Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/124

 64 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI New Bourbon in Ste. Genevieve county. Other early settlers were William Easum and James and Samuel Campbell, who at some time before 1803, built cabins near the St. Francois and cultivated the land. John Wal- ther came to the county in 1882 as did Chris- topher Anthony, John L. Pettit, Daniel Phil- lips and William and Thomas Crawford. In 1800 the Spanish authorities granted four hundred arpents of land to thirteen in- dividuals, the land lying between Saline creek and the Little St. Francois. On the land so granted a settlement was soon made which was called St. Michael; it is now the town of Frederiektown. The early residents were Peter Chevalier, Paul, Andrew and Baptiste De Guire, four brothers, Avhose name was Caillot, called also Lachance, Ga- briel Nicollo, Pierre Variat and three others whose names are not known. These settlers all came from other settlements in this dis- trict. They engaged in farming and also in lead mining at iline LaMotte which is only a few miles distant. The first settlement in Washington countj' was made at Mine a Breton about 1763. Those who made this settlement were miners interested in working the mine discovered by Breton. Near the same time work M'as be- gun in the mines known as Old Mines and a little settlement of miners sprung up there. Jlost of the settlers at both these places came from Ste. Genevieve, New Bourbon and Kas- kaskia. In 1799 the Spanish government made a grant of a large tract of land to Moses Aus- tin covering a part of Mine a Breton. On his part he was to erect a smelter for the re- duction of lead ores. By 1804 there were about twenty families living in the village on his grant. They mined and farmed but had no grants from the government. They seemed to have been either squatters on gov- ernment land or else tenants of Austin. Aus- tin brought his family to Mine a Breton in June, 1799, and says of the country at that time that the whole number of inhabitants on Renault's fork of Grand river did not ex- ceed sixty-three or sixty-four persons. In 1802 fifteen French families settled at Old Mines and reopened the work there which had been suspended. One year later thirty- one residents of this place received from Gov. Delassus a grant of 400 ai"pents of land each. Other mines were opened in the county about the same time and a shifting and unstable population grew up around each of them. Perhaps the first permanent settlement of persons intending to make the country their home and to engage in agriculture was made near the present town of Caledonia in 1798. In that year Ananias McCoy, Benjamin Crow, and Robert Reed, all from Tennessee, settled in the Bellevue valley about twelve miles south of Potosi. Others followed them and the settlement prospered. These men were farmers and the products of their soil were carried to Ste. Genevieve on horses or in carts. They soon built mills for themselves and became unusually prosperous. Their situation was very good and they enjoyed the advantages of fertile soil, plenty of water poM'er and proximity to the mining region. By 1822 the county had a population of 2,769. The first settler in Jefi'erson county was John Hildebrand, who was of French de- scent and who made a settlement on the Maramec near the farm of Isaac Sul- lens, in 1774. Hildebrand received a grant of a considerable tract of land from the Spanish government which was afterward confirmed bv the United States.