Randolph County, Missouri - Chapter 3: Early Explorations and Settlements, 1920

Chapter 3: Early Explorations and Settlements

FIRST- ENGLISH COLONY - SETTLEMENT OF MANHATTAN - THE MAYFLOWER - PLYMOUTH COLONY - LORD BALTIMORE - RELIGION - PBNN - LAWS - CHAMPLAIN - THE JESUITS - FRENCH AND ENGLISH ENMITY - FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS - FALL OF QUEBEC - TREATY OF PARIS - LOUISIANA TERRITORYDANIEL BOONE.

The first English colony that endured was sent out by the London Company on New Year's Day, 1607. It consisted of 105 persons, all men. They sailed up a river of Virginia which they named the James river about the middle of May and settled at Jamestown. Fgi^tunately there was a young man of decided ability among these colonists. This was Captain John Smith. His energy and courage saved the settlers from starvation and in the end perpetuated the settlement. The start was discouraging, but the colony lived to lay the foundation of a prosperous, powerful and independent state.

In 1609, Captain Henry Hudson, an Englishman then in the employ of Holland, crossed the ocean and entered what is now New York Bay and was the first Englishman who sailed up the river that today bears his name.

In 1626, the Dutch West India Company sent out a colony and landed on Manhattan Island. The governor bought from the Indians the entire island and established a settlement thereon. Later the English King, Charles II, claimed the whole country on the ground that the Cabots had discovered the coast and planted the English flag on it in 1497. Suddenly one day in 1664 a British fleet appeared off New Amsterdam, as the settlement was called, and demanded its surrender, promising at the same time full protection of life and liberty, freedom of trade, religious liberty and a representative government. In consequence the Dutch flag was hauled down, the English colors were run up, and the name changed to New York.

On a morning late in November, 1620, the Mayflower, bearing the Pilgrim fathers, 102 in number, all told, sighted Cape Cod, and cast anchor m what is now Province Harbor. While the Mayflower was at anchor Captain Myles Standish, who was with them, but not of them, with a boat load of men went out to explore. A few days, later the Mayflower sailed into Plymouth Rock Harbor, and the pilgrims went ashore on the mainland of the now state of Massachusetts. They immediately erected cabins and went into winter quarters, but such was the hardships they had to bear that by spring just one-half of the colony were in their graves. But when the Mayflower went back, not one of the Pilgrims returned ; they had come to stay.

The colony increased but slowly. Even at the end of ten years there were only 300 people in Plymouth. Massachusetts Colony, founded in 1630, overshadowed and finally absorbed it.

In 1628, John Endicott assisted in planting a colony at Salem, Massachusetts. Endicott was a Puritan and his purpose was to establish a place of refuge for the oppressed people of his own faith, and of his own faith only. But great immigration to New England began in 1630 when John Winthrop, a wealthy English Puritan decided to emigrate.

He came with a fleet of eleven vessels, bringing a colony of over seven hundred persons, with horses, cattle, and all things necessary for establishing a thriving settlement. John Winthrop was appointed Governor, and thus became the first sole and resident Governor. From the outset all public matters were settled in town meetings. When the colony grew too large, the towns sent representatives. Church members only were allowed to vote.

In 1635 provision was made for the establishment of a public school in Boston. In the course of a few years free instruction was provided for every white child in Massachusetts. This was the beginning of the common school system of the United States. In 1636, money was voted by the General Court to found a college. Two years later the Rev. John Harvard left his library and half of his estate of about 750 pounds to the college. Such was the origin of Harvard University, the first English college in America.

During the years 1634-1635 the rich lands of the valley of the Connecticut attracted settlers from Massachusetts, and several towns were founded. In 1639 the people of these several towns met at Hartford and drew up the first constitution, or form of government "known in history."

This compact made no mention either of the King of England or of the English company which held a royal grant of the Connecticut lands. It was in reality the constitution of a republic.

One reason why the Connecticut emigrants had left Massachusetts was that they did not believe in the principle of limiting the right of voting to church members. The Hartford constitution imposed no such restriction. Every citizen was politically equal with every other, and was at liberty to take part in making the laws.

In the year 1634 a company of Catholic pilgrims came to America that they, too, might build up a state where they could worship God without molestation. This colony consisted of about 300 persons led by Governor Leonard Calvert, a younger brother of the second Lord Baltimore, landed on the northern bank of the Potomac near its mouth and founded the town of St. Marys. Prior to this time Charles I had granted to Lord Baltimore that part of northern Virginia, north of the Potomac river, and named it Maryland in honor of his queen, who was herself a Catholic. A part of these colonists were gentlemen of wealth and standing and probably Catholics. The rest of the emigrants were laborers and seem to have been chiefly Protestants.

Father White, a priest who accompanied the expedition, had no sooner landed than he got permission from an Indian chief to convert his wigwam into a chapel. This hut was the first English Catholic church in America. Virginia would not have permitted that church to stand. New England would not. It was only in the wilderness of Maryland, in that mixed population of Catholics and Protestants that it was safe.

From the beginning all the colonists took part in making the laws, and in a few years Lord Baltimore granted them the power of originating those laws. In religion, absolute freedom of worship was given to all Christians, but to Christians only. No other colony in this country the nenjoyed such liberty, and it was wholly unknown in Europe.

In 1636 Roger Williams, an exiled minister, from Massachusetts with others established a colony at Providence, Rhode Island. Other colonists soon followed and founded Portsmouth and Newport. From the beginning entire freedom of conscience was given to every settler, "soul liberty" Williams called it. Maryland had granted such liberty to all Christians, but the colony of Providence did not limit it, not Protestants and Catholics only, but Jews and unbelievers were protected. Roger Williams laid down and put into actual practice what we may call the "American principle," that is, that government has nothing to do with the control of religious belief. This idea so new, strange and startling at the time, steadily grew and spread until in time it became a part of the constitution of the United States, where it now appears in the language following:

The first permanent settlement in New -Hampshire was about 1627, four years later,- in 1631, Portsmouth was settled. The first permanent settlement on the mainland of Maine was effected in 1625. Saco and Biddeford were founded in 1630, and Portland in 1632.

In 1668 Charles II of England granted an immense tract of land south of Virginia to a company composed of Lord Clarendon and seven associates. This territory was called CaroHna. On the coast it embraced the entire region now included in the states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and a part of Florida; westward it extended to the Pacific.

At the time this grant was made there were a few farmers in the northern part who had moved in from Virginia. These settlers were formed into a colony in 1663 called Albemarle. North and South Carolina was settled by emigrants from Virginia, by English and also by Huguenots, or French Protestants who came to escape persecution to which they were subject in their native land. General Marion, a descendent from a Huguenot family, a revolutionary patriot, won renown in the American cause.

The first emigrants sent over by Penn arrived in 1681. The next year (1682) Penn himself came over, together with a hundred English Quakers, and took formal possession of his vast estate. The same year he founded Philadelphia.

"That constitution had a two-fold foundation, liberty of the people to make their own laws, and obedience to the laws they had made;" for, said Penn, "Liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery."

By the great law it was provided, first: That all Colonists should be protected in their worship of God, but that no one should be compelled to support or attend any form of worship against his will.

Second: That all resident taxpayers should have the right to vote and that every member of any Christian church might hold office, and become a member of the legislative assembly.

Fourth: That the death penalty should be inflicted for two crimes only, murder and treason, and for the first time in the history of the world, it was further provided, that every prison should be made a workshop and a place of reformation. Penn's next act was a treaty with the Indians.

Penn met the Indians under the branches of a wide spreading elm in the outskirts of Philadelphia. There solemn promises of mutual friendship were made, but no oaths were taken. Each trusted the other's word. That treaty was never broken, and for sixty years, as long as the Quakers held control, the people of Pennsylvania lived in peace with the Indians. Voltaire, the French historian, said that it was "the only treaty which was never sworn to and never broken."

In 1732 General James Oglethorp, a member of the English Parliament, obtained a charter for settling the country between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers. Oglethorp was a man of high character and ability. His prime object in establishing t^is colony was benevolent.

Imprisonment for debt obtained in England and thousands of honest hard working men, who through sickness or misfortune had contracted some debt, however trifling, that he was unable to pay, had been cast into prison, where many of them remained for years. These men were in prison, yet they had committed no crime. Oklethorp's scheme was to select the most deserving, discharge their debts, to furnish them and their famihes transportation to America and thus give them a chance to begin life anew.

The English government and private individuals contributed money and the first emigrants were sent out. This first settlement was made on the Savannah river and the town named Savannah. Later, German Protestants, persecuted in their own country, and sturdy Scots for the Highlands made settlements in Georgia. With the settlement in Georgia effected, the entire Atlantic coast from New Brunsv/ick to Florida was held by the EngHsh colonist.

In the summer of 1608, Champlain, a French explorer, sailed up the St. Lawrence to Quebec and there established the first French colony planted in North America. Other settlements followed. In New Brunswick at Louisberg on the island of Cape Breton, at Montreal, Kingston and other places.

The French, not the English, were the explorers of the West. The Jesuit Missionaries set out to convert the Indians, and in their zeal for this work, they braved all danger, and every hardship. They made friends of the Indians and sought to do them good. The fur traders, seeking gain, followed on the heels of the missionaries, oftimes they came with him. Next came the fort builders, and after the friendship of the Indians had been secured all came together.

The Jesuits reached the western shore of Lake Michigan in 1669 at Green Bay. There they established a mission. Prior thereto missions had been established at Sault St. Marie and Mackinaw. In 1673, Joliet, a French explorer and fur trader, and Father Marquette set out from Mackinaw to find a great river which the Indians told them was west of Lake Michigan. Making their way to Green Bay, in birch bark canoes they paddled up Fox river to Portage. They carried their canoes across, less than two miles, and started down the Wisconsin river, and on a June day they floated out of the mouth of the Wisconsin onto the waters of the Mississippi. Down this stream they descended past the mouths of the Missouri and the Ohio rivers and south to the Arkansas. Here they turned back and laboriously paddled their way back to, and up the Illinois river, and thence across Lake Michigan.

quette. He sailed to Mackinaw, and from thence he and his companions went in canoes to the St. Joseph river, near the southeastern corner of Lake Michigan. From thence they crossed over to the headwaters of the Kankakee river, and down this stream to the Illinois river. Continuing their descent to a point where Peoria now stands. They built a fort. Leaving a small garrison, La Salle, although it was winter, returned to Canada on foot for supplies. While he was gone. Father Hennepin, a priest in his expedition, set out from this fort to explore. After many adventures he finally reached the rapids of the Mississippi, where Minneapolis now stands, which he named the Falls of St. Anthony.

The next year La Salle returned to Illinois, landing where Chicago now stands, he crossed over to the Illinois and going down the river, entered the Mississippi in February, 1782. The weather was bitter cold and the river full of floating ice; La Salle did not hesitate, but started with his company on his voyage. Nine weeks later he reached the Gulf of Mexico. There he set up a wooden cross on which he fastened a metal plate bearing the arms of France, and took possession of the entire territory watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries as French territory. He gave the name of Louisiana to this vast territory, which included all the valley of the Mississippi and extended from the Alleghenys in the East to the Rockies in the West. In 1718 a French colony was established at Mobile, on the Gulf of Mexico, and in 1718 New Orleans was founded by the French.

We have seen that by reason of the exploration of the Cabots that England claimed all of the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to Floriaa and the territory westward to the Pacific ocean Several of the early grants made by the English sovereigns granted all this terrtiory westward to the Pacific.

We have also seen that French explorers. La Salle and others, laid claim not only to Canada, but to the Valley of the Mississippi as well, and France stood ready to make good these claims by force of arms.

In Europe the French and English had been long at enmity, and their rival claims to territory in America did not make them better friends, and eventually led to conflicts, four in number, known in the histories of the colonists as the "French and Indian Wars."

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The Algonquins, comprised of kindred tribes in southern Canada, Michigan and extending west as far as eastern Minnesota, together with other tribes west of the Alleghanies, were fast friends and allies of the French. The first war began in 1689 and lasted eight years.

Frontenac, the French governor, sent a force of French and Indians to attack the English colonies along the Hudson. They secretly marched from Montreal in mid-winter, and at midnight fell upon the village of Schenectady, New York, burned it and massacred most of the inhabitants.

Thus was the war begun, and thus was it, and the next two wars, in the main, prosecuted. The second war began in 1702 and lasted until 1713.

After an interval of thirty years, the third one of these wars began in 1744, and ended in 1748. Like the preceding wars it led to a series of forays, destruction of outlying towns, pillage and massacre, and one, or more, pretentious military attempts by the English colonists, that in the end obtained no lasting results.

By this time the French had got possession of the two chief rivers of the country, the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. To clinch their hold, they had built fort after fort until they had a line of sixty, extending from Quebec to Lake Michigan, and thence down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers to the gulf. The French and the English both claimed the-valley of the Ohio river.

Before 1749, no English settlements had been made west of the Alleghanies. In the year 1749 the kind of England granted to the Ohio Company, 600,000 acres of land in the Ohio Valley, situated in southwest Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The French determined to stop this movement and began to erect a new line of forts extending from Erie on Lake Erie southward to the juncture of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers, where the Ohio river is formed.

These movements speedily brought about results, namely the fourth and last French and Indian war. The struggle began in 1754 and was finally terminated, in fact, by a bloody battle fought under the walls of Quebec in the autumn of 1758, Montcalm, noble and chivalorous commanded the French. General Wolf, gifted and gallant, led the English. The English won and Quebec surrendered. Both Montcalm, aged 40, and Wolf, age 34, fell in this battle; thus two loyal and intrepid spirits, foes in life, together passed into the land of perpetual peace.

The fall of Quebec was a turning point in the history of North America. On the night that Wolf and his army climbed the rocky heights behind Quebec, to the plains of Abraham, the whole of the country west to the Mississippi, and the valley of that river to New Orleans and the gulf belonged to France. When the sun went down the next day, the sun of France had already set in the new world. Her hold on America was lost, gone forever. But this seven year war did not come to an end until Spain had taken up arms in aid of France. Then, in 1762, England conquered Cuba and the Philippine Islands. When peace was made at Paris, in 1763, England gave all these islands back to Spain and took Florida in exchange. France to indemnify Spain for the loss of Florida, ceded to Spain the city of New Orleans and the territory of Louisiana.

By the treaty of Paris, 1763, all of the territory, including Florida, New Orleans and westward to the Mississippi, all of Canada west to the Pacific and north to the frozen ocean, except Alaska became English territory. The territory of Louisiana was ceded to Spain in 1762.

Less than seventeen years after the capture of Quebec, the American revolution began and seven years later the thirteen colonies had gained their independence. Shortly thereafter the constitution was framed and adopted, the thirteen colonies became states of the Union, and the United States of America appeared upon the map, and took their place among the nations of the earth.

The first permanent settlements made by the French were situated along the eastern bank of Mississippi, five in number, in the state of Illinois, extending from near the mouth of the Illinois to the Kaskaskia river. They were Kaskaskia, settled in 1682, View Rocher, Fort Charters, Phillippi and Kahoki. The white population of these five posts did not exceed eight hundred.

From these points exploring parties were sent forth, and one such party from Kaskakia having crossed the Mississippi in search of the precious metals, found lead instead. This discovery led to t?ie establishment of the first white settlement on the west bank of said river, in 1684, at St. Geniveve, in the state of Missouri.

St. Louis was founded by Pierre Laclede Siguest, in the year of 1764 ; he was a native of France, and a member of a trading company to which a royal charter had granted an exclusive trade with Indians as far north as the St. Peters river. This colony grew rapidly by accessions from Kaskakia and other towns on the east side of the river and its trade correspondingly increased. The next settlement was made at Potosi, in Washington county, by Francis Breton, who discovered the mine nearby.

Five years after St. Louis was founded, Blanchette, a Frenchman, established a settlement and built a fort at St. Charles, the first in north Missouri. Soon thereafter the old French village of Portage dis Sioux was located on the Mississippi, near the south of the Illinois river.

In 1781, New Madrid was settled by French Canadians, and thereafter, in 1801 Cote San Dessein, on the Missouri river in Callaway county was settled by the French. This village at that time was considered the outpost.

Prior to the acquisition of Louisiana territory, a number of adventurous spirits from the older states of the Union, attracted by the liberal proffers of land grants made by the Spanish authorities, or by the call of the wild, or by both, had come to Missouri. Among these was Moses Austin of Virginia who in 1795 received a grant of a league of land from the Spanish government, on condition that he would establish a lead mine at Potosi and work it. At this place the first shot^tower and sheetlead manufactory was erected.

Big River Mills, St. Francois County, was settled in 1796, by Andrew Baker, John Alley, Ftancis Stamator and John Andrews, each locating claims. The next year a settlement was effected near Farmington by Rev. Williams Murphy from East Tennessee.

In 1796 settlements were made in Perry County by emigrants from Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Birds Point, opposite Cairo in Mississippi County, was settled in 1800 by John Johnson, who received a land grant from the Spanish authorities. Norfolk and Charleston were settled in 1800 and 1801. Warren County was settled in 1801.

Daniel Boone, a pioneer in Kentucky, secured a grant of land in St. Charles County and located thereon about 1797. He was then an old man, but strong and vigorous, and so remained for many years thereafter, and hunted and trapped up and down the Mississippi river, depending upon his traps and rifle solely for his wants. When Hunt, in his expedition across the continent, early in the year of 1811, touched with his boats at Charlotte, one of the old villages founded by the French, he met with Daniel Boone, who was still leading a hunter's life at the age of 82 years. He had but recently returned from a hunting and trapping expedition and had brought with him about sixty beaver skins, trophies of his skill. He was still erect and strong of limb and his courage unabated. Prior to 1807, Nathan and Daniel M. Boone, sons of Daniel Boone, had joined their father and they were living together, about 25 miles west of St. Charles. Daniel Boone died in 1820 in his ninetysecond year.