Historic St. Louis: 250 Years Exploring New Frontiers

Les Indiens Osages, one of two matching
1827 lithographs of original portraits by
Parisian artist, Louis-Leopold Boilly.
This shows three of the six Osages,
most prominently the woman, Mohongo
(“Sacred Sun”), who went to Europe in 1827
with St. Louis promoter, David Dulauney,
and interpreter Paul Loise, a Chouteau
metis. They performed popular native
dances for French, Dutch, and German
crowds and met King Charles X. But they
were abandoned and stranded in France,
until Lafayette and Bishop DuBourg paid
for their passage home in 1830. That strong
French connection continues today, as the
Osage Nation selects young men and
women to make a similar journey.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR’S COLLECTION.
of the Society of the Sacred Heart. They
founded a convent school in St. Charles—
“the first free school for American and Creole
girls west of the Mississippi”—according to
Barbara O. Korner. She noted that the
“Society of the Sacred Heart was the only one
of the six European orders that came to
America prior to 1830 that survived.” Its
local legacy also included a similar school for
French girls and a female Indian seminary,
both based in Florissant, because property in
downtown St. Louis was too expensive, having
increased 500 percent in only two years.
DuBourg’s equally energetic successor—
and the first bishop of the Diocese of
St. Louis—was Joseph Rosati. His leadership
helped St. Louisans forget the funding
nightmare associated with the brick church
and redirected community efforts to create
a beautiful limestone cathedral worthy of a
growing city of increasing fame. After three
years of construction, his masterpiece was
H I S T O R I C S T . L O U I S
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