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2-THE SEA COAST ECHO, TERCENTENNIAL EDITION, THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1999
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Bay St. Louis
early history
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Georgette Hall and Roland Weston
(Excerpted from the publication “Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, 1858-1958 Celebrating 100 Years of Ilncorporation. ”)
Nestled in what appears to be the curved arm of Mother Nature along the Gulf Coast lies the City of Bay St. Louis.
Just before the land touches the warm waters of Bay St. Louis from which the town gets its name, there is a ribbon of white beach which meets the ever present, ever moving and changeable waters of the Bay.
Just beyond the beach the city begins, shaded by large oaks draped with Spanish moss, tall stately pines and sycamores, and shrubs and flowers that enrich the surroundings and provide unusual, almost exotic, color during every season of the year.
The history and romance of this area have produced many questions which are frequently
CongratMMlations
City of
on your Tercentennial Celebration
from
The Hospitality City of Mayor John Thomas Longo
asked regarding the early, middle and late history of the Gulf Coast.
Who was the first European to set eyes or feet upon the lands that are washed by the Gulf of Mexico? What was his nationality and in what year did those things happen?
In 1394 to King John of Portugal and his queen, Philippa, a son was bom who was to be known as Prince Henry the Navigator. As two older brothers stood between him and the throne Henry gave his attention almost exclusively to the study of the mathematical sciences and navigation.
Intending to devote his life to the exploration of the unknown lands and seas to the south, he erected an observatory and established a school of navigation and map-mak-ing.
In this school were trained the most intelligent, enterprising and daring navigators of Europe; and their discoveries under his tutelage and inspiration, startled the world. It was shortly before the year 1500 that Gaspar Cortereal under the patronage of the Portuguese throne sailed into the West presumably taking the course charted by Columbus.
When Gaspar and his men returned to Portugal a map of the new discoveries was made, this map shows for the first time the peninsula of Florida with a part of the Gulf Coast to the west.
It is believed by many historians that this map is sufficient proof that Gaspar shortly before 1500 was the discoverer of the Gulf Coast and that the Portuguese occupation of this area, although temporary and unofficial, antedated both the Spanish and French occupations by 200 years.
Other historians begin the explorations of this part of the
Coast with Robert Cavalier de LaSalle who descended to the mouth of the Mississippi River and on April 7, 1682, reconnoi-tered the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1688 Tonti, the faithful friend of LaSalle, came as far as the Gulf to seek tidings of his lost leader.
Tonti examined the Coast 30 leagues towards Mexico and 25 leagues towards Florida. When Pierre le Monye d’Iberville came to plant the Fleur de Lis of France on the Gulf Coast on April 12, 1699, he visited a bay about nine leagues from Ship Island to which he gave the name St. Louis, in memory of Louis IX of France, crusader and saint.
Finding the waters of the Bay very shallow, Iberville decided to place his settlement at Biloxi. Iberville only sounded the depths of the water, but his brother, Jean Baptiste le Moyne Bienville, set foot on the land and gave it its present name, on the Feast of St. Louis, August 25, 1699.
Pericault, the journalist from the frigate Le Marin writes of their adventures as follows:
“We	shortly	afterward
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 that we arrived there.
“We hunted for three days, and killed 50 deer. 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 (now Pine Hills). We hunted several days around this Bay and filled our boats with venison, buffalo and other game.”
The French explorers apparently found the Indians of this area to be friendly. They were Choctaws, by far the strongest tribe in Mississippi.
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A fragment of this tribe had settled in Hancock County in the southern part near Bayou Philip.
They were full blooded Indians and called their village Chicapula, which means “bad grass,” the name probably referring to the numerous rock-a-chaws which abounded in sections of the land.
In December 1799, d’Iberville placed a few families in Bay St. Louis with a sergeant and 15 men. On Jan. 3, 1721, two ships, La Gironde and La Volage arrived with about 300 persons for concessions of M. La Blanc and Court Bellville on the Yazoo River and Madame Mezieres on the Bay of St. Louis and Madame Chaumont on the 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 settles of Bay St. Louis.
The county remained under the French flag until 1763 when the settlement at the close of the Seven Years War (French and Indian War) gave it to Britain.
In 1793 at the close of the American Revolution, the land passed as West Florida to Spanish rule. In the fall of 1800, Spain secretly ceded Louisiana to Napoleon by the Treaty of San Ildephonso.
Spain, however, remained in actual possession of this territory. A diplomatic triple play was executed at New Orleans in the fall of 1803 when Louisiana went from Spain to France to the United States within a space of 20 days.
The first written records of habitation in Hancock County show that^aTaruLgrant dated 1781 witEin the limits ofUKtT preseniTcity of Hay Mt.~Louis~~ was in the name onginallyTif Philip Saucier.
^The~lan3~~'passed later to Marshall an3 Joseph Nicaise. Another very early grant,
—adjointng~THe~PhiKp ~ Saucier^ Nicaise_^rant and including tHe land on which The heart of fhe~pfesenL City of Bav St. Louis is huilt was that of Madame Chorlo, also originat-mg~iriri78i.
v TheTone thing clear, is that Philip-"irid John B. Saucier were "The _first^ residents of recordin Bay St. Louis and the present^ancockCounty. —
lfPT807 there was a grant to Amos Burnett for the land on which was situated the old Indian village and is the site oi the present city of Bay St Louis.
Joseph Chalone who settlec
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