engaged in a quarrel with Charles Lucas, United States Attorney for the Territory of Missouri, and in a duel across the river, or rather on an island in the river that has since become joined to the Illinois shore, killed him. The place where the duel was fought became the rendezvous for duellists and was called "Bloody Island." In 1817 the first Bible Society in the Territory of Missouri was formed. The inflation of the day ended as usual in collapse, but St. Louis and Missouri suffered less harm than other sections. When, in 1818, the Territory of Missouri applied for admission to the Union the slavery question arose. There was a slight preponderance of sentiment in favor of slavery, but very slight. The Missouri Compromise left its mark on Missouri and St. Louis. The State was always regarded, however its representatives stood, as doubtful on the slavery issue. From 1820 to the breaking out of the Civil War it was always a compromise State and in that war it was ever between two fires, furnishing soldiers in startling abundance to each side and sympathizing with both. St. Louis suffered in that long drawn out situation. A paralyzing incertitude was bred in the city's mind, even toward progress. The people, especially the French, did not take kindly to steamboats. "When Missouri was admitted to the Union," says Elihu Shepard, "there was no steamboat owned in the State and but one steam mill." The assessed valuation of the town property was less than $1,000,000 and the whole corporation tax less than $4000 per year while Missouri remained a territory. The town contained six hundred houses, one third of which were of stone or brick, the remainder wooden, one half of which were framed. The population was estimated at five thousand, one fourth of whom were French. The estimated annual value of the trade was $600,000. Steamboats from the Ohio River took the carrying trade between St. Louis and New Orleans, and the imports were estimated at $1,000,000. All these conditions, while due in some measure to the extreme conservatism and self-satisfaction of the dominant French element, were undoubtedly due in larger measure to the hard times that prevailed when Missouri became a State. St. Louis was incorporated as a city December 9, 1822. A spice of adventure always entered into the then predominant business of the community, for the fur companies fought with each other, and all of them made common cause against the great Hudson Bay Company in the North, with its headquarters in Canada. The people of that time thought little of distances which even now seem great. Traders and trappers went without hesitation through the wilderness to the very surf of the Pacific and the people of the city never dreamed that what we now call Yellowstone Park was very far away. Often enough the adventurous commercial traveller who left St. Louis came back without his scalp or never came at all. The city was picturesque.