Jean Baptiste Gamache – First Settler in Arnold
Jean Baptiste Gamache is one of thirty early pioneers honored by this monument, which was donated by the Gamache family and the St. Louis Archdiocese. The granite monument at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis identifies the earliest explorers and settlers in the region, and marks the final resting place of some of them.
The first European settler in Arnold was Jean Baptiste Gamache, born in 1734 in Quebec, Canada. He was a French-Canadian entrepreneur who operated a ferry across the Meramec River near about 900 acres of land granted to him by the King of Spain.
Jean Baptiste Gamache was one of 30 men in Pierre Laclede’s exploration party when Laclede founded St. Louis on Valentine’s Day in 1764. He was a land surveyor and adventurer who had met Laclede at Fort des Chartres in Prairie Du Rocher, Illinois, before joining Laclede’s party and crossing the Mississippi to Missouri.
When he left Laclede on St. Louis’ riverfront, Gamache moved to the Arnold/Carondelet area where he would eventually establish his ferry on the Meramec River. In 2002, the website Geneology.com published this article by Robert C. Haeffner telling how it happened:
“A convenient beginning date for the history of the Arnold area would be 1776, with the order of King Charles III of Spain to open a land route to stimulate commerce between the trading posts of St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve. As part of the route, the Lt. Governor of Louisiana, Francois Cruzat, offered 1050 arpents of land (about 893 acres) to anyone who would build and operate a ferry across the Meramec River.
“Jean Baptiste Gamache completed the project in 1776 and established what was known as the lower ferry at the site where today’s State Route 231 crosses the Meramec at Flamm Park.”
Gamache’s ferry was next to the King’s Trace, also known as El Camino Real (the Royal Road). It was an old Indian trail and bridle path that led south from St Louis, past Gamache’s ferry, to Kimmswick, Ste. Genevieve, and eventually to New Madrid. Called Rue Royale by the French, the King’s Trace was traveled by hunters, British, French and Spanish soldiers, and Native Americans from the mid-1700s well into the 1800s.
Most ferries of in the 1770s were flat-bottomed boats that operators poled, rowed, or sailed across the water, or they pulled a rope spanning the river and tied securely to tree trunks on both sides. Operating one of those ferries was tough work, particularly in flood season.
By building his ferry, Jean Baptiste Gamache enabled more travel and exploration in colonial Missouri. Little is known about Gamache’s life after he finished his land survey for the Spanish Dominion. In 1789, Native Americans and British troops threatened the Arnold area. Gamache then moved to the security of St. Louis for about two years.
This photo of the Flamm Park boat landing in Arnold as it appears today shows where Jean Baptiste Gamache operated his ferry across the Meramec River.
Upon his return to the Arnold area, Gamache operated his ferry, farmed his land, and raised a family on the property until he became old and his two sons – Jean Baptiste, Jr. and Auguste – took over the operations.
Jean Baptiste Gamache died at age 70 in 1805. It is said that Gamache’s 893-acre property granted to him by the King of Spain included what is known today as Jefferson Barracks.
Gerald Gamache, a college professor in St. Augustine, Florida, wrote a family history called Journeys: The Gamache Family in the New World. It recounts ten generations of the Gamache family from 1565 in France to the early 2000s in the United States.
In 2008, Gerald Gamache told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in an interview: “The U.S. government after the War of 1812 believed Washington, DC was not a good place for the nation’s capital. They thought the capital should be moved to Jefferson Barracks. Land speculators acquired land and sold it to the city of Carondolet for $5.”
The U.S. government never moved the capital, but Gamache said government officials had promised to return the land to his family when Jefferson Barracks was no longer useful to the military. That obviously never happened. As you know, the military maintains a national cemetery there.
Actors in a reenactment show how Missouri pioneers dressed in about 1780.
“Gamache descendants went to court three times trying to regain the land – in 1838, 1856, and for the last time in 1876.
“If the land grant is ever found, the government might have to compensate, but there would be Gamaches coming out of the woodwork laying claim,” said Gerald Gamache, who died in 2013.
Article by Jeff Dunlap for the City of Arnold