In the main it contained no unusual features.  Through the personal influence of D’Iberville at Louis’ court, Alphonse de Beaucaire had originally received a royal grant of ten thousand acres of land bordering the west bank of the Mississippi a few miles above St. Louis.  When his master returned to France leaving him unemployed, Beaucaire, possessing ample means of his own, had preferred to remain in America.  In flatboats, propelled by voyageurs, and accompanied by a considerable retinue of slaves, he, with his family, had ascended the river, and finally settled on his princely estate.  Here he erected what, for those early days, was a stately mansion, and devoted himself to cultivating the land.  Twenty years later, when his death occurred, he possessed the finest property along the upper river, was shipping heavily to the New Orleans market, and was probably the most influential man in all that section.  His home was considered a palace, always open to frontier hospitality, the number of his slaves had increased, a large proportion of his land was utilized, and his name was a familiar one the length of the river.

His only son, Felipe, succeeded him, but was not so successful in administration, seriously lacking in business judgment, and being decidedly indolent by nature.  Felipe married into one of the oldest and most respectable families of St. Louis, and, as a result of that union, had one son, Lucius, who grew up reckless of restraint, and preferred to spend his time in New Orleans, rather than upon the plantation.  Lucius was a young man of twenty-six, unsettled in habits when the father died, and, against his inclination, was compelled to return to Missouri and assume control of the property.  He found matters in rather bad condition, and his was not at all the type of mind to remedy them.  Much of the land had been already irretrievably lost through speculation, and, when his father’s obligations had been met, and his own gambling debts paid, the estate, once so princely and magnificent, was reduced to barely five hundred acres, together with a comparatively small amount of cash.  This condition sufficed to sober Lucius for a few years, and he married a Menard, of Cape Girardeau, of excellent family but not great wealth, and earnestly endeavored to rebuild his fortunes.  Unfortunately his reform did not last.  The evil influences of the past soon proved too strong for one of his temperament.  A small town, redolent of all the vices of the river, grew up about the Landing, while friends of other days sought his hospitality.  The plantation house became in time a rendezvous for all the wild spirits of that neighborhood, and stories of fierce drinking bouts and mad gambling were current in St. Louis.

Common as such tales as these were in those early days of the West, I still remained boy enough in heart to feel a fascination in Thockmorton’s narrative.  Besides, there was at the time so little else to occupy my mind that it inevitably drifted back to the same topic.