250 Years Ago ... Celebrating the Founding of St. Louis at the Sheldon Art Galleries

On Friday night I attended the opening of a new exhibition at The Sheldon Art Galleries called Imagining the Founding of St. Louis.  This is part of the 250th birthday celebration which kicks off this month.

Of course there were no artists who traveled with Auguste Chouteau to the location of what would become St. Louis, hence the word Imagining in the title.  This exhibition consists of paintings, drawings, sculpture and artifacts depicting either the founding of St. Louis or the people (or groups of people) involved.

Some of the most interesting items in the exhibition are artifacts of the native Americans who lived in the area at the time:  Osage, Missouri and Illini tribes.  I was surprised by the items that came from the collection of the St. Louis Science Center.  I had no idea that the Science Center had these types of artifacts in their collection. Some of the artifacts were large. There was a shield belonging to Chief Black Dog of the Osage. 

One of the highlights of the exhibition (at least, for me) was an original page from Auguste Chouteau's handwritten memoir, lent by the St. Louis Mercantile Library.  This original document will only be exhibited during the first month of the exhibit because it is tremendously fragile.  But to see Auguste Chouteau's actual handwriting was thrilling.   A woman standing next to me seemed as awed as I was.   "It's in French?" she asked.   Yes. 

I also enjoyed seeing some of the rare books and maps that were displayed.  One of my favorite items was an early Christmas card from one of the Chouteau descendents that was sent in the 1800's that contained a depiction of the founding.

There are also a number of fairly large depictions that imagine the actual moment when Auguste Chouteau arrived to begin the building of the settlement.   The curator has helpfully included descriptions of where these depictions are and are not accurate.   They are very helpful in imagining The Moment as the exhibition calls it.  

The exhibition runs until August 23, 2014.   I recommend it.  But if you want to see the page from the Chouteau manuscript you need to get there this month.   There will be an Osage blessing of the exhibit on the actual anniversary date,  next Saturday, February 15, at 1:45 p.m.  And on that date, in honor of the actual birthday, the galleries will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.


*Part of my continuing blog series leading up to the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis in February 2014.  

250 Years Ago ... Let's Meet Auguste Chouteau*

As January turned into February in the little village of Nouvelle Chartres, Laclede and his companion, Auguste Chouteau, no doubt were in the midst of planning for the building of Maxent & Laclede's new trading post and settlement at the location they had chosen a couple of months previously.  In fact, later in February Laclede would send Chouteau to start the building process while Laclede remained at Nouvelle Chartres, no doubt trading. 

Who was this young man, Auguste Chouteau? 

In 1764, Chouteau was no more than fourteen years old, which seems a young age to be entrusted with the tasks that Laclede entrusted him with. But in the 1700's, boys of 14 were eligible to serve in the militia and it was not unusual for them to leave home and become apprenticed to a master craftsman or, if they were literate and knew their numbers, be hired as a clerk to a merchant. 

Chouteau was the son of Rene Auguste Chouteau, who had emigrated to New Orleans some time prior to September 20, 1748 when he married 15 year old Marie Therese Bourgeois. She was born in New Orleans on January 14, 1733 to Nicolas Charles Bourgeois and Marie Joseph Tarare. Rene Auguste Chouteau kept an inn and tavern in New Orleans. His son, Auguste Chouteau was probably born the year following the marriage.  

By 1752 the elder Chouteau had abandoned his wife and baby son and returned to France. There was a family tradition that Chouteau was abusive to Marie Therese.  But whether he was physically abusive, he abandoned a very young woman and small child leaving her to fend for herself.  By 1763, Marie Therese was calling herself Veuve (Widow) Chouteau, more an indication that no one expected Chouteau to return to New Orleans rather than any real knowledge as to whether he was alive or not. In fact, Chouteau was not dead.  In 1767 he returned to New Orleans, only to find that his wife and son had moved to the new settlement of St. Louis with Pierre Laclede. 

Within a few years after the elder Chouteau abandoned her, Marie Therese met Pierre Laclede.   She was still legally married to the missing Chouteau, and in any event divorce was not allowed in French Catholic territories, so they could never marry.  But Laclede and Madame Chouteau (as she was always known) seemed to be as committed to each other as any married couple and they had four children together:  Jean Pierre (1758), Marie Pelagie (1760), Marie Louise (1762) and Victoire, born March 3, 1764 when Laclede was in the Illinois country.  As Shirley Christian says in her book Before Lewis and Clark, Laclede and Marie Therese "followed a policy of never admit and never explain."  Thus, even though everyone knew that Chouteau had been missing for years, Marie Therese had all of her children baptised as the legitimate children of Rene Auguste Chouteau and so none of Laclede's children bore his name.  (This would cause confusion for historians and geneologists in the future). 

Laclede became, in fact if not by law, the step-father of Auguste Chouteau and it seems that they had a close relationship.  Laclede  was a well educated man and he saw that Auguste Chouteau became educated.  When young Auguste Chouteau was old enough, Laclede employed him as his clerk.  He took Chouteau with him on the 700 mile journey up the Mississippi to found St. Louis, leaving behind (temporarily) the pregnant Marie Therese and the other three children.  Eventually Laclede would send Chouteau and a group of men up the river to begin the process of building the new St. Louis.

In his old age, Auguste Chouteau would write his memoirs in which he is unfailingly complimentary of Laclede.  He called him "a man of great merit, capable from his experience, of conducting with skill and prudence the interests of the company."  It was Chouteau himself, however, who would  become the patriarch of St. Louis, its leading citizen and a very rich man.  

*Part of my continuing blog series leading up to the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis in February 2014. 

250 Years Ago ... Laclede and Chouteau Scope out Locations for St. Louis*

By this time, in 1763, Laclede and Chouteau were settled into their new residence at Nouvelle Chartres. It makes sense that they would have begun their trading, including obtaining introductions by Commander De Neyon to the various Indian tribes in the area.

But Laclede had no intention of investing a great deal of time into business in Nouvelle Chartres, he was impatient to choose a location for his new trading post at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. At some point in December, Laclede set out on an exploratory trip up the river to view the Western Bank of the Mississippi River below the Missouri and choose a location for his post.

Years later, his companion, Auguste Chouteau, would remember this trip:

After all the business of trade was done, he occupied himself with the means of forming an establishment suitable for his commerce, Ste. Genevieve not suiting him, because of its distance from the Missouri, and its insalubrious situation. These reasons decided him to seek a more advantageous site. In consequence, he set out from the Fort de Chartres in the month of December, took with him a young man in his confidence, and examined all the ground from the Fort de Chartres to the Missouri. He was delighted to see the situation [where St. Louis at present stands]; he did not hesitate a moment to form there the establishment that he proposed. Besides the beauty of the site, he found there all the advantages that one could desire to found a settlement which might become very considerable hereafter. After having examined all thoroughly, he fixed upon the place where he wished to form his settlement, marked with his own trees, and said to Chouteau, "You will come here as soon as navigation opens, and will cause this place to be cleared, in order to form our settlement after the plan that I shall give you." We set out immediately afterwards, to return to Fort de Chartres where he said, with enthusiasm, to Monsieur De Neyon, and to his officers, that he had found a situation where he was going to form a settlement, which might become, hereafter, one of the finest cities of America -- so many advantages were embraced in this site, by its locality and its central position, for forming settlement.

 It is doubtful that Laclede actually said that last part, about founding a city that would become one of the finest cities of America.  Chouteau was remembering this years later, after the Louisiana Purchase by the United States, and that "memory" seems likely to be a bit of political correctness.  It is more likely that Laclede was enthusiastic about the opportunity for commerce up the Missouri River and then down to New Orleans. 

No one knows exactly when this reconnaissance trip took place, but today there was a commemoration ceremony at the Arch followed by a 1763 era Christmas dance at the Old Courthouse.  It was as good a day as any to celebrate that first landing.

*Part of my continuing blog series leading up to the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis in February 2014.