Near St. Louis, Lewis and Clark organized their expedition via the Missouri and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean, departing in May, 1804. In August Lieutenant Zebulon Pike started to explore the Mississippi to its source. The Mississippi was opened up to free navigation. General William Henry Harrison came from Indiana to preside over the district. He was succeeded by General James Wilkinson, and the region formerly known as the District of Louisiana became known as the Territory of Louisiana. Later a strangely handsome, dark, romantic man, much honored by every one and indescribably fascinating in manner, visited the town and was fêted. He was entertained by General Wilkinson, through whom it is believed the authorities at Washington first learned of that vast, vague treason which Burr--for it was he--conceived in his restless brain. Wilkinson was later appointed to watch Burr and was succeeded as Governor by Captain Meriwether Lewis, fresh from his adventures in the mysterious Northwest. A ferry had been established in 1797, and at the same spot there is to-day a ferry operating, one of the most profitable of the vested interests of St. Louis. The post-office was established in 1804. In 1810 the population was fourteen thousand. In 1808 was founded the first newspaper, which exists to-day as the _St. Louis Republic_, a daring enterprise begun when the whole country was suffering from the embargo and non-intercourse with England. The great New Madrid earthquake shook the little city in 1811. The battle of Tippecanoe had been fought a little before the earthquake, and in the same year appeared the first steamboat in Western waters. In 1813 the Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of Missouri, and in June of that year the Bank of St. Louis was founded. The year before that the Governor of the Territory had gathered in the city of St. Louis the chiefs of the Great and Little Osages, the Sacs, Foxes, Delawares, and Shawnees, made peace with them, then conducted them to Washington, arriving there just before the declaration of war against Great Britain, in time to conclude a peace which saved the country from any such conspiracy as had been formed among the Indian tribes to the east, under the leadership of the great Tecumseh.