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Bay St. Louis
Its History In A Hurry
Bj- RAY M. THOMPSON
I
f-	In the beginning	Bay St. Louis belonged to the	Choc-1
itaws. It was theirs	to hunt and fish and habitate and!
;they called it Chicapoula.	.	‘	j
When they acquired it or how long they had pos-| sessed it they did not know. They had no talking paper! :that recorded such senseless details as land grants or: deeds to property. Their tribal tales merely told them, 'that they had once come out of the West, carrying all, :heir possessions and the sacred bones of their dead ones, , seeking new hunting grounds.	!
And when they reached the Pearl F.iver, on the opposite side of which their scouts reported limitless1 forest land teeming with game and innumerable streams, filled with fish in this bit of Southland we now knowj as	Mississippi, they	had sought no further.	j
|	For countless centuries It was theirs alone.	Until	I
'that day in 1682 when LaSalle’s expedition, that had! .just planted the fleur de lis banner of France at the i mouth of the Mississippi, scouted the Gulf Coast and: were the first recorded white men to sight Bay St. Louis.
After that the Choctaws were to remain unmolested for only 17 years more. For in the Spring of 1699 d’Iberville came to occupy and colonize all the land: claimed by LaSalle in 1682, and established Fort Maurepas!' and the first permanent white settlement in what is now; the entire Mississippi Valley at what is now Oceanj Springs only a little over|	1
thirty land miles from what;'
!_is now the city of Bay St.*]
Louis.	‘	j
It was this same d’Iberville who,; on a reconnaisance trip soon after!
:the fort was built on the Bay of: jBilox:, first entered and explored j.the Coast's beautiful bay we know, j:today as St.	Louis — but	did	not!
■jiand on its	shore.	j
j It was his	brother Bienville	with1
another exploring party who a few! imonths later first set foot on its;
(land and formally named it Bay St. Louis in honor of the French Crusader, King and Saint Louis IX, on whose Feast Day of August 25 they had	landed, y	i
'"'In December of that same year; d’Iberville sent a sergeant with 151 soldiers and a few civilians to es-1 tablish an’outpost on this bountiful * and beautiful bay, which is its first recorded white occupancy. As close as can be determined that ,	•
outpost was located between Carroll avenue and DeMontluzin street on the beach..	’	r
History does not mention this lit-	.	.	.
tie military post again, so it is a	t
matter of conjecture whether it continued or not — but twenty-two j.vears later in 1721 it does state ’that several hundred colonists landed and that part of them were delivered to the Madame Mezieres tract which was just north of Feli-.city Street. It is accepted that those members of d’Iberville’s little military outpost and the settlers on the Mezieres tract were the first families of Bay St. Louis —	'
but who they were, what properties they occupied and how long jtney stayed is unknown. f’ .
fUNDER' THREE FLAGS. ■ ,	■	'
IN' SIXTY YEARS Between 1721 and 1781 little or inothing is recorded "about Bay St.
!Louis specifically, but a great deal happened to the Gulf Coast of which it is a part. During those years it passed from France to England to Spain in a complicated international triple play. Here’s what happened.
I From 1699 until about 1763 the Fleur-de-lis of France enveloped ;all the vast new colony of Louisiana that stretched from the Great; 'Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and, from the Appalachians to the Rockies. But in 1762, anticipating |;her defeat in the long seven year, I’war with England for the control I of the North American continent, [France had secretly ceded alii of ILouisiana, west of and including !New Orleans, to Spain. This left: ‘the entire Gulf Coast still French until the Treaty of Paris, one year! later, gave the remaining portion, of the colony east of New Orleans,-which took in the Gulf Coast, to victorious England.	|
However, England held it only; a short time, because during the! American Revolution, Spain as our! ,aily -through her Governor Galvez; ; in New Orleans was very coopera-1 Itive in driving the British out of; :! the Gulf Coast — so that finallyi lithe Spanish flag waved over all; ['the entire former French Colony! 1 of Louisiana.	j
| These several changes of govern-] ment, however, did not disturb Bayj ||St. Louis much, if at all. For itj was not until 1781 that we encount-j ,.er the first property holding citi-; |/zens o' Bay St. Louis — aSpajjjfh nd grant within the citv limits1 ^^PWig^saucigj" ani 1 &noiner 'grant lo lyiaaaiijie^ Charlo. based
111. Ml	v-^l ^
an earlier claim of John B.. saucier also dated r/m. Which! seems to establish very definitely | the fact that Philip and John Sau-, cier were the first recorded settlers of Bay St. Louis. *	[
Other early Spanish grants are; important to list because of their later significance in *he Bay St. Louis story. Simon Favre obtained ia grant on the Pearl Rivei; at a jplace called Napoleon. His ciaim jwas dated 1798. Simon Favre was j married twice, his second wife be-|ing an Indian woman. But his historical importance lies in the fact' 'that he was the first government jofficial under American rule. That '.was when he .was' appointed in 1811, by Governor Claiborne's rep-j resentative, the . 'Justice of the! Peace of the parish ^of Biloxi,j which then took in’ the territory between the Pearl River and t.ie .Bay of Biloxi. And incidentally., jwhen that appointment occurred in 1811 there were only 420 inhabit-jants in that whole'parish of Biloxi, or “Vttoxy” as it was spelled then. ^	i
Another important early ’.ar.d ! grant went to Ambrose Gaines win gave his name to Gainesville at (the head of navigation on the west branch of the Pearl. Gainesville later struggled with Bay St. Lo’iis 'for possession of’ the county s<’at.
The two Jourdan Brothers, Noel arid John. T, had tracts on the river which carries their name. {But the Negroes confused this »:th Biblical River Jordan about (which they sang In their spirituals ‘ J	hantir.ed In
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