Our visit to Old Town Florissant last week was very interesting. I wrote previously about the Spanish government and military presence in the town during the 18th century. Today, I would like to share with you some of the French history of the town. The 1787 census listed Fleuressant de St. Ferdinand as having 40 residents in the village. Doing a bit of research on these early inhabitants, I found that they were largely French Canadians. A few came from Detroit, more had spent time in the older, more established French Creole communities of Cahokia and Kaskaskia. One family even came from Vincenes, Indiana. Those coming from the communities in Illinois (and Indiana) likely crossed the Mississippi River in the years following the 1763 Treaty of Paris which gave France’s colonial territory east of the Mississippi River over to the British. Many French chose to move west of the Mississippi at that time preferring to live under a Spanish government than a British one.

Among the early settlers in Florissant was the Aubuchon family. While the family came from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, they lived in Kaskaskia prior to moving to Florissant. Joesph Aubuchon was born in 1767 in Kaskaskia, where the family had lived for several generations. By the 1790’s the family was established in Florissant. Among their 14 children(this was a fairly typical sized family in the Pays des Illinois), was Auguste J. Aubuchon, born in 1811. He is among the many owners of the Aubuchon house built around 1800.

Other highlights of our visit to Old Town Florissant included a walk around the outside of the St. Ferdinand Shrine (I will be arranging a tour in the near future and will post about it after that) and finding this mural depicting the shrine and a Catholic Priest and Nun with indigenous people of the area and a family of (possibly later German) settlers.

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I hope you enjoyed this little tour of this lovely French historic district. Our visit provided me with so much inspiration for future posts.

Yesterday, my kids and I went exploring Old Town Florissant, MO. We took lots of pictures and I have several upcoming blog posts that will feature them. Old Town Florissant is situated in North St. Louis County surrounded by sprawling suburbs, largely built in the 1950’s. In Old Town, however, we get a glimpse of the area’s French and Spanish heritage.

Why were the Spanish in the French village of Fleurissant? To explain this we need to take a brief look at the geo-political events of the day. Florissant or Fleurissant is believed to have been settled around the same time as the city of St. Louis in 1764. In 1763, the global conflict known as the French and Indian War in the United States and the Seven Years War in Europe came to a close. In the treaty France was forced to give up its’ vast North American colonial territories. Those east of the Mississippi River became part of the British colonies and those to the west of the Mississippi River became part of Spain’s colonial holdings in North America.

By the time Fleurissant was setting up its’ first civil government in 1786, the village was within Spain’s colonial territory, with the Spanish referring to it as St. Ferdinand. Spain however, was not entirely interested in administering this vast territory however, though they valued it as a buffer between Mexico and the British. As a result, while a few established, larger communities, such as St. Louis and St. Genevieve had Spanish commandants, the Spanish General Alejandro O’Reily,who was based out of New Orleans, put Frenchman, Francois Dugenant in the position of civil and military commandant of St. Ferdninad. The village reportedly had a population of 40 people at this time.

Over time there were Spanish soldiers situated among the French inhabitant of St. Ferdinand. They drilled on the parcel of land now known as Spanish Land Grant Park. One of these soldiers, by the name of Eugenio Alvarez first moved to the village in 1770. He later went on to serve as the military storekeeper for St. Ferdinand. By the 1790’s he was living in a French style home, today, known as Casa Alvarez. This private home is on the National Register of Historic places and is considered to be one of the few remaining structures linking upper Louisiana to the Spanish.

Throughout the historic and cultural French creole sites surrounding St. Louis are nods to the Spanish who governed them. Old Town Florissant with it’s Shrine of St Ferdinand (much more on that in a future post), Casa Alvarez, St. Ferdinand Historic District and Spanish Land Grant Park particularly demonstrates the connection the largely culturally French settlers had with the Spanish Colonial Government that ruled them and became a part of the creole culture of the region.