[116] John B. Sarpy and his two younger brothers, Gregoire B. and Silvestre D. came to America from France about the middle of the eighteenth century. After engaging in the mercantile business in New Orleans, John B. went to St. Louis (1766) and was one of its earliest merchants. After twenty years' residence there, he returned to New Orleans. His nephew of the same name, at the age of nineteen (1817) was a partner with Auguste Chouteau and was later a member of the firm of P. Chouteau Jr. and Company, one of the largest fur companies then in America. Pierre Menard (1766-1844) was in Vincennes as early as 1788. He later made his home at Kaskaskia, and held many positions of public trust in Illinois Territory. He was made major of the first regiment of the Randolph County militia (1795), was appointed judge of common pleas in the same county (1801), and United States sub-agent of Indian affairs (1813). He was also a member of several important commissions, notably of that appointed to make treaties with the Indians of the Northwest. His brothers, Hippolyte and Jean François, settled at Kaskaskia. The former was his brother's partner; the latter a well-known navigator on the Mississippi River. Michel Menard, nephew of Pierre, had much influence among the Indians and was chosen chief of the Shawnee. He founded the city of Galveston, Texas. Pierre Menard left ten children. Henry Gustavus Soulard, the second son of Antoine Pierre Soulard, was born in St. Louis (1801). Frederic Louis Billon, in his _Annals of St. Louis_ (1889), mentions him as the last survivor of all those who were born in St. Louis prior to the transfer of Louisiana to the United States (1803). For short sketches of the Chouteaus, see James's _Long's Expedition_, in our volume xvi, p. 275, note 127, and Maximilian's _Travels_, in our volume xxii, p. 235, note 168; for Pratte and Cabanné, see our volume xxii, p. 282, note 239, and p. 271, note 226, respectively.--ED. [117] Within six years after the founding of St. Louis, the first Catholic church was built. This log structure falling into ruins, was replaced in 1818 by a brick building. The corner-stone of the St. Louis cathedral (incorrectly written in Flagg as cathedral of St. Luke) was laid August 1, 1831, and consecrated October 26, 1834.--ED. [118] The painting of St. Louis was presented by Louis XVIII to Bishop Louis Guillaume Valentin Du Bourg, while the latter was in Europe (1815-17).--ED. [119] For the early appreciation of fine arts in St. Louis, see the chapter entitled "Art and Artists," written by H. H. Morgan and W. M. Bryant in Scharf, _St. Louis_, ii, pp. 1617-1627. Scharf, in speaking of the paintings in the St. Louis cathedral says, "of course the paintings of the old masters are copies, not originals."--ED. [120] In this outline of the Cathedral the author is indebted largely to a minute description by the Rev. Mr. Lutz, the officiating priest, published in the Missouri Gazetteer.--FLAGG.