Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/167

 HISTORY OP SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 107 the people have been diseoiu-aged l)y the earthquakes which, besides the memorable one of 1811, are very frequent experiences, two or three oscillations being sometimes felt in a da.y. The United States in order to com- jiensate those who suffered in their property by the catastrophe granted to the settlers an equivalent of land in other parts of the ter- ritory."* Besides those whom we have seen lived in the town of New Madrid itself and immedi- ately about it, there were other settlements within the present territory of New Madrid county ; some of these were made on Lake St. Ann, along the St. Johns Bayou, at Lake St. ]Mary and on Bayou St. Thomas. Some of the early settlers at these places were : Benja- min Meyers, Hardy Rawls, Lewis Van Den- benden and Joseph Story. These men opened up farms at the places mentioned and some of them erected mills and others were engaged principally in hunting and trapping. The district of New Madrid, as we have seen, included not only New Madrid county. as it now exists, but also Pemiscot county, IMississippi county, Scott county and even the counties lying further west. During this period which we are studying settlements were made within the district in all the coun- ties mentioned except those l.ying west of St. Francois river. The first settlement in Pemiscot county was made at Little Prairie, a short distance be- low the pi-esent town of Caruthersville. The settlement was made in 1794 by Francois Le Sieur, who came to Little Prairie from New Madrid where he had formerly lived and on receiving the grant of land laid out about two liundred arpents into a town divided into lots each containing an arpent. Here a fort was also constructed called Fort St. Fer- nando. Among tlic early residents of the town and country in the immediate vicinity were : Francois Le Sieur, Jean Baptiste Bar- saloux, George and John Ruddell, Joseph Payne, Lewis St. Aubin, Charles Guibeanlt, / Charles Loignon, Francis Langlois and Peter Noblesse. The site of Little Prairie was well chosen it being situated at a place where the great ridge, of which w'e have previously spoken, touches the river, and the surround- ing country W'as rich in soil, timber and game. Tiiere was considerable trade w'ith the In- dians; and the town, because of these ad- vantages, prospered. The population was seventy-eight in 1799 and in 1803 it num- bered one hundred and three. It continued to grow until the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 by which it was almost destroyed. This earthquake seems to have had its center about Little Prairie and the shocks were probably more violent here than anywhere else. The greater part of the population moved away at the time of the earthquake so that the vil- lage was practically deserted, the only con- spicuous settler who remained in the vicinity was ('olonel John Hardeman Walker. In 1808 Cuming visited Little Prairie of which he gives the following account: "^Ye landed at the tow'n of Little Prairie on the right containing twenty-foiir little log cabins scattered on a fine pleasant plain. Inhabi- tants chiefly being French Creoles from Can- ada and Illinois, we were informed that there were several Anglo-American farmers all around in a circle of ten miles. We stopped at a tavern and stoi'e kept by European- Frenchmen, where we got some necessaries, everything is excessively dear here as in New Madrid, butter a quarter of a dollar per
 * "Niittall Journal." p. 77.