SKETCHES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF REAL ES

TATE IN ST. PAUL.*

BY HENRY S. FAIRCHILD.

St. Paul is located on land on the east side of the Mississippi river, ceded to the United States by the Ojibway Indians on January 29, 1837, and September 9, 1837, and on land west of the river, ceded by the Sioux, July 23 and August 5, 1851. .

The first settler was Pierre Parrant, of malodorous fame, who has never been suspected of having posed before an artist as a model for an Adonis. Parrant, having been driven off his first claim, near Fountain cave, close to where the Omaha shops now are, made another claim between Jackson and Minnesota streets, from the river to Twelfth street.

It seemed as though Parrant, who had been a wanderer and an outcast, would permanently occupy this pretty claim overlooking the river; but when Benjamin Gervais offered him the munificent sum of $10 for it, it was not in human nature to resist, and Parrant sold. So he escaped the curse of becoming a millionaire, and of having a contest over his will; and by this transaction the real estate market was opened in St. Paul.

Closely after Parrant, in 1838 and 1839, came Abraham Perret (Anglicized to Perry), Pierre and Benjamin Gervais, Evans, Hays, Phelan, and Vital Guerin; in 1840, Joseph Rondo, Xavier De Mair, and Father Lucian Galtier, of blessed memory; and, in 1841, Father Ravoux and Pierre Bottineau. Many of these

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*Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, May 11, 1903.

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became dealers in real estate, and so connected themselves with my theme.

EARLY REAL ESTATE SALES.

These new settlers were wiser and more sagacious men than Parrant. They foresaw that the time would come, some day, when there would be a church and schoolhouse here, a tavern, and a blacksmith shop, frame instead of log houses, and perhaps, -who knows?-some day a population of several hundred people!

So De Mair, instead of selling his claim out on University avenue, near where the old car barn stood, for a paltry ten dollars, got a horse and wagon for it, and made another claim where Calvary cemetery is, and got for that a pair of horses.

Donald McDonald, who had made a claim where Desnoyer Park is, sold it to Stephen Desnoyer for a barrel of whiskey and two guns; and in 1843 Luther Furnell sold the 160 acres known to you all as "the Larpenteur farm," and later as "Kittsondale," to Lot Moffet for $100.

In the same year, 1843, John R. Irvine bought 300 acres, now Rice and Irvine's addition, for $300,-a property destined in his lifetime to become worth millions of dollars.

The only influence the most of these early squatters ever had on St Paul's destiny was that, being Catholics, they caused a Catholic mission to be established here, which made a nucleus around which others gathered, and which caused our name to be changed from "Pig's Eye" to St. Paul.

But now a more enterprising and intelligent class commences to come in, men who are destined to make their mark in the upbuilding of the city. Henry Jackson and Sergeant Richard W. Mortimer came in 1842; John R. Irvine, James W. Simpson, William Hartshorn, A. L. Larpenteur, Alex. R. McLeod, came in 1843, of whom only Larpenteur still lives. Long may he live!

Louis Robert and Charles Bazille came in 1844; Charles Cavalier and Jesse Pomroy in 1845; William H. Randall, Thomas S. Odell, and David Faribault, in 1846; and Major William H. Forbes, John Banfil, J. W. Bass, Benjamin W. Brunson, Ira B.