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| St Louis Levee courtesy free clip art |
In the mid 1700s two brothers were contesting for the leadership of the family. By rights Andre should be the leader of the clan but he had been sickly during the early part of his life.
The father’s rejection of
Andre due to his condition caused him to gravitate toward Alard to be the
leader of the family.
Andre had met with the
approval of the numerous siblings but in his mid teens Alard blossomed into a
strong personality of his own. He became
strong and was a fighter without fear.
Everyone knew that this
situation would eventually split the clan into two vying groups upon the demise
of the father.
To further add pressure on
the two young men they both wanted to marry the same girl. Eventually Alard won out and Andre moved to
one of the small castles belonging to the family.
The marriage of Alard was not
the greatest issue for his wife died in child birth a year later but the
support of the father for Alard was something Andre couldn’t overcome.
Both men took wives; for
Alard it was the second one and their families grew very large due to both
having several mistresses.
At the same time there were
battles fought among the groups whose loyalties were to one or the other of the
brothers. Because of so many of the
family members dying in combat the families began to spread throughout Europe
but maintained their identities and loyalties to as far as the twentieth
cousins.
Even at that level there were
duels fought oft times over some perceived wrong doing, usually over money or
women.
Finally in order to save the
“La Famille” they at the end of the century began to cross the Atlantic to the
new world in what was to become Louisiana and settled upriver to the St. Louis
area.
It was impossible to maintain
the same old world culture with the exception of family loyalty and that was
the saving grace for the “La Famille.”
One of the reasons for
settling in St. Louis was it was primarily a French settlement being first
settled by a Frenchman Pierre Laclede Liguest.
He wrote these words; PIERRE
LACLEDE 1764, "I HAVE FOUND A
SITUATION WHERE I AM GOING TO FORM A SETTLEMENT WHICH MIGHT BECOME, HEREAFTER,
ONE OF THE FINEST CITIES IN AMERICA --SO MANY ADVANTAGES ARE EMBRACED IN ITS
SITE, BY ITS LOCALITY AND CENTRAL POSITION, FOR FORMING SETTLEMENTS . "
The city was named after;
Louis IX commonly known as Saint Louis, King of
France.
He is the only canonized king
of France; consequently, there are many places named after him, most notably
St. Louis, Missouri .
The offspring of Andre were
the first to make the journey across the big sea and first settled in New
Orleans and then some migrated to St. Louis which was still in its infancy.
As they became rooted in the
area most thought they were Gypsies due to their trading skills. They had a way of making deals with people
that the people didn’t want to make, and it left them wondering why they did
it.
The children of Andre
consisted of three boys and two girls with his legitimate wife and several more
with his mistresses. His wife left off
bearing after the last child which was a boy.
There wasn’t much difference in the ages due to the fact she had one child each year for the first five years of their coming together.
It was somewhere in the 1790s
when they arrived in New Orleans where they spent a year buying and selling
with some of them buying homes and settling there.
The eldest boy, Jean in his
mid teens journeyed up the river beyond where St. Louis had begun.
Due to a couple of skirmishes
with the Indians he returned to St. Louis and found settlers were beginning to inhabit
on the west bank of the river.
He remained during the winter
and discovered several families who were not fit for this rugged existence.
They were willing to sell,
and Jean purchased five plots of choice land from them as they headed down
stream to one of the more established cities where the living was easier.
To be Continued
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