CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.
Joseph La Barge, son of Joseph Marie La Barge and Eulalie Hortiz, was
born in St. Louis, October 1, 1815. He was the second child in a family
of seven children, three boys and four girls, who all grew to adult
years. The two brothers were Charles S., who was killed in a steamboat
explosion in 1852, and John B., who dropped dead at the wheel in 1885
while making a steamboat landing at Bismarck, N. D.
[Sidenote: INDIAN AND INFANT.]
Soon after the birth of Captain La Barge the parents moved to the
newly acquired farm in Baden. There is but one incident relating
to the young child while living here that need detain us. Although
this place was distant only six miles from where the courthouse of
St. Louis now stands, it was at that time unsettled and uncleared,
and Indians not infrequently roamed in the vicinity. The Sac and Fox
tribes were particularly troublesome, and many were the outrages which
they committed upon the isolated settlement. The incident in question
occurred one day just before the father had started on his usual trip
to town. He was loading his cart at some distance from the garden,
where Mrs. La Barge had gone to dig some potatoes to send to her mother
in the village. Housewives in those days seldom enjoyed the luxury
of nurses, and Mrs. La Barge was obliged to carry her child with her
into the garden. Depositing him between the rows of potatoes, she was
proceeding with her work, when suddenly the house dog set up a cry
of alarm. Looking up, Mrs. La Barge was horrified to see an Indian
approaching. She uttered a scream and started for the house, forgetting
in the suddenness of her alarm the baby in the garden. Meanwhile the
father had heard the dog’s bark and his wife’s screams, and hastened
to see what was the matter. His first question was about the baby, and
Mrs. La Barge, more terrified than ever, rushed back to where she had
left him. Fortunately the dog had held the Indian at bay, and when
the father arrived, gun in hand, he beat a prompt retreat. Captain La
Barge’s father often reminded him of this incident in after years,
predicting that he would always escape harm from the Indians, for they
had had their opportunity and had failed. In his many experiences with
the Indians throughout a life spent in their country, he never suffered
personal injury at their hands, and came to have faith in his father’s
prediction.
Captain La Barge was not yet two years old when the first steamboat
came to St. Louis, nor four when the first one entered the Missouri
River. It is said that his father used to take him to the river bank to
see these early boats, and that they always had a great attraction for
his youthful fancy. To be a steamboat master was his ambition, and he
spent much of his time as a child in drawing boats and making models,
and thus unwittingly training himself for his after career.
The boy was a leader among his fellows, and an expert in all youthful
games practiced at the time. In contests of skill among the boys of the
village each side was anxious to secure Joe La Barge. “He could jump
higher,” says one authority, “run faster, and swim farther than any
other lad in the town.”
[Sidenote: LAFAYETTE’S VISIT.]
[Sidenote: BOTH FRENCHMEN.]
Among the noteworthy events of Captain La Barge’s childhood, the memory
of which clung by him even in old age, was the visit of Lafayette to
St. Louis in 1825. This venerable patriot, whom, next to Washington,
Americans in that day delighted to honor, arrived in St. Louis on
board the steamer _Natchez_, at 9 A. M., May 29. He was met at the
wharf by a committee of leading citizens, and an address of welcome
was made by the Mayor, to which Lafayette responded. He then entered a
carriage with the Mayor and Mr. Auguste Chouteau and Stephen Hempstead,
a soldier of the Revolution, and was driven to the house of Mr.
Pierre Chouteau, Sr., which had been prepared for his reception. He
was escorted by a company of light horsemen, and also by a company
of uniformed boys, of whom Captain La Barge, then ten years old, was
one. The Captain always remembered the venerable appearance of the
General and his review of the youthful troop. He shook hands with them,
indulged in the pleasant questions which age delights to ask of youth,
and doubtless himself took a keen pleasure in the incident, because
most of his youthful auditors could reply in his own tongue.[6]
An interesting sequel of Lafayette’s visit to St. Louis occurred
in that city in 1881, on the occasion of the visit of Lafayette’s
grandson with General Boulanger and party, who had come to America
to attend the centennial celebration of the surrender of Yorktown.
Captain La Barge was sent for, to meet the distinguished company at
the Merchants’ Exchange. When introduced to the members of the party,
the grandson of Lafayette came forward, and taking La Barge by both
hands, looked at him a moment and said: “You have seen one whom I wish
it were my lot to have seen, and that is my revered grandfather.” He
cordially urged the Captain to come to his home if he should ever visit
France, and in other ways showed an almost affectionate interest in
this individual who had once, though but a boy, beheld the face of his
distinguished ancestor.
[Sidenote: EARLY SCHOOLING.]
Captain La Barge’s schooling was necessarily very limited, for the
educational facilities of St. Louis in those days were of a truly
primitive order. He first went to a schoolmaster of considerable local
renown, Jean Baptiste Trudeau, at the latter’s private residence on
Pine Street, between Main and Second. Here he studied the common
branches, all in French. He went for a time to Salmon Giddings, founder
of the First Presbyterian Church, in St. Louis, and later to a more
pretentious school kept by Elihu H. Shephard, an excellent teacher.
At both of these schools instruction was given in English. Captain
La Barge’s parents foresaw that their native tongue could not long
survive in common use, and felt it to be their duty to equip their son,
so far as their slender means would permit, with the language of his
country. The pupil found the task a tedious one, and was a long while
in mastering it. He never forgot the almost insurmountable obstacle
he found in the English “th.” He used his native language in common
intercourse down to nearly 1850, and retained a fluent command of it
to his death. He also acquired a very perfect command of English, in
which there was no trace of foreign accent, but in which the mellowing
influence of the softer tongue had produced a modulation of the voice
that was very pleasant to listen to.
[Sidenote: IN COLLEGE.]
In 1819 there was established in Perry County, Mo., a Catholic School,
St. Mary’s College. Young La Barge was sent there at the age of twelve,
and remained three years. On their way to the college himself and
father traveled by the steamer _Tuscumbia_. It was Captain La Barge’s
first ride in a kind of boat with which most of his after life was to
be connected. The desire of the young man’s parents was to educate
their son for the priesthood, and his course at college was shaped
somewhat to that end. But the boy did not fall in with their plans, as
his tastes ran in a different direction. He did not finish the course,
for his career at the school was summarily cut short by a delinquency
which is the only one we have to record in a life of more than
fourscore years. He became involved in intrigues with young women to an
extent which barred him from a further continuation of his course.
[Sidenote: IN HARD LUCK.]
Associated with him in this unfortunate episode was Edward Liguest
Chouteau, a youth of about the same age as himself. The young men
walked to St. Genevieve, on the Mississippi. Chouteau was without
funds, and La Barge nearly so, having scarcely the amount of a single
steamboat fare to St. Louis. They found the _De Witt Clinton_ at the
bank on her way up the river. La Barge told the captain of the boat the
straight story of their misfortune: that they had only enough money
for a single fare to St. Louis, and would have to walk unless they
could make some arrangement with him. He laughed, and told them to get
on board and he would see them home. This incident, in which the two
young men were companions in misfortune, was not forgotten by either,
and we shall have occasion to refer to it again in the course of this
narrative.
After La Barge left college his father placed him in the office of
John Bent, a leading lawyer of St. Louis, and one of the noted Bent
brothers. He soon became disgusted with his new situation on account of
his preceptor’s habit of excessive drink. He then went into a clothing
store, and after remaining about a year, left that.
[Sidenote: ATTRACTIONS OF THE FUR TRADE.]
The restless ambition of the young man was now directed toward a
kind of life which, in every portion of the country, has filled up
the period between discovery and settlement--the business of the fur
trade. At this particular time it was the only business carried on in
the trans-Mississippi territory beyond the few scattering settlements
along the lower Missouri. Large parties of hunters and trappers
remained constantly in the wilderness, wandering all over those vast
regions in quest of beaver and other fur. Each spring expeditions set
out for various points in the Far West from Santa Fe to the British
boundary, carrying supplies and recruits and bringing back the furs
collected during the previous year. The great bulk of this business was
done along the Missouri River, where trading posts were established
throughout the entire valley. The annual journeys to these posts were
always made by water. In the keelboat days they consumed an entire
summer, but after the steamboat came they were completed by the middle
of July.
[Sidenote: CHOICE OF CAREER.]
From its very nature this business was one of adventure and excitement,
and particularly attractive to those who were fond of an independent
and out-of-door life. We can but faintly imagine at this day how strong
was the attraction for youth in this wild life. Now it is considered a
great piece of good luck for a boy to get on a common surveying party
in the mountains, where he may see something of the wildness of nature,
and perhaps catch sight of some surviving specimens of the larger game.
In those days a trip to the mountains meant adventure of the genuine
sort--absence from civilization, ever-present danger from the Indians,
game of all kinds in abundance, and the grandeur and beauty of nature
in a region still unknown except to a very few.
Being now at the impressionable age of sixteen, young La Barge became
infatuated with the tales of adventure related by those who came back
every year from the distant mountains. He told his father that, for
the present, his mind was made up. He would join one of the fur-trade
expeditions and see something of the Indian country. This decision met
a responsive chord in the adventurous nature of the father, who said
he had no objection if the mother were willing. The matter was laid
before her, and after much entreaty and expostulation, her consent was
secured. This was in the year 1831.