrage and we find the little army composed of companies from St. Louis, Ste. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau and New Madrid assembling at Cape Girardeau and making its way to the south where the nuirderers were apprehended and summarily dealt with. Life in Ste. Genevieve in these early years was not very diflierent from pioneer life in other parts of the country. It was at first a typical French village. Some of the inhabit- ants were members of the old French fam- ilies, but the greater part of them were of the peasant class. They were so shut off from the world, in the midst of a vast continent their nearest neighbors being sixty-five miles away at the little village of St. Louis, that they were dependent, almost entirely, upon themselves. News reached them from Europe only after the long voyage across the Atlan- tic and the almost equally as long and tedi- ous voyage up the Mississippi, and so cut off from the world in an isolation difficult for us to comprehend, there developed the characteristic life of the frontier. The people were happy and industrious. They were re- ligious by nature and provided liberally for the church. Their priests were held in hi"l' esteem and religion entered into all the af- fairs of their daily lives. They lived the free open life of a new country. They tilled the soil or voyaged on the river, they hunted or trapped in the great woods, or traded with the Indians, and somehow from it all they managed not only to live in considerable comfort, but to accumulate property. We find that Lambert La Fleur, who died in 1771, left an estate of about $14,000.00, all of which had been accumulated while a resi- dent in Ste. Genevieve. But their industries and even their religion did not form all, or perhaps even the greatest part, of the life of the people of Ste. Genevieve. Being French they were fond of pleasure and amusement and they found both, even in the midst of the life in a frontier town. Their games, their social meetings, their dancing, their jests amused some of the courtly travelers who visited them direct from the King's court at Paris. They, no doubt, found all these things crude and even disagreeable to cultivated aiid refined tastes. Some of these travelers who were received by Ste. Genevieve with open- hearted hospitality were rude enough to for- get the duties of a guest and to write of their entertainment in a most sarcastic and cutting way. In spite of this, however, the people of the town found in their simple amusement and pleasure that relaxation from toil and care which is necessary to a healthy and sane life. The first legal proceedings under Com- mandant Rocheblave were had on the 19th of May, 1766, it was the drawing up of a marriage contract between Pierre Roy and Jeanette Lalond. After that there was a rec- ord of the sale of land, the first sale of land was made by Pierre Aritfone to Henri Car- pentier. another land sale was by Joseph Le- Don to Le Febre du Couquette. In the same vear there is a record of tlie sale of salt