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."