Historic St. Louis: 250 Years Exploring New Frontiers

L I T I G I O U S L A W Y E R S D U E L I N G T O T H E D E A T H
Deadly duels were extremely rare under the French and Spanish, and “there had been no murders in St. Louis for forty years”
prior to the Louisiana Purchase, according to Primm. But American attorneys, influenced by the traditional dueling culture of
the Old South, sought to defend their “honor as civilized gentlemen” by shooting other lawyers, often on “Bloody Island” in the
middle of the Mississippi River.
In 1810 the earliest notable duel involved attorney James A. Graham and Dr. Bernard G. Farrar of Kentucky—a second who had
to stand in for his cowardly brother-in-law when he failed to appear. Farrar mortally wounded the man he had no grievance against
and then offered medical assistance.
In 1817, only a year after arriving in St. Louis from Tennessee, future U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton killed lawyer Charles Lucas,
son of his political rival, Judge J. B. C. Lucas. It was their second duel, after both men had been wounded three months earlier.
The most spectacular duel on Bloody Island occurred in August 26, 1831, when Congressman Spencer Pettis faced off against
U. S. Army Major Thomas Biddle. They stood only five feet apart and fired simultaneously. A large crowd on the riverbank heard
the chilling result, “both mortally wounded!” Pettis died the next day at the age of 29, while Biddle succumbed two days later,
aged 41. Senator Benton, a close friend of Pettis, wrote a stirring account of “one of the most desperate encounters that had ever
occurred in the country,” an essay circulated in newspapers throughout the nation.
John Smith “T” (identifying his Tennessee roots) claimed that he had killed 14 men in duels, including a nephew of former
Vice President Aaron Burr. He was always acquitted and strolled St. Louis streets with four pistols, a rifle, and two knives.
In addition to the standard “pistols at ten paces,” an 1845 duel was fought with swords, and in 1857, adversaries considered
using rifles at sixty paces. A. B. Chambers and Thomas B. Hudson shot a total of six bullets at each other, missing every time,
and ended their dispute without bloodshed. Duels continued until the Civil War, but they were outlawed in the 1865 state
constitution—a provision that remained until 1945!
Changing Street Names from French to
English—a map by Musick in his St. Louis
as a Fortified Town; copyright expired.
In 1826, the St. Louis city council adopted a
“modern” system of naming most downtown
streets for trees (Walnut, Pine, Chestnut,
etc.) like Philadelphia. Market Street and
Washington Avenue were already too
familiar to change, however.
In 1822, the state legislature made St. Louis
an official “city” with a mayor and 9 original
aldermen. The city’s population had increased
300 percent by 1818, and in the early 1820s,
it had 5,500 residents, with another 4,200
people living on the outskirts. When
Pennsylvania native, Dr. William Carr Lane,
defeated both Auguste and Pierre Chouteau
in successive elections for mayor of St. Louis
in the mid-1820s, the 155 old French families
realized that an ever-expanding population
of foreigners would forever put them at
a disadvantage at the polls. A 187 percent
increase in immigrants between 1810 and
1820, and another 208 percent from 1820
to 1840, had diluted the French population
and diminished the recognition of their
past contributions among the new citizens.
A visiting Parisian observed that the city’s
“rich, esteemed French” residents were
H I S T O R I C S T . L O U I S
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