Religious families noticed.—Capt. Joseph Ogle.—James Lemen, Sen.—The three associates.—Upper Louisiana.—Attack on St. Louis.—The Governor a Traitor.—The assailants retire.—American immigration encouraged.—Baptists and Methodists go there.

With the religious families we have named, both Baptists and Methodists, Mr. Clark found himself at home. All were hospitable, kind and generous; no one begrudged him the comforts of life, in their frontier mode of living. As he studiously avoided making any trouble, and never appeared in the character of a preaching lounger, each family made him welcome to their homely fare. As he was more frequently the inmate of the families of Capt. Joseph Ogle, the Methodist class leader, and James Lemen, a leading Baptist in the community, it will be entertaining to our readers to have a sketch of these two pioneers.

Captain Joseph Ogle migrated with the Messrs. Zanes and other families, from the south branch of the Potomac to the vicinity of Wheeling in 1769, where he distinguished himself in the siege of Fort Henry, in 1777. In the summer of 1785, he moved down the Ohio river to the Illinois country, and at first settled in the American bottom, in the present county of Monroe. Being well qualified, he was chosen for a leader of the little band of pioneers, who had to defend themselves from Indian assaults. Indeed he was just such a man as the people in all exposed and frontier settlements look to as their counsellor, guide and commander. He possessed uncommon firmness and self-possession, had great energy, and yet was mild, peaceable, and kind-hearted in social intercourse; always striving for the maintenance of peace, good order and justice in the social relations. From the spring of 1784 to 1790, there was in fact no organized government in the Illinois country. Some of the forms of law were kept up, but in a truthful sense the people were “a law unto themselves,” and Captain Ogle, whom every body respected, was exactly the kind of man to preserve order. Other pioneers, who had talents and influence, occupied the same position. And this too was the period of Indian alarms, and the people had to do their own fighting. What the poet says of the fictitious Rolla, applied with much pertinence to Captain Ogle—

He was scrupulously honest, punctual and strict in the fulfillment of all his engagements, and expected from all his neighbors the same degree of honesty and punctuality. The following anecdote will furnish an illustration of his true character.

A neighbor, by the name of Sullivan, who was not quite as punctual in performing promises as he ought to have been, borrowed some house-logs of Mr. Ogle to finish his cabin, promising to cut and return as many on a certain day. Capt. Ogle had arranged to raise his own cabin the day after the logs became due, but they were not returned. He went with several men to Sullivan’s cabin, told the family to remove any articles that might be in the house on the side he was about to pull down, and with handspikes proceeded with great coolness and deliberation to raise the corners and take the logs from the cabin.

The owner alarmed, came out and exclaimed, “Why, Mr. Ogle, what do you mean? Do you intend to pull down my house over my head?” “By no means, neighbor Sullivan, I am only getting out my own logs.” “Now, Captain Ogle, do stop, and I will go right off to the woods and get you the logs.” “Very well, Mr. Sullivan, if you will have the logs at my place to-morrow morning at sunrise, which you promised to have done to-day, I will forbear, else I shall take these logs for my cabin to-morrow.” This was said with the most impassive coolness and deliberation, and Mr. Sullivan was obliged to perform a most unpleasant night’s labor for slackness in his promises. With uncommon firmness and energy, he united kindness and gentleness, and ruled the people by a happy blending of fear and love. He was always a moral man, but became a devout Christian professor from the first visit of James Smith to the time of his death, in February, 1821, at fourscore years of age. For twenty years he had resided in St. Clair county, about eight miles north of Belleville, and to this day he is spoken of by the old pioneers in the vicinity with the endearing epithet of “Grandfather Ogle.” This man’s house was one of the homes of Father Clark for several years.

James Lemen, Sen., who married the eldest daughter of Capt. Ogle, was another home for the pioneer preacher. There is a pleasant tradition among their descendants, relative to their earliest acquaintance. Both were young, moral persons, religiously educated, and at first sight both were impressed with the idea they were destined for each other. They were soon married, and their mutual attachment was strong, steady, and lasted through life. Not a discordant feeling, or an unpleasant word ever passed between them. His grandfather was an emigrant from the north of Ireland to Virginia, and he was born in Berkeley county in the autumn of 1760. His father belonged to the church of England (a branch of which existed in Virginia, before the revolutionary war,) but died when he was only a year old. His mother married again, and he was brought up by a strict Presbyterian. James Lemen was rigidly honest, humane, kind-hearted, and benevolent, independent in judgment, very firm and conscientious in whatever he believed to be right, and showed strong traits of decision. Though he served two years in the revolutionary army, under General Washington, he was opposed to war as an aggressive measure, never combative or cruel; yet he would fight like a hero, when impelled by a sense of duty in defending the settlement from Indian aggressions.

He followed his father-in-law to the Illinois country in the spring of 1786, by descending the Ohio river in a flat boat. The second night after he left Wheeling, the river fell while they were tied to the shore, and his boat lodged on a stump, careened and sunk, by which accident he lost all his provisions and chattels. His eldest son Robert, then a boy of three years, floated on the bed where he lay, which his father caught by the corner of the ticking, and saved his life. That boy is now a hale old man, with silvered locks, and past the age of threescore and ten, honored and beloved by all who know him.

Though left destitute of provisions and other necessaries, James Lemen was not the man to be discouraged. He had energy and perseverance, and got to the mouth of the Ohio, and from thence up the Mississippi to Kaskaskia, where he arrived on the tenth of July. His family was one of the first to form the settlement of New Design, on the old hill trace between Kaskaskia and St. Louis, and his house became the half-way stopping place for many years. No travelers were turned away.

He had been the subject of religious impressions from childhood, but was not clear in his mind to make a profession of faith in Christ, until Rev. Mr. Dodge came to the country and preached, as already stated, when he and his wife, with two other persons, were baptized.

He was generous and hospitable, and often divided his corn with the destitute. He observed the Sabbath strictly, kept good order in his family, yet was never harsh or severe with his children.

In the same settlement, and frequently for weeks in succession, at the cabin of Mr. Lemen, there was an Irish Methodist by the name of William Murray. His name indicates Scots descent, and he and Mr. Clark were quite intimate. Indeed, these three men claimed national affinity, for, as we have shown, Mr. Lemen’s ancestors were from the north of Ireland, where colonies from Scotland had taken possession in the seventeenth century. There was just enough diversity in their opinions, to invite controversy, and enough Christian virtue as a controlling principle to keep them within the bounds of moderation and fraternal intercourse. They attended each others meetings, and Mr. Clark preached, and exerted an influence on the young men in the settlement that has never been lost.

We will now pass over a few months, till some time in the spring or summer of 1798, when Mr. Clark carried out his long cherished project of visiting the Spanish country west of the Mississippi river, and which made him in a peculiar sense the pioneer preacher.

Louisiana was discovered, settled, and held in possession by France until 1762, when, by a secret treaty, it was sold to Spain by that infamous king, Louis XV, and his more infamous mistress, Madame Pompadour, and his corrupt ministry. The first permanent settlement in Upper Louisiana was commenced with the founding of St. Louis as a trading post in 1764. In 1763, an enterprising trader by the name of Pierre Ligueste Laclede, obtained a grant from the Director General of Louisiana, with the “necessary powers to trade with the Indians of the Missouri, and those west of the Mississippi, above the Missouri river, as far north as the St. Peters,” now Minnesota. A small hamlet had been previously established by a few French families, and called St. Genevieve, west of the Great River, and a few miles below the town of Kaskaskia, and some temporary stations made in the lead mine country, west of St. Genevieve.

The Spanish authority became regularly established in Upper Louisiana, in November, 1770. Piernas, the Spanish commandant, arrived in St. Louis at that date, but there is no official document or record to show that he exercised the functions of his office previous to February, 1771. Other towns or villages were settled in the vicinity from 1769, the date of St. Charles, to the period of 1780.

On the transfer of the Illinois country from France to Great Britain in 1765, many of the French inhabitants removed from that side of the river to St. Louis and St. Charles, and many more went down the river to the lower province.

After Colonel George Rogers Clark had taken possession of the Illinois country, under Virginia, in 1778, he became personally acquainted and held frequent interviews with French citizens of St. Louis, and the official authorities.

While at Cahokia, in 1779, only five miles distant, holding treaties with the Indians from confidential agents whom he sent into the Indian country northward, he learned that British agents from Canada, with a large force of northern Indians, were projecting an invasion of St. Louis. Being on terms of friendly intercourse with Governor Leyba, the Spanish commandant, he gave him intimation of these treacherous designs, as he did to several French gentlemen, and tendered his services with the forces he commanded, in case of an attack. St. Louis then was enclosed with short palisades, and gates opened in the pathways that led to the common field, and to the country without. The sequel gave proof that the governor was a traitor, purchased, doubtless, with British gold.

In the month of May, 1780, a large band of warriors from different tribes of Indians from the Upper Mississippi and the northern lakes, with a number of Canadians, amounting in all to twelve or fourteen hundred armed men, appeared in the forest east of the Mississippi, above St. Louis. The 25th of May was the festival of Corpus Christi, a day highly venerated by the inhabitants who were Catholics. Had the assault been made on that day it would have been fatal to the town; for after the service in the church, nearly all the inhabitants, men, women and children, flocked to the prairie to gather strawberries, which were abundant, and delicious at that season. A few Indians had crossed the river as spies, and secreted themselves in the thickets near where the people passed.

Next day the main body crossed the river, and attacked the town. A few persons who had gone to the field, were attacked from an ambuscade; some were killed; others fled to the town and gave the alarm. The soldiers under the command of the Governor, and his subalterns, either from fear or treachery, hid themselves, and the citizens alone had to defend the place. They found some government cannon, and fired grape shot as the invaders approached the gates. A few days previous the treacherous governor sold all the public ammunition to some traders, but the people supplied themselves with eight kegs of powder they found in a trader’s house.

The governor kept within his house, but hearing the firing, and learning the citizens were making a manful resistance, he came out, ordered the firing to cease, and the cannon to be spiked and filled with sand by some of his minions. Fortunately the men at the lower gate did not hear the peremptory order, and continued the firing. The governor, perceiving this, ordered a cannon to be fired at them. They threw themselves on the ground, and the murderous volley of grape shot passed over their heads. This horrible procedure, with his general conduct, fixed the indelible brand of traitor on his name, and such the French citizens reported him to have been, to the immediate representative of the crown of Spain in New Orleans.

The inhabitants of St. Louis were in a critical situation. With evidence of treachery among the officers, who were Spanish; the place invaded by a force nearly double to the whole population, men, women and children; and these invaders infuriated with the spirit of war and plunder, what could they expect but a general massacre! But after killing and scalping twenty persons in the field and prairie, and meeting with such determined resistance at the gates, the Indians retired suddenly, and refused to coÖperate with their Canadian allies, who kept themselves at a safe distance.

The cause of this sudden and unexpected retreat has been a mystery. The most probable solution is the tradition among the French inhabitants, that the Indians were told they were going on a war party to fight the Spaniards; but when they discovered the defenders of the town were all Frenchmen, and recognized amongst them some of their personal friends, who had lived and traded in their villages; and that they had been deceived by British agents, they withdrew in ill-humor with their employers.

Divers misstatements of this assault have been handed down by writers and oral tradition. A popular error has been propagated, that Colonel Clark was at Cahokia, (some say Kaskaskia) and suddenly appeared on the bank of the Mississippi, opposite the town with a strong force. Colonel Clark left the Illinois country with all the men whom he could persuade to re-enlist, the preceding February, went down the Mississippi, and at the date of the attack was establishing fort Jefferson, below the mouth of the Ohio. From thence he traveled on foot with a single companion through the wilderness to Harrodsburg in Kentucky.

The traditional fact of his giving information to Governor Leyba, in 1779, of the projected invasion, and the offer of aid, has caused this error. The register of the old Catholic church in St. Louis of the funeral obsequies of the persons massacred, furnishes incontestible evidence that the attack was on May 26th, 1780.

Aware that a report of his treasonable conduct had been forwarded to the Governor General at New Orleans, fearful of the consequences, and unable to sustain the scorn and indignation heaped upon him, Governor Leyba died shortly after the attack; having poisoned himself, as the creditable report was. Cartabona, his deputy, performed the functions of the office until the next year, when Don Francisco Cruzat, the predecessor of Leyba, and who had been supplanted by him in 1778, returned and assumed the command a second time.

In a few years after an important change was made in the government of Upper Louisiana, by the appointment of a commandant-general, or governor for that province, and a commandant, or lieutenant-governor for each district. The commandant-general was Don Carlos Dehault Delassus, and the lieut. governor of St. Louis district was an intelligent French gentleman of liberal principles, M. Zenon Trudeau.

We have given these facts of St. Louis history to explain why so many Americans had settled in the province before Father Clark made his first visit.

The attack on St. Louis from Canada, the detection of the meditated invasion by Colonel Clark, and the friendly intercourse between the French citizens of St. Louis and those of Illinois, induced the authorities of Louisiana to encourage the immigration of Americans from the United States to the Upper province. To this intent a movement was made by Don Guardoqui, Spanish minister to the government of the United States at Philadelphia, as early as 1787, when he proposed a plan of emigration from the western settlements to the country from Arkansas to the settlements on the Missouri.43 Instructions were given to the commandants regulating the grants of land, and the conditions of admitting this class of immigrants. Instructions were issued by Gayoso, commandant-general, the first of January, 1798, from which we give an extract.44 No settler was to be admitted in the province who was not a farmer or mechanic.

Of course practically, this included all who came. The sixth article provided for a limited degree of toleration to Protestants.

“Liberty of conscience is not to be extended beyond the first generation; the children of the emigrants must be Catholics.” [This of course required their baptism in the Catholic form, but it was not enforced.] “Emigrants not agreeing to this, must not be admitted, but removed, even when they bring property with them. This is to be explained to settlers, who do not profess the Catholic religion.”

We shall see in the sequel, how the liberal minded commandants interpreted this ordinance.

The seventh regulation, “Expressly recommended to the commandants to watch that no preacher of any religion but the Catholic, comes into the province.”

After the attack on St. Louis of 1780, measures were adopted to fortify the town more effectually, and in 1794 the garrison on the hill (now Third street, or Broadway) and the Government house were completed. In 1797, apprehensions were entertained of another invasion from Canada, and four stone towers, at equal distances, in a circular direction around the town, and a wooden block-house near the lower end, were erected. But their chief dependence for protection was the American emigrants who had been invited into the province by the liberal policy of grants of land, and the indulgence shown by the commandants. They were permitted to locate themselves in the country, and make farms, whereas the French families were required to live in villages, and cultivate their farms near by under an enclosure in common. At the transfer of the country in 1804, more than three-fifths of the inhabitants of Upper Louisiana were English Americans from the United States.45 The Roman Catholic faith was the established religion of the province. American immigrants were examined by the commandants as to their faith, but by the use of a pious fiction on the part of the examiners, and the provision in the ordinances already quoted, large toleration actually existed.

The mode of examination gave great latitude for Protestants to come in. A few general and rather equivocal questions were asked, which persons of almost any Christian sect could consistently answer; such as, “Do you believe in Almighty God?—In the Holy Trinity?—In the true, apostolical church?—In Jesus Christ our Saviour?—In the holy evangelists? etc. An affirmative answer being given to these and other questions of a general character, “Un bon Catholique,” (a good Catholic) closed the ceremony.

Many Baptists, Methodists, and other Protestant families, settled in the province, and remained undisturbed in their religious principles. Much the largest proportion of American Protestants came into the country after 1794. They held no religious meetings publicly, and had no minister of the gospel among them. There were about fifty persons who had been members of Protestant churches in the United States, in the districts of St. Louis and St. Charles, at the period of Mr. Clark’s first visit, besides as many more in the districts of St. Genevieve, and Cape Girardeau.

The Catholic priests of Upper Louisiana received from the Spanish treasury a stipend rating from $350 to $400 a year, besides the perquisites for mass, confessions, marriages, and funerals. No tithes were levied in Louisiana, and hence Protestants and free-thinkers felt no burdens in pecuniary demands from the priesthood. There were three curates, one vicar, and a few missionary priests who resided in the upper province. The rite of marriage must be performed by a Catholic priest; and it is probable the administration of baptism, or the Lord’s supper, by a Protestant, would have sent him to prison, but no minister made the attempt.

The American settlers in general were peaceable, industrious, moral and well disposed persons, who, from various motives, had crossed the “Great River;” some from love of adventure—some from that spirit of restlessness that animates a numerous class of Americans—but a larger number went with the expectation of obtaining grants of land, for the trifling expense of surveying and recording the plat. We have been personally acquainted with many of these emigrants, conversed with them freely, knew their character well, and have heard so many of them declare their expectation that in due time the country would be annexed to the United States, that we have no doubt such an impression did exist largely. Yet they projected no filibustering enterprise; no schemes of a revolution; nor were there amongst them any sanguine spirits at work to excite such feelings.

From the time of the definitive treaty of 1783, the government of the United States had been negociating with Spain for the free navigation of the Mississippi river to the ocean, secured, as was understood, by that treaty. The inhabitants west of the Alleghany mountains were deeply interested in such a measure. It was a topic of conversation in all circles, and discussed freely in the newspapers. It is not strange that the public mind in this valley should entertain the conviction that by some form of negociation the country would be annexed to the American Union. They did not realize that a removal to the west of the great river would expatriate them and their posterity, nor did they lose their attachment to the Republic by a residence in the dominions of the crown of Spain.

Such was the character, and such were the circumstances of the people to whom Mr. Clark was the pioneer preacher. Certainly, no minister of the gospel, in the scriptural sense of that term, ever passed the boundary before him. He visited the American families from house to house, in a quiet and peaceable manner, conversed and prayed with them, and was received with great cordiality. There were men and women, disciples of Christ, who had not heard the precious gospel for a long period. A few gathered, on the Sabbath, in some log cabin, with fearful forebodings. They might be arrested, and, with the preacher, sent to the calabozo,46 or to the Mexican mines for their heretical practices. A larger number came out stealthily by night. Mr. Clark found the American families dispersed over the country, for some miles distant, and living in log cabins of the most primitive sort. Of the Baptists who were pioneers to this country before Mr. Clark, we can call to recollection the names of Abraham and Sarah Musick; Abraham Musick, Jun., as he was called, to distinguish him from his uncle, and Terrell, his wife; Adam and Lewis Martin, who were brothers, and their wives; Mr. Richardson and wife; Mrs. Jane Sullens; Sarah Williams, (who lived to see her son and four grandsons ministers of the Gospel); Mrs. Whitley, all in St. Louis district; and David Darst and wife, William Hancock and wife, Mr. Brown and family, and several others, who settled in the district of St. Charles, north of the Missouri river. There were three settlements in the district (now county) of St. Louis, where, after two or three casual visits, Mr. Clark made regular appointments, and crossed the river monthly. These were the settlement near the Spanish pond, north of St. Louis; the settlement between Owen’s station (now Bridgton) and Florrissant; and the settlement called Feefe’s creek.47 He was threatened repeatedly with the calabozo, for violating the laws of the country. M. Trudeau, the lieutenant-governor of St. Louis district, was a liberalist in principle, who, with his parents, had been driven out of France by the storm of the revolution, and their estate confiscated. He obtained the appointment of deputy commandant, through the influence of the principal French citizens, as the means of sustaining his aged parents, who had suffered for their loyalty. He abhorred all kinds of persecution, but, in his official station, in accordance with the ordinances, he was compelled “to watch that no preacher of any religion but the Catholic came into the province.”

Abraham Musick, Jun., who had formed a friendly acquaintance with the lieut. governor, and, in their social interviews, had given him information of the distinctive principles of the Baptists, as contradistinguished from the Catholic and Protestant PÆdo-Baptists, made application to M. Trudeau for liberty to hold meetings in his house. We give the colloquy in substance as we received it from the pious and intelligent widow of Mr. M——, twenty-five years after the interview.

M. “My friend, John Clark, is in the country, on a visit to his friends. He is a good man, peaceably disposed, and will behave as a good citizen should. The American people desire to hear him preach at my house occasionally. Will the commandant please give permission, that we may not be molested? We will hold our meetings quietly, make no disturbance, and say nothing against the king of Spain, nor the Catholic religion.”

The commandant was inclined to favor the American settlers, but he was obliged to reject all such petitions officially, and replied, with seeming determination:

C. “No, Monsieur Musick. I can not permit no such ting; ’tis against de law; you must all be bon Catholique in dis contree. Very sorry, Mons. Musick, I cannot oblige you, but I must follow de ‘Regulacion.’”

Discouraged at this decision, in a tone so magisterial, Mr. M. regarded any farther effort hopeless, and arose to depart from the office, when, with a gracious countenance, the commandant said:

“Sit down, Mons. Musick; please sit down; I soon get dis paper fix for dese gentlehomme who wait; and den we talk. You must eat my dinner, and drink a glass of my bon vin. You and I are good friend, though I cannot let you make a church house.”

After dispatching the business on hand, M. Trudeau insisted on the company of Mr. Musick to dinner. While discoursing with volubility in his imperfect English, the wily commandant adverted to the petition, so unceremoniously rejected in the office.

C. “You understand me, Monsieur Musick, I presume. You must not put—what do you call him—un colcher,48 on your house and call it a church;—dat is all wrong,—you must make no bell ring. And now hear me, Mons. Musick, you must let no man baptize your enfant but de parish priest. But if your friend come to see you—your neighbor come there,—you conversez;—you say prayer;—you read Bible—you sing song—dat is all right—you all bon Catholique.”

Mr. Clark from the time he left Georgia had been reading the Scriptures, to find out the character of a church, such as those congregations named in Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, etc. He was then a Baptist so far as infant baptism was concerned, and he doubted much whether any uninspired human authority could change the form approved by Christ, without destroying the institution. And the majority of the people, being Baptists, had no use for the parish priest for that ceremony. The interdiction of spire and bell was no inconvenience in their simple form of worship. Unlike the Catholic, their religion had no connection with bell-ringing.

While this disposition of a perplexing question to the commandant accommodated the American settlers, it gave no legal countenance to the visits of a preacher from another nation, and a different religion,—but the people came out to the meetings with less fear of the prison. Mr. Clark continued his visits nearly every month, which did not escape the notice of the commandant. He soon learned the period of his visits, and some two or three days before his return to Illinois, he never failed to send a threatening message into the country that, “If Mons. Clark did not leave the Spanish country in three days, he would be put in the calabozo.” So regularly came this message that it became a standing jest with his friends to enquire, “Well, brother Clark, when do you go to the calabozo?” “In three days,” would be the reply, which all understood to mean crossing the river to the Illinois side.

In the autumn of 1801, Rev. Thomas R. Musick, a relative of the Musick families, came to the province on a visit. His residence then was in the Green river district in Kentucky, and he had been in a revival of religion for several months, and about one hundred converts had been baptized. His brother was the one who petitioned the commandant for privilege to hold meetings, and his uncle was one of the residents in the Spanish country. Coming from the midst of an extensive and powerful revival of religion, he was in the spirit of preaching, and cared little for the Spanish calabozo. He visited every family, in which professors of religion were to be found, in the districts of St. Louis and St. Charles, and during three weeks’ sojourn, preached fifteen times to congregations assembled in log cabins and in the woods, on short notice to hear him. He was threatened with the calabozo repeatedly. In a frontier settlement above St. Charles, he preached the funeral sermon of a Baptist by name of Brown, from Kentucky, who had died there that season.

Mr. Musick left the province with the determination to return with his family and settle there, soon as he could be permitted to remain and preach the gospel; and with this end in view, he removed to the settlement of New Design in Illinois.

Soon as the news of the cession of the country to the United States reached his ears, without waiting for its confirmation by the government, and the actual transfer, he went across the great river in the autumn of 1803, and made that country his home. Mr. Musick was the first preacher of the gospel who, with his family, settled in the country, became one of the constituents of Fefee’s Creek, and was its pastor for more than thirty years.