272 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



money with absolutely no reeults, and after five years, he retroceded 

 to the crown all his privileges. The same month, August 1717, after 

 the retrocession, a new company, called "The Company of the West," 

 under John Law, was invested with a new grant from the crown of 

 France, with still greater privileges than those assured to Crozat. You 

 are all familiar with the general facts of that great speculation com- 

 monly known as the " Mississippi bubble." You remember how the 

 genius, the financial abilities and the influence of M. Law, together with 

 the prospect of fabulous gain, caused capitalists, both great and small 

 to flock from all quarters to enroll themselves as members of the com- 

 pany and partake of the promised wealth ; how the extravagant antici- 

 pations of this company were equaled only by the signal disappoint- 

 ment which soon followed upon the venture ; and how many who came 

 to the Mississippi valley under this leader were thrown upon their own 

 resources, as had been others before them. 



But ihe stranded members of the companies which had been so 

 unsuccessfully managed by Law and Crozat did not abandon the hope 

 of eventually finding the precious ores, which had been the main object 

 of their pilgrimage to this region, and it was through a few of these 

 individuals that some of the most valuable discoveries of lead in our 

 State were made. On the Meramec river, one of these adventurers, 

 Sieur de Lochon by name, in 1719, did the first lead mining of which 

 there is any authentic record in what is now the State of Missouri. 



The tide of immigration set in motion by the schemes of these 

 visionary men was not checked by the failure of their hopes; miners, 

 mechanics, agriculturlists and workmen of all descriptions had made 

 the journey to this country, and many of them could not turn back if 

 they would ; so, from time to time, we begin to date the permanent 

 settlement of Missouri and the cultivation of her soil, which promised 

 a more immediate, if not so brilliant, return for their efforts than the 

 original object of their search. 



From among these people there has been handed down to us the 

 name of Philip Renault, son of a noted iron founder in France, who 

 had been sent over as agent for the " Company of the West," and who 

 brought with him 200 miners, with necessary implements, and 600 

 slaves purchased in San Domingo. Renault, accompanied by La 

 Motte, who was an accomplished mineralogist for those days, headed 

 the exploring parties sent out in Illinois and Missourj, and Renault 

 discovered, in (about) 1724, the rich lead mines north of Potosi, which 

 are still called after him, and La Motte, in 1723-24, those on the St. 

 Francis river which bear his name. A great deal of mining was done 

 in this part of Missouri by these men, the lead produced supplying the 



