Festivities of the Early French of
Illinois. Hand colored wood engraving from the
Historical Collections of the Great West, by Henry Howe, 1854, p.89.
Courtesy Missouri Historical Society
Information on Festivities in Colonial St. Louis:
The people of St. Louis loved feasts and
festivals. Every month of the year had at least one, and even Sundays
were days of merriment. Capt. Amos Stoddard of the U.S. Army observed
in 1804 that:
"Perhaps the levities displayed and
the amusements pursued by the French people on Sunday may be considered
by some to border on Licentiousness. They attend mass in the morning
with great devotion; but after the exercises of the church are over,
they usually collect in parties and pass away their time in social
and merry intercourse. They play at billiards and other games, and
to balls and assemblies the Sundays are particularly devoted. To
those educated in regular and pious Protestant habits such parties
and amusements appear unreasonable, strange and odious. . . When
questioned relative to their gaiety on Sundays, they will answer
that men were made for happiness, and that the more they are able
to enjoy themselves the more acceptable they are to their creator."
Amusements included horse racing, although
there was no official track. There were two billiard rooms in St.
Louis as early as 1767, and a third was opened later. Dancing and
card-playing were also popular. Another day of celebration was the
annual Catholic feast day of St. Louis (the saint, not the city),
on August 25. Christmas and New Years were also special holidays
in early St. Louis.
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