Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/119

 HISTORY OP SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 59 low the ferry and landing. From this point, where the rock forms a landing, for seven miles down the river, was an extensive tract of alluvial bottom about three miles in width. On this rich alluvial the French of Ste. Genevieve and New Bourbon made one of the largest "common fields" to be found along the Upper Mississippi. It contained within tlie common enclosure from three thousand to four thousand acres. The re- peated inundations of high water, and es- pecially the great flood of 1784, drove the in- habitants to the high ground in the rear, where they built the old residences of the new town, or the existing Ste. Genevieve. Each successive flood tore away the rich bottom along the river, until that of 1844 about "used up" the great common field of the vil- lage. No passenger in passing up or down the great expansive bend of the river would hardly realize that the largest steamers now float in a channel that is more than two miles from the Mississippi river as it ran in 1780.* When Flagg visited the Ste. Genevieve dis- trict in 1836, he says that the town then con- tained about eight hundred inhabitants though its population was once said to have exceeded two thousand. Among the persons whom he met at that time was Jean Baptiste Valle who was one of the chief proprietors of jMine La Motte, and though at that time more than ninety years of age, was almost as active as when he was fifty. Flagg gave this description of Ste. Genevieve at that time : ' ' Ste. Genevieve is situated about one mile from the Mississippi, upon a broad allu- vial plain lying between branches of a small stream called the Gabourie; beyond the first botton rises a second stepped and behind this is a third attaining an elevation of more than one hundred feet from the water edge. Upon this elevation was erected some twenty years since a handsome structure of stone com- manding a noble prospect of the river, the broad American bottom on the opposite side and the bluffs beyond Kaskaskia. It was in- tended for a literary structure but owing to unfavorable reports with regard to the health of its situation, the design was abandoned and the structure was never completed, is now in a state of ruins and enjoys the reputation, however, of being haunted, in very sooth its aspect viewed from the river at twilight, with its broken windows out- lined against the western sky is wild enough to wai'rant such an idea or any other. The court house and Catholic chapel constitute the public buildings. To the south of the village and looking upon the river is situated the common field originally comprising two thousand arpents, but it is now much less in extent and is yearly diminishing from the action of the current upon the alluvial banks. These common fields were granted by the Spanish government as well as the French to every village started under their domination. A single enclosure at the expense of the villagers, was erected and kept in re- pair; the lot of every individual was separ- ated from his neighbors by double furrow. Near this field the village was formerly lo- cated but in the inundation of 1785, called by the habitants, L'annee des grandes eaux, when so much of the bank was washed away that the settlers were forced to secure a more elevated site. The Mississippi was at this time swelled thirty feet above the highest water mark before known and the town of Kaskaskia and the whole American bottom was inundated."! Flagg says that at the time he visited, in 1836, the immense eaves of pure white sand, t Flagg 's ' ' Far West, ' ' p. 95.
 * "Life of Peck," p. 78.