The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-17
This stone was erected to the
memory OF
JOHN RoEIDEAUX
Who was shot py request OF
his brother

Joseph is the brother at whose request
the stone was erected and who forgot to
have the stone properly punctuated.
This country in the early days was in
vaded by the Sacs and Foxes. A humor-
Saxon Foxes, but that would be facetious
license.
A steamboat landing was erected here at
great expense by driving a pole into the
river bank. Soon afterward Audubon
visited the place and with prophetic eve
foretold the great future in store for St.
Joseph. 1t is the first instance on record
where the prophetic eye has been utilized
in that way
Robideaux laid out a townsite here and
then called together the old hunters and
trapper to name the little town. Mr..
Robdeaux had provided large barrel of
something to shatte- across the bow of the
newly-christened craft. Each trapper sug-
gested name, but each name seemed to
be distasteful to Joe, till Charlie Stewart,
the "Old Zip Coon" of history, suggested.
with his eye on the key, that it be called
st. Joseph in honor OF Mr.. Robideaux.
KNOCK her head in" said Joe, and the
barrel was busted quicker than a New
York Sunday law.
General good feeling prevailed. followed
by remorse and Apollinaris water.
The streets were named while the gen.
eral good feeling was in the act of prevail
ing. They were named for the sons and
daughters of whom Joseph had repeatedly
found himself the parent. Among them
we're Messanie, Angeiique. Sylanie,
Charles. Edmund, Felix. Francis, julie,
Fareon, Michel, Rosine, Antoine, Louis,
Fouline, Auguste, Isabelle, Iodine. Fou-
berg, Robideaux, Alfonso and Poisson.
The streets were the first to give out. for
Joseph still had his culver full of Names
Robideaux built big brick store, which
was known far and wide as the great
building of the Western country. 1t is
now modest sausage factory famous for
its manufacture of the toothsome black
and-tan sausage of Missouri.
Joseph has long since passed on to that
eternal hunting ground where the COON
skin cap is entirely superiiuous. His por-
trait now hangs in the Board of Trade
auditorium OF the prosperous city.
st. Joe in 1850 became the starting point
OF the famous pony express, a daring en-
terprise, which no one but an American
would have deemed possible. There was
Wall street scheme ar that time for OBJ
tanning a subsidy of $4,000 900 from the
government for carrying the mails over
land from New York to San Francisco for
year. William II. Russell, backed by
Secretary of War Floyd, thought the
scheme was not warranted in the interests
of economy. He also offered to bet $780,
600, that being all he had with him at the
times that he could nut on mail line that
would cover the 1850 miles between st.
Joe and San Francisco in ten days.
The Wall street boys took the bet, and
the big go-as-you-piease race against time
began. Mr.. Russell bought 800 of the
toughest and ileetest ponies he could find.
and hired 125 men who could ride on
horseback without painful regrets on the
following day. The relays were made at
ten to twenty miles apart. Each rider
had to cover sixty miles, and allow him
self two minutes to skip from one horse
to the other with his saddebags of mail
April 8, 1850, the pony express started.
A gun fired on the steamer Sacramento.
in the bay at San Francisco, was the sig
nal. Billy Baker. mounted on the rest
less little hornet Border Rutfian, made a
little cloud of dust, and, as the echo of
the big gun died away, swift as the tele-
gram raising the salary of the operators
along the line, he sped towards the Sierras.
Ali went well. The first rider made
twenty miles in forty-nine minutes.
Everything ran smoothly, notwithstand-
ing the Indians and the deserts, until the
courier reached the Platte. 1t was a case
of Damon and Pythias, so far as high