The next Irishman who figured prominently in the early history of St. Louis was Mr. Jeremiah Connor. He came to St. Louis in 1805. He was the third sheriff of that city, appointed by Governor Wilkinson in 1806, serving as such for four years and acting also as collector and treasurer. He laid out Washington Avenue, one of the finest streets of the city, through the center of his private property, which he generously relinquished to the city without consideration. When Bishops Flaget and Dubourg came to St. Louis in 1818, the latter to establish his Episcopal residence there, Jeremiah Connor donated a thousand dollars towards his reception. Later he gave the bishop the site afterwards occupied by the Jesuit Church and College, known as the St. Louis University. [Illustration: HON. ZENAS W. BLISS. Lieutenant-Governor of Rhode Island. A New Member of the Society. ] Another son of the Emerald Isle, a man of ability and prominence, was Joseph Charless, Sr., who was born in Westmeath in 1772. Being implicated in the Irish rebellion in 1795, he fled to France and thence to America in 1796. After a few years’ stay in Philadelphia he removed to Louisville, Ky. He came to St. Louis in 1808, where he established the first newspaper west of the Mississippi River—the _Missouri Gazette_, the name being afterwards changed to _Missouri Republican_ when under the management of his son Edward in 1822. It continues to this day under the name of the _St. Louis Republic_. Alexander McNair, born in Pennsylvania of Irish parents, was the fourth sheriff in St. Louis, succeeding Jeremiah Connor in that office. During the war of 1812 he raised a company of Mounted Rangers of which he was elected the captain. In 1816, when Congress established a land office for the St. Louis district, he was appointed by President Madison the first register of the same, and held office four years until he was elected, in 1820, the first governor of the state.