Cahokia---French era

Our school district sponsors wonderful day-trips through its community education program. Last week, we went to Cahokia, Illinois just across the river from downtown St. Louis. First we went to the Cahokia Courthouse---a 1740 French constructed log post-on-sill. Although originally built as a private residence, it later served as a court house and post office which Meriwether Lewis used. In the early 1800's, the population of Cahokia was comparable to St. Louis. The gallery on the outside kept the house cool, protected the logs and served as out-door living space in the summer.
Today, the courthouse serves as a museum to French colonial history in Illinois. The map above shows the Indiana Territory---the most western part of the United States at one time.
This one shows "St. Lewis" and Carondolet across the river from Cahokia and also shows the Indian mounds area.
Next, we went to the Holy Family Parish Church originally built in 1699. A fire destroyed the original structure, but a wood expert thinks some of the logs and one of the altars date to that original building.
Built by the parishoners, the walls deliberately slop inward to give it better stability---both it and the courthouse above survived the New Madrid earthquake which destroyed many buildings in the area. The logs are black walnut, but are so old they are almost petrified.
Our guide was John Reed, a 12 generation parishioner. The chalice is gold over-lay on brass and was used when the Pope served communion in St. Louis in 1999. They'd wanted to have mass at the church to celebrate its 300 years of continuous service, but when secret service couldn't really find a place for sniper guards to go, they decided to just lend their chalice to the event.
The candlesticks are from the King of France as is the bell below.
Next to the church is the Jarrot Mansion--the oldest brick building in Illinois.
We didn't tour it---it's only open twice a year. Although it isn't furnished, it does have something interesting inside---pony heads were found inside the walls. Jarrot was notoriously slow to pay bills. It's believe that the pony heads were included in the walls to "get even"---they had to smell as they decayed inside the walls. Jarrot did help Lewis and Clark and gave them land where the Corps of Discovery wintered.
We concluded the first half of the day at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, IL where we had a delicious fried chicken luncheon which included the Tooleys---the parents of our daughter Rebecca's high school friend, Kim.