Pierre Laclède

Pierre Laclède is a French trader, born the November 22nd 1729 with Bedous (Yrénées-Atlantiques), in France, and deceased the May 27th 1778 on the river the Mississippi (the United States). He is the founder of the town of Saint Louis.

Pierre Laclède was also made call Pierre Laclède Liguest.

After a short military career, it arrived at the New-Orleans in 1755, travelling for its pleasure. It was informed and known for its talents of fencer. Pierre Laclède fell in love with Marie-Therese Chouteau, that her husband had given up in New-Orleans with his young person wire. He made of the boy, Auguste Chouteau, his pupil and employed it in its office.

Laclède was interested in the trade of the furs and worked with Gilbert-Antoine Maxent, a trader of New-Orleans. Both accepted from the governor of Louisiana the monopoly of the trade of the furs with the Indians of the Mississippi river and of its affluent, Missouri. In 1763, Maxent sent Laclède to establish a counter with the confluence of the two rivers. Leaving New-Orleans in August 1763, Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau went up the Mississippi and reached the point where it meets the Missouri in December. But the surroundings of the confluence were too marshy to build a city there. They chose a more suitable place, located 30 kilometers downstream. The building work started in 1764, directed by Auguste Chouteau.

Laclède made come Marie-Therese Chouteau, with whom it lived in cohabitation. They had had four children: Jean-Pierre (1758), Marie-Pelagie (1760), Marie-Louise (1762), and Victoire (1764). All the four were baptized like children of the legitimate husband Mrs Chouteau, Rene-Auguste Chouteau, who lived then in France.

In 1769, Maxent and Laclède reflect fine with their association. Laclède continued its business with Auguste Chouteau and Sylvestre Labbadie, but it was found soon covered of debts and in bad health. In 1777, it had to go to New-Orleans to try to rectify the situation. It is during the return voyage to Saint-Louis that he died, the May 27th 1778, on a boat anchored to approximately 8 kilometers downstream from Arkansas Post (Arkansas), on the Mississippi. It was buried in an anonymous tomb.

In the center of Saint-Louis, a district very animated in edge of the Mississippi bears the name of Laclede' S Landing, in its honor. A county of the State of the Missouri is called Comté of Laclede (Laclede County).

Sources

Alexander NR. Demenil, “The Chouteaus”, Chronicles off Oklahoma , June 1934.

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