In the far-reaching operations of the French Government upon the continent of America, by which its western empire at one time embraced fully half of what is now the United States and Canada, two streams of colonization flowed inward from the sea. The course of one was along the valleys of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes to the upper Mississippi and its tributaries. That of the other was along the lower Mississippi northward from the Gulf of Mexico. The two streams met at the mouth of the Missouri, where their blended currents were deflected westward toward the unknown regions of the setting sun. Near this place of meeting there arose, more than a decade before the birth of the American Republic, a village which has now become one of the greatest cities in the western world. Here, in the early days, the Canadians from the north and the Creoles from the south, kindred in language and tradition, mingled in common pursuits and enterprises, and for many years bore an important part in the great movement which proceeded onward from this common starting-point.

Among the well-known families identified with this movement was one whose ancestral line represented both the northern and the southern blood, and was a pure type of their united quality. This was the family of Captain Joseph La Barge, the subject of the present sketch. The father of Captain La Barge was a typical representative of the French peasantry of Quebec. His mother was a Creole descendant of both the Spanish and French elements in the settlement of the Mississippi Valley.

On the paternal side the ancestors of Captain La Barge came from Normandy, France. Robert Laberge was a native of ColumbiÈre in the diocese of Bayonne, and was born in 1633. He came to America early in life and settled in the county of Montmorency, below Quebec, where he was married in 1663. He is said to have been the only person of the name who ever emigrated to America. His descendants are now of the most numerous family in the district of Beauharnois, if not in the entire province of Quebec, where it has held important positions both in Church and State. Its ramifications in the United States have likewise become very extensive. The true spelling of the name was Laberge, and this form still prevails in Quebec; but the St. Louis branch of the family has for many years spelled the name in two words, La Barge.

Captain La Barge was of the sixth generation from his Norman ancestors. His father, Joseph Marie La Barge, was born at Assomption, Quebec, July 4, 1787.1 He emigrated to St. Louis about 1808, just as he was arriving of age. He traveled by the usual route, up the Ottawa River and through the intricate system of waterways in northern Ontario which leads to Georgian Bay and to Lake Huron. Thence he went by way of Mackinaw Strait and Lake Michigan to Green Bay, and along the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi, which he descended to St. Louis. He used a single birch-bark canoe all the way, with only eight miles of portaging.

The elder La Barge led a varied career in St. Louis, as did most of the pioneers in those days, when fixed callings were few and men turned their hands to whatever fell in their way. A good deal of information has survived concerning him, and all to his credit. He was evidently a man of good parts, of strict integrity, loyal in his business relations, and a bold lover of the adventurous life which characterized the early history of this new country.2

At the time when the Sac and Fox Indians were giving the government so much trouble, and endangering human life all along the upper Mississippi, La Barge senior was employed in the perilous business of carrying dispatches to Rock Island, having volunteered for this service when others refused to go. He served in the War of 1812, and was present in the battle of the River Raisin, or Frenchtown, January 22, 1813, and was there shot in the hand, losing two fingers. He also received a tomahawk wound on the head, and carried the scar through life. He became naturalized as a result of this service in the army. Although entitled to a pension under the laws of the United States, he never asked for nor received any.

La Barge married in 1813, and some two years afterward acquired a farm at Baden, a small village a few miles north of St. Louis, and now within the limits of that city. His main business here was the manufacture of charcoal, which he hauled to St. Louis for sale. He soon moved to town, where he had gained quite an extensive acquaintance, particularly among the Canadian voyageurs. Here he opened up a boarding-house, which developed into a regular hotel or tavern, with a livery attachment, at that time one of the most important in the city. It was while engaged in this business that he served the English traveler, James Stuart, already referred to.

La Barge senior was, to a considerable extent, identified with the early trapping business in the Far West, and has left his name on geographical features in widely separated localities. There is a La Barge or Battle Creek, a tributary of the Missouri, which took its name from some affair with the Indians in which La Barge bore a part; but the details are apparently lost. The same is true of La Barge Creek, a tributary of Green River in Wyoming, which was named before 1830. La Barge was present in General Ashley’s disastrous fight with the Aricara Indians on the Missouri River in 1823, and was the man who cut the cable of one of the keelboats so that it might drift out of range of the fire of the Indians.3

La Barge senior lived to a good old age, and was sound and healthy to the last. As a remarkable evidence of this, it was long remembered by his acquaintances that he practiced in old age his favorite winter pastime of skating. His death was the result of accident. He had heard that a brother-in-law, Joseph Hortiz, was ill, and he resolved to go to see him. It was a cold wintry day, and Captain La Barge tried to dissuade him, but to no purpose. He slipped on the icy sidewalk at the corner of Olive and Fourth streets, in St. Louis, struck the curb, and received injuries from which he died two days later, January 22, 1860.

Many interesting anecdotes of the elder La Barge have come down to us, some of which are worth relating as illustrating the character of the man in different situations. One of these comes from General Harney, who was long an intimate friend of Captain La Barge. In the later years of General Harney’s life, when physical ailments prevented his leaving the house, he used to send for Captain La Barge, if the latter happened to be derelict in his visits, to come and talk over old times. On one of these occasions, not long before his death, he gave the Captain the following story:

“Your father,” he said, “was the only man who ever scared me. We were ascending the Missouri River on a keelboat laden with troops and supplies, he in charge of the boat, and I, a lieutenant, on duty with the soldiers. In one place the boat had to round a sharp point, where there was an accumulation of driftwood. The current was very strong, and it required the utmost efforts of the men to stem it. When we reached the most difficult place, the Captain stimulated his men by calling out to them (in the French language), ‘Hale fort! Hale fort!’ (‘Pull hard! Pull hard!’). I didn’t understand French, but thought I detected in the Captain’s language something like the military command, ‘Halt.’ As some of the troops were on the line with the voyageurs, and as they might not understand, I thought I could help the Captain by repeating to them his command. This created some confusion, for my men began to slacken while the Captain’s were pulling harder than ever. Again he commanded, ‘Hale fort!’ and again I called to the men to halt. The situation was extremely critical when the Captain thundered a third time, ‘Hale fort!’ in a voice and manner not to be misunderstood. The men all bent to the line and finally extricated the boat from its perilous position. The Captain then came over to where I was standing and told me that if I ever dared interfere again with his management of the boat he would pitch me into the river. I knew he meant what he said, and thereafter confined myself to my military duties.”

One fine morning in the early twenties a man called at the house of Mr. La Barge, who met him at the door and asked him what he wanted. The man said: “I applied to you a short time since for employment, having heard that you were hiring men for the Ashley Expedition.4 I was refused, and I would like to know the reason.”

“Simply because you did not suit,” replied La Barge.

“I am as good a man as you are or any you have employed, and I take the liberty of telling you so,” rejoined the six-footer.

“I want no trouble,” replied La Barge, “and therefore will request you to get out, or I will be compelled to put you out.”

“Just what I want you to undertake,” was the retort. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when La Barge seized a rawhide riding whip and started for the fellow and laid him about the back and shoulders so vigorously that the man soon gave up the contest and took to his heels.

The next morning a constable came and arrested La Barge on the charge of assault and battery, with directions to bring him at once before Esquire Garnier, Justice of the Peace.

“Lead the way, and I will follow,” said La Barge, taking down his rawhide and starting along with the constable. La Barge told the people he met on the way to come and see the fun. In due course the trial came off and La Barge was fined four dollars. He thanked the Justice, but handed him eight dollars, saying that the fun was cheap at that price, and he would give the fellow another dose. He then seized his whip and started for him, chasing him out into the street, where he gave him a second drubbing, to the great delight of the crowd, who stood around shouting and setting him on.

Another incident, which occurred late in life, exhibits the sterling integrity of the man who could withstand the temptations of wealth rather than do the smallest act of injustice. About the time that the elder La Barge was married he purchased from Joseph Morin, for the sum of twenty-five dollars, a small tract of land on Cedar Street, between Second and Third. Land was then of very little value, and transfers were often made without deed and with no more formality than in exchanging cattle or horses. In this way La Barge traded off his lot on Cedar Street to Chauvin Lebeau for a horse, with which he moved to his Baden farm, only recently purchased. Here, as already narrated, he manufactured charcoal and hauled it to town, where he sold it to Theodore Bosseron and Vilrais Papin, then the principal blacksmiths of the village. Long years afterward, when these transactions were almost forgotten, and the property had become very valuable, a lawyer presented himself to the old gentleman and asked him if he had ever owned any property on Cedar Street. La Barge replied in the affirmative and described its locality. The lawyer then asked him when and how he disposed of it. He could not at first recall, but Mrs. La Barge remembered the circumstances and related them to the lawyer, at the same time remarking to her husband that that was the way they got their horse to set themselves up on the farm with. The lawyer then assured La Barge that the title to this property was still in him, and that he could hold it against all comers, for there was absolutely no record of the conveyance in existence. The old gentleman, with a look of indignation, asked the lawyer if he took him for a thief. “I traded that land,” said he, “to Chauvin Lebeau for a horse, which was worth more to me then than the land was. I shall stand by the bargain now. If Chauvin Lebeau’s heirs have no title, tell them to come to me and I will make them a deed before I die.”

Such are some of the glimpses we still have through the mists of time of the father of Captain La Barge.

On the maternal side he was likewise descended from creditable ancestry. Among the early mechanics in the village of Fort de Chartres, near the mouth of the Ohio River, when to be a mechanic was to be a leading citizen, were Gabriel Dodier and Jean Baptiste Becquet, blacksmiths. The younger of these two men, Becquet, married the daughter of the other. They had three children, the eldest being a daughter, Marguerite Marianne. On the 27th of January, 1780, this daughter was married to Joseph Alvarez Hortiz, who was the son of FranÇois Alvarez and Bernada Hortiz, and was born in the town of Lienira, in the Province of Estremadura, Spain, in the year 1753. Alvarez was a private soldier in the military service of Spain, and came to St. Louis after Spanish authority had been established there in 1770. He attained the rank of sergeant, and being a man of some education, was for several years detailed as military attachÉ to the Governor. He finally became Secretary to the last two Spanish Governors, Trudeau and Delassus, and had charge of the public archives down to 1804. He had nine children, of whom the eighth was a daughter, of the name of Eulalie. This daughter was married to Joseph Marie La Barge in St. Louis, August 13, 1813.

The parents of Captain La Barge thus represented the best traditions of French and Spanish occupancy of the Mississippi Valley. Their marriage took place after their country had become American territory, and their offspring, the subject of our present inquiries, was born an American citizen.5