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At the first laying out of the village, Captain Liguest set apart the whole block as a site for the church, and it remains church property to this day. It is evident from Chouteau's diary that Pierre Laclede Liguest, though he had able and energetic assistants, was the soul of the enterprise, and the real founder of St. Louis.
This fleet had made its way up the Mississippi with enormous difficulty and toil from New Orleans, and only reached the mouth of the Missouri at the end of the fourth month. It was commanded by Pierre Laclede Liguest, the chief partner in a company chartered to trade with the Indians of the Missouri River.
"You will go," said he, "and disembark at the place where we marked the trees. You will begin to clear the place and build a large shed to contain the provisions and tools and some little cabins to lodge the men." On the fifteenth of February, 1764, the party arrived, and the next morning began to build their shed. Liguest named the settlement St.
Auguste Chouteau, who was selected to form the settlement, kept a diary, part of which is now preserved in the Mercantile Library at St. Louis, and in it this saying of Captain Liguest is recorded. So, the next spring he dispatched young Chouteau with a select body of thirty mechanics and hunters to the site of the proposed settlement.
He was a Frenchman, a man of great energy and executive force, and his company of hunters, trappers, mechanics, and farmers, were also French. On his way up the river Captain Liguest had noticed this superb bend of land, high enough above the water to avoid the floods, and its surface only undulating enough for the purposes of a settlement. Louis.
The fleet fell down the river to the nearest French settlement, Fort de Chartres. Captain Liguest said to the commander of this fort on arriving: "I have found a situation where I intend to establish a settlement which in the future will become one of the most beautiful cities in America." These are not imaginary words.
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