Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/9



This territory of Southeast Missouri was first visited by De Soto about the year 1540. The next white men who saw it were the adventurous voyagers from Canada who reached the Mississippi from the north and passed down toward its mouth. Marquette and Joliet and La Salle all visited this section, or at least saw it as their canoes floated down the great stream. No attention however was paid to the district until Renault, the agent of the Company of the West came with his miners and four hundred slaves to Fort Chartres with instructions to explore the country for the precious metals. This was about 1720. In his search for gold and silver he penetrated to what is now the county of Ste. Genevieve, finding no traces of gold or silver, but finding abundant deposits of lead ore. These desposits he began to work. Mine a Breton was opened, Old Mine located. La Motte was discovered, and in other places attempts were made to work the rich deposits of lead ore, destined long afterward to be famous as among the greatest and richest deposits of lead in the world. These settlements for the purpose of mining naturally attracted other people, and about the year 1732 there was formed, in the great common field three miles south of the present site of Ste. Genevieve, the first permanent settlement within the limits of the state and one of the half dozen oldest towns in the Mississippi valley. This settlement known as "le vieux village de Ste. Genevieve," was also called "Misere" because of the troubles its inhabitants experienced with floods of the river.

Ste. Genevieve proved to be only the first of a number of settlements within this territory of Missouri. The magnificent plans of La Salle, long neglected by the French, at last began to be appreciated. France was arming herself for the great struggle impending with the English and preparing to shut them up in the territory occupied by them along the Atlantic coast. And so not alone along the Ohio and near the Alleghany mountains, but also along the course of the great river itself, settlements were planned, forts built, the favor of the Indians courted, in order to hold the country, if possible, against the inevitable attempt at expansion on the part of the English. Besides this organized attempt to settle and hold the country for political reasons, the country itself invited settlers. Missouri, at that time as always, was among the most attractive parts of the great continent. Here were all the things to attract settlers, and accordingly, at St. Charles, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, and New Madrid settlements were planted, and the wilderness began to be brought under the dominion of the white man. Forests were cleared away, mines were opened, towns laid out, commerce began to stir, grain was grown, mills built, religion was not forgotten and the cross was iii