Wayne Joerling and I grew up together in Marthasville, I even worked with him on my family farm during the 1950s. What a wonderful surprise to me when his daughter Jan Joerling-Leonard contacted me on June 18, 2006 asking for a signed copy of La Charrette to present to her Dad for Father’s Day. We exchanged payment for the signed copy of La Charrette. Later Jan wrote:

             ”I can not thank you enough for accommodating                              my request so graciously and expediently!”

And if that wasn’t enough, Jan and I shared other valued moments in our lives to include her Uncle Herb Joerling serving as my science teacher in Washington High School for four years launching my career in the biological sciences.

Thanks Joerlings, one and all, for your interest and support.

La Charrette copies make great gifts for any occasion. Let me hear of your wishes.         

Indian Phillips, a Shawnee, was a favorite companion of Boones. The Draper file indicates that Boone “… could speak and understand the Shawnee language sufficiently for the purposes of ordinary conversation: The squaws appeared shy, & wouldn’t talk; they are generally less talkative with the whites than the men. Boone visited them at their settlement in Missouri, & these friendly visits were interchanged several times”.

Other passages indicate that Phillips could speak English at least equal to that of Boone’s capacity for Shawnee.

But by 1813 Boone, son-in-law Flanders Callaway and his black slaves of La Charrette left the village in pirogues to escape the Shawnee who were threatening. “…several of these pirogues were leashed together; & several ran on a Sawyer descending the Missouri, & all the goods were lost. The whites & blacks on board were saved, clinging to the wreck till they were rescued. Thus Col. Boone lost all his books & papers, which were on board.”

Continuing:  ” The most of the white people went down by land - Col. Boone, Callaway’s, Lemme’s [Lammes], the families of David Bryan & his brother, and the two Ramsey famalies, were among the number. James Boone (son of Nathan B.) & sister Delinda were at the time at Charrette going to school.”  

The two Ramsey families represented one of those that were massacred by Indians in 1815. American frontier life at La Charrette… and the complexities of the Boone-Phillips relationship.  

Friend Cathie Schoppenhorst of Marthasville, Missouri sent me copies of Stephen Hempstead’s interview with Lyman Draper in 1814 when in Boone’s Lick Country, Missouri recalling Indian Phillips. As I compiled La Charrette it was not possible to include every detail on each topic or individual. Yet I became facinated with the elusive Phillips. I’ll be posting several items about him, when he and friend Daniel Boone roamed the environs shown on Margy Mile’s web page at http://www.mpcps.org/boone/missouri/marthasville/main.shtml  Here is the first installment:

Indian Phillips was a tall spare man - was at one time with the Shawnees; It was said he was with the Marauders who invester the Ohio River [about 1790] & decoyed boats ashore; it was said too, that he whipped Simon Kenton, when a pioneer in 1778 with the Shawnees with his ramrod, & in Missouri (probably when Kenton was in ‘Boone’ county) the whites would scare him by saying Kenton was coming to kill him. Don’t know what became of him. He was apparently 50 years old or more in 1814.  

Notes transcribed from page 130, under heading “Indian Phillips - Boone’s Lick Country - 1814.”

The Marthasville Record (now Warren County Record) publishes a folkish and interesting segment entitled “Do You Remember?” To check your memory bank subtitles are 25 Years Ago, 50 Years Ago and 100 Years Ago. In a 2004 issue appeared an item under the “100 Years Ago” subtitle which caught my attention. It follows:

“A ghost was reported seen on the Charrette bridge west of Marthasville recently. A good number of the young men in Charrette Bottom have not ventured to cross the bridge after dark since that time.”

I passed this location and crossed the bridge 1,000s of times. Charrette Bridge was on what had been Widow St. Franceway’s farm in 1804, and on the road home for me. Widow St. Franceway’s farm and my family Schake farm joined at about the location of Charrette bridge.

Ghost or not, the new modern bridge on State Highway 94 is located just a bit further east than was the older one.    

May 5, 2006. Following the May 4, 2006 book signing and donation event in the Schowengerdt House hosted by the Warren County Historical Society, an informative article appeared in the Surban Journals carrying the above title. Excerpts follow:

“I had to get this signed, because I used to swim in Charrette Creek,” Gerry Murphy said as she reminised about her childhood, growing up in the area west of Marthasville.

Visitor Vickie Logston said she and the author share ancestors from a century ago. Logston, who now lives in Jefferson County, traded distant family names and memories with Schake, as he wrote a short message in her copy of “La Charrette.”

And so the eventful evening progressed.  

Sarah Olinger of the Surburn Journals, Warrenton Journal was one of the journalists covering the event. Her two page coverage was an excellent report. Later, she apologized to me for referring to this work of history as a novel, but not to worry, a subsequent disclaimer soon followed!   

April 27, 2006. St. Louis, MO. The almost forgotten village of La Charrette - the first settlement in present-day Warren County and the westernmost settlement of the Louisiana Purchase - returns to life in the works of retired professor Lowell M. Schake, was the lead paragraph of this St. Louis Post Dispatch article.

This missing link in American history will be featured by the Warren County Historical Society from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Schowengerdt House, 308 East Booneslick Road, Warrenton, the article noted. It continues to chronical highlights of village history concluding with my donating La Charrette reference materials acquired while compiling its history to the Society.

Two of Missouri’s most prestigious magazines carried reviews of La Charrette in their June 2006 issues. Ozarks magazine presented an impressive half-page plus spread picturing the front cover on page 46. Missouri Life included La Charrette along with other new selections on page 69. Both offered comments enticing to their readerships. (Ozarks had a little faux pas over the supposed absence of an index, but a retraction will be forthcoming). 

In both cases, I wish to thank the Editors, Susan Kirkpatrick of Ozarks and Danita Allen Wood of Missouri Life, for their support in helping tell the La Charrette Village story.

Stop by your local news stand to acquire a copy, or visit their web pages on-line for more details. Better yet, subscribe to these enjoyable and informative midwestern magazines, then buy your copyHERE.

Were you aware that La Charrette: A History of the Village Gateway to the American Frontier Visited by Lewis and Clark * Daniel Boone * Zebulon Pike was also available as an e-book selection? Proceed to the iUniverse, Inc. bookstore at http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-80603-1 for details. Others sources also carry both the paperback and the e-book versions.

Were you aware that La Charrette: A History of the Village Gateway to the American Frontier Visited by Lewis and Clark * Daniel Boone * Zebulon Pike was also available as an e-book selection? Proceed to the iUniverse, Inc. bookstore at http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-80603-1 for details. Others sources also carry both the paperback and the e-book versions.

Okay, I’ll be 68 in just two more days. Don’t mean to wish myself Happy Birthday but must share this commerative event with you as an expanded side-bar to history. No, this is not my baby spoon.

Rather it is an official 1903 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis silver spoon commerating the hundreth anniversary of the event so intimately connected to La Charrette Village life, Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, Indian Phillips, Daniel Boone, and all the rest of those representing the American frontier.

My sister Virginia Gallian sent it to me as my birthday present. As I told her, its absolutely the most unique birthday gift ever. Her friend in California, Lorraine Dameron, help her acquire it. At some time since issued and sold in St. Louis, it sold for $35.00 as indicated by a price tag attached to one side. The spoon is ornately engraved with greater detail than possible to show here. I’ll try to obtain better pictures of it to show its unique attributes later. What its value may be today is not known to me but if anyone can provide greater details about this historical spoon, please let us know.

Post-Event Update

Over 1,500 students learned about the first and most western settlement of the Louisiana Purchase during these presentations. They had studied about Lewis and Clark and Zebulon Pike earlier this year. Uniformly they were interested in the village, especially as I related what life was like there for the nine orphan children, Native American children associated with the drowning of Joseph Chorette, slave children and others living at the village. One young man was so caught-up in the moment that he asked during the question and answer session, “Did you meet Lewis and Clark?”

Stacey Guess, DISD Social Studies Coordinator sent me the above picture with Dr. Dean Anthony, McNair Elementary Principal, introducing me with an hearing impared translator working at my left. We met in cafeterias and gyms throughout the Districts 15 schools with a 100 or more students attending each time. The three-day schedule was filled with excitement and anticipation. Plans are to repeat this event next year, perhaps to include my presenting information on LARRY, my next book title, about an exceptional amateur naturalist who helped save three endangered species, the Whooping Crane among them.

The Warren County Record of Thursday, April 27, 2006 (Vol 108, Number 48) presented a three column story on La Charrette with the lead headline shown as the title above. Its subtitle proclaims, “Author Lowell Schake Will Autograph Book on Rich History of Village of La Charrette.” Record Editor Charlie Deen interviewed me for this article by phone while I was in Denton, Texas attending the North Texas Book Festival earlier in the month.

“As a child growing up near the now almost forgotten village of La Charrette, Lowell Schake spent countless hours combing his parent’s farm for Indian arrowheads and other historical artifacts,” was the lead paragraph. Later Denn concludes with “These days Schake travels around the country in speaking engagements and book signings.”