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Bay St. Louis an maian village before Bienville
Editor’s note: A Golden Jubilee Edition of The Sea Coast Echo was published in 1942 with Charles G. Moreau, the Echo’s founder as publisher. The following article was contributed for the Golden Jubilee Edition by Rev. Leo F. Fahey of Bay St. Louis, who was later ordained as a Bishop at Our Lady rf the Gulf Catholic Church, Bay St. Louis.
By Rev. Leo F. Fahey Long before the advent of the-French explorers, the City of 3ay St. Louis was in Indian vil-age bearing the name of Chica-)ula. Here the primitive child-■en of the Choctaw-Muskogean amily lived in a veritable lappy hunting ground, for the reator gave this Gulf Coast a pecial touch of beauty; and to upply the needs of His people, le filled the waters with abun-ant fish and the forests with lenteous game.
In all probability, Robert Ca-alier de la Salle was the first rhite man to explore this part f the coast.
According to Jacques de la letairie, the official historian f this expedition, La Salle de-;ended to the mouth of the lississippi River; and on April , 1682, he went to reconnoiter le shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
.) In 1868, Tonti the Faithful iend of LaSalle came as far as le Gulf to seek tidings of his st leader. On this trip Tonti cammed the coast 30 leagues wards Mexico and 25 leagues wards Florida. (2)
When Pierre le Moyne Iberville came to plant the eur de Lis of France on the alf Coast, the historian tells i: “On the 12th of April, 1699, [berville set out to visit a bay lout nine leagues from Ship land, to which he gave the
name St. Louis. But finding the water very shallow there, he concluded to fix his settlement at Biloxi. (3)
1.	Mississippi The Heart of the South, Rowlands, Vol. 1, p. 129
2.	Mississippi, Province, Territory, State, Claiborne, p. 16
3.	Historical Collections of La. French, Vol. 3, p. 15
This, however, was just a casual visit to sound the depths of the water, and it remains for his brother, Jean Baptiste le Moyne Bienville, to set foot on the land and give it the present name.
Let us read the account of this event as described by Peni-cault, the journalist from the frigate Le Marin: “We shortly afterwards found a beautiful bay, about one league in width by four in circumference, which was named Bay of St. Louis, because it was on the day of St. Louis we arrived there.
“We hunted there three days and killed 50 deer.”... “The writer describes a trip up the Mississippi River, and on returning he writes: “Next day we camped at the entrance of Bay St. Louis near a fountain of water that flows down from the hills, which Moyne Bienville named Belle Fontaine. (1). We hunted several days around this bay and filled our boats with venison, buffalo and other game. (2) According to this evidence it is safe to say that Bay St. Louis was discovered and named by Bienville on the Feast of St. Louis, Aug. 25, 1699.
1.	Belle Fontaine is now called Pine Hills.
2.	Mississippi, Claiborne, p. 20.
These first visits of d’Iberville and Bienville estab-
lished a happy precedent, and soon colonists from Biloxi found their way to this land of plenty.
The Hon. J. F. H. Claiborne, author of Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, was well acquainted with the history of Bay St. Louis; for he lived for years on a plantation a few miles south of the Bay, now called Claiborne, Miss.
In an address delivered at Bay St. Louis, July 4, 1876, to commemorate the centennary of the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Claiborne said: "In December of the same year, 1699, d’Iberville placed a few families here in (Bay St. Louis) with a sergeant and 15 men. in a small fort, near where the Toulme Mansion (Judge Chandler’s) now stands."
(1. Toulme Mansion was located on the beach between Carroll Avenue and DeMontlu-zin Street, Where Dr. C. L. Horton now resides).
On Jan. 3,1721, two ships. La Gironde and La Volage arrived with about 300 persons for concessions of M. LeBlanc and Court Bellville on the Yazoo River, and Madame Mezieres of the Bay of St. Louis, and Madame Chaumont on Pascagoula Bay.
From the record of land grants it would appear that the colony of Madame Mezieres settled on a 17,084 acre grant north of Felicity Street. The colonists sent over by d’Iberville and Madame Mezieres were the pioneer settlers of Bay St. Louis.
During this period the “filles a la cassette” or Casket Girls, arrived from France. These women were imported to furnish brides for the colonists.
Some were sent by force, others came willingly; some were of questionable morals,, others were of irreproachable character.