12
EARLY SETTLERS
THIS book is slanted toward geology. The slant is deliberate because the geology of the Ozarks determined the settlement pattern. The close kinship between humans and geology has a strong scriptural basis when one remembers Moses and the Rock of Moab or that the root of St. Peter's name is Petra, the Greek name for rock.
The first white settlers in the Ozarks were French prospectors and miners searching for precious metals. Although lead may have a numismatic reputation only slightly above that of wooden coinage, it is a valuable metal. The initial settlement of the Ozarks might have been delayed several decades had it not been for lead ores found and mined by French immigrants who came to the eastern Ozarks circa 1700 and established mining operations by 1723 at Old Mines, north of Potosi, and Mine LaMotte near Fredericktown. Ste. Genevieve, a river shipping center for lead, was founded between 1723 and 1735, thus antedating St. Louis by 30 or 40 years. French is still spoken by some in these areas; and French families such as the Des Loges, Roziers, and Polittes, are prominent in eastern Missouri.
In the Rolla area the Bourbeuse, Gasconade, and Roubidoux (corruption of Robidoux) rivers immortalize the Gallic influence. The town of Loose Creek, east of Jefferson City, exemplifies linguistic sabotage by isolation; its namesake creek was christened L 'Ours (The Bear) by the French. The nearby town of Bonnot' s Mill still has a strong French tradition, although local use of that language may be almost extinct.
Moses Austin, the father of Stephen Austin, came to Potosi as a mining entrepreneur in 1797 and thus was ahead of the major Anglo-Saxon immigrants in the Ozarks. He was a New Englander as contrasted with the Southern Appalachian stock which contributed the majority of the settlers to the central Missouri Ozarks. This mountain stock, predominantly from east Kentucky, east Tennessee, North Carolina, and what was then Virginia, came to Missouri in the 1820s and 1830s.
Subsequent chapters will concentrate on these transplanted southern Appalachian peoples representing a group which was and still is neither North nor South in culture. In the concluding chapters there will be recognition of the German migration in the 1840s which created a major ethnic zone (with attendant culinary and enological contributions) in the northern and eastern Ozarks.
“Moses Austin … came to Potosi as a mining entrepreneur in 1979.”
Tomb of Moses Austin at Potosi, Missouri. His son Stephen achieved perhaps greater fame in Texas; this stone was later encased in concrete to prevent senior Austin’s body being removed to Texas.
“Loose Creek exemplifies linguistic sabotage”
Loose Creek east of Jefferson City.
“its nickname was
christened L’Ours [The Bear] by the French”
Loose Creek cat.
“The nearby town … still has a strong French tradition,”
Bonnot’s Mill east of Jefferson City; the cemetery on the hill outside the town has a fence dividing the French, presumably Catholic, gravestones from the Protestant.