Goodspeed's History of
SouthEast
Missouri-1887
Section 1:1786-1798
Transcribed by Tara R Barrett,
1999
-
New Madrid District.- The settlement of this district was
begun in the winter of 1786-1787, by Francois
and Joseph Lesieur, brothers, in the employ of Cerre, a fur
trader and merchant of St. Louis. They had been sent
down the Mississippi in a canoe the year previous, to select a
suitable place for a trading post, and now they came to
build a house and to begin trade with the Indians. They were
very successful. The Delawares brought in immense quantities
of furs and skins, which they readily disposed of for powder and
shot and such trifles as delight the heart of the savage.
But so rich a mine could not be long concealed from Vincennes
and other posts. The place soon became one of the best trading
points in the country West of the Mississippi, and the name of
"L'anse a la graisse" was bestowed upon it. But while these
simple French traders were
trafficking with the Indians, and growing rich, the eyes of a
man with a greater ambition were fixed upon the country. Col.
George
Morgan, a native of New Jersey, who had been an officier in the
American Army, while passing down the Mississippi to New Orleans,
conceived the idea of building a great commercial city in the
Spanish territory opposite or below the mouth of the Ohio.
He at once began negotiations with the Spanish government for a
large grant of land, and by extravagant promises succeeded in
obtaining it.
He published a prospectus of the city which he proposed to lay
out, and early in 1789, with a party of some fifty or sixty
emigrants, descended
the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to a point about a mile below
the present town of New Madrid. His ambitious designs, however,
were soon brought to an
end. Gen. James Wilkinson was at this time intriguing with the
Spanish governor, Miro, at New Orleans, for the purpose of
inciting a rebellion of
the people west of the Alleghanies against the United States
Government, with the intention of attaching them to the Spanish
Government.
He was very jealous of a rival, and such he conceived Col.
Morgan to be. He conducted his negotiations through Gov. Miro,
and in a letter to that
officer states that in connection with others he has applied for
a grant in the Yazoo country in order "to destory the place of a
certain Col. Morgan."
He then goes on as follows: "This Col. Morgan resides for the
present with his family in the vacinity of Princeton, in New
Jersey, but twenty
or twenty-five years ago he used to trade with the Indians at
Kaskaskia, in co-partnership with Boynton & Wharton. He is a
man of education,
and possesses an intelligent mind, but he is a deep and thorough
speculator. He has already become twice a bankrupt, and
according to the information I have
lately received he is now in extremely necessitous
circumstances. He was sent by a New Jersey company to New York
in order to negotiate with Congress the
purchase of a vast tract of land, comprising Cahokia and
Kaskaskia. But whilst this affair was pending he found it to
his interest to deal with Don Diego
Gordoqui, and he discovered that it was more advantageous for
him to shift his negotiations from the United States to Spain.
The result was that he obtained, forsooth,
the most extraordinary concession, which extends along the
Mississippi from the mouth of the St. Francois River
to Point Cinque Homme, in the West, containing from 12,000,000
to 15,000,000 of acres. I have not seen Morgan, nor am I
acquainted with the particulars of his contract, but
I have set a spy after him since his coming to these parts, and
his going down the river to take possession of his new
province, and through that spy I have
collected the following information: That the intention of
Morgan is to build a city on the west bank of the Mississippi,
as near the mouth of the Ohio as the nature
of ground may permit; that he intends selling his lands by small
or large lots for a shilling an acre; that Don Diego Gordoqui
pays all the costs of that establishment, and has
undertaken to make that new town a free port to intercept all of
the productions of this company on the most advantageous terms
he may be able to secure from our people.
Morgan departed from here on the beginning of this month to take
possession of his territory, to survey it and to fix the site of
the town, which will be called New Madrid.
He took with him two surveyors and from forty to fifty persons
beside."
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Don E. Wright
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