William McKendree. [O. P. Fitzgerald, Centenary Cameos: 1784–1884]

William McKendree was the first American-born bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and…

A cathedral mosaic of Father Sebastien Louis Meurin performing a baptism. [Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis]

Sebastien Louis Meurin served as the parish priest in Ste. Genevieve from 1764 through 1768…

John Mason Peck. [Album of Missouri Baptists (St. Louis: Central Baptist Pub. Co., 1904), p. 2]

John Mason Peck, a pioneer, Baptist missionary, noted preacher, author, and journalist on…

Manuel Pérez. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Objects Collection, X04268]

Manuel Pérez, Spanish lieutenant governor in St. Louis from 1787 to 1792, was born in…

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Pedro Joseph Piernas, the first Spanish lieutenant governor in St. Louis, occupied that…

Peter Rindisbacher, portrait by George Markham. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Objects Collection, 1985-101-0001]

Peter Rindisbacher’s paintings and watercolors are among the earliest images of the indigenous peoples and…

This eighteenth-century map shows the mouth of the River Des Peres (unnamed, below St. Louis) and the Kaskaskia village to the south on the opposite side of the Mississippi, where the River Des Peres mission resettled after abandoning the site in what is now south St. Louis. [Frederick Charles Hicks, ed., A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina, 1778]

More than half a century before the founding of St. Louis, French priests established a…

Joseph Robidoux. [State Historical Society of Missouri Image Collections]

Joseph Robidoux III, the eldest son of a large family, was born in St. Louis on August 10,…

Ferdinand Rozier. [Mary Rozier Sharp, Between the Gabouri, 1981]

Ferdinand Rozier was an early resident of historic Ste. Genevieve and…

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Known as “the pioneer of St. Charles,” François Saucier was born in 1740 in…