Louis Auguste Benoist

Louis A., pioneer banker and financier, was born August 13, 1803, in St Louis, then a French village under Spanish domination and about to become a possession of the United States. He was the son of Francois Marie Benoist, and his mother was a daughter of Charles Sanguinet, both numbered among the men who laid the foundations of the present metropolis of the Southwest. Both of these ancestors came of noted families.

Francois Marie Benoist was the only son of Jacques Louis Benoist, the eldest son of Antoine Gabriel Francois Benoist, Chevalier of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, which honor he received from Louis XV of France in recognition of his distinguished services in the French armies in Canada from 1735 to 1760. The Benoists were an old and illustrious French family, descending directly from Guillaume Benoist, chamberlain of Charles VII of France. Francois Marie, the father of the subject of the present notice, was .born in Montreal, Canada; and on his maternal side was the great grandson of Lemoyne de Sainte Helene, the second of the famous sons of the renowned Charles Lemoyne and brother of De Bienville, the founder of New Orleans, and of D'Iberville, the first to enter the mouth of the Mississippi River, and one of the greatest captains of his day. Francois Marie received his education at Laval University in Quebec, and, while yet a young man, came to St. Louis.

Like many of his contemporaries, he became a fur trader, prospered in that business, and was able to give his family all the social and educational advantages which our country afforded at that time. Louis A. Benoist, obtained his early education under private tutorship and was at one time a pupil of Judge Tompkins, later one of the judges of the Territorial Court of Missouri. Afterward he was sent to an educational institution in Kentucky, which was known as St. Thomas' College, and was under the charge of Dominican priests. After remaining there three years, he returned to St. Louis and began the study of medicine under the preceptorship of Dr. Trudeau, one of the pioneer physicians of the city. He devoted two years to the study of medicine, rather for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the science than with the intention of becoming a medical practitioner At the end of this two years, he took up the study of law in the office of Horatio Cozzens, and in the course of time was duly licensed to practice that profession. He then formed a partnership with Pierre Provenchere, a well-known lawyer and conveyancer of that period, which lasted until he was called upon by his father to make a trip to France, for the purpose of settling up his grandfather's estate. His trip abroad was made in a sailing vessel and the voyage required six weeks. Six months thereafter were devoted to the business which he had been sent to France to take charge of, and at the end of that time he set sail for America, to meet with a thrilling and perilous experience on the way. While in that arm of the Atlantic Ocean which is west of France and north of Spain, the Bay of Biscay, noted for its storms, the vessel upon which he had taken passage was wrecked, and he had a narrow escape from death as a result of that catastrophe. It was months before he could get passage on another vessel bound for America, but he finally reached this country and in due time his home in St. Louis. The bent of his mind was toward the conduct of financial affairs rather than the practice of law, and after his return to St. Louis he abandoned his profession and engaged in the brokerage and real estate business. He became the representative of numerous non-resident capitalists and money-lenders, and soon built up an extensive money-loaning business. In 1832 he engaged regularly in the banking business, and in 1838 his financial operations had developed to such an extent that he established a branch banking-house in New Orleans, which was conducted, first under the name of Benoist & Hackney, and later under the name of Benoist, Shaw & Co. Both the parent house and the New Orleans branch became known as leading financial institutions of the Southwest, and did a large business until 1842, when the St. Louis house was compelled temporarily to suspend, as a result of the financial panic which had swept over the country in the years immediately preceding that date. . Very soon, how-ever, Mr. Benoist's financial genius enabled him to triumph over his embarrassments and he opened the doors of his bank, paid all depositors what was due them, with ten percent interest on the same for the time during which their funds had been tied up, and resumed his banking operations with a stronger hold than ever upon public confidence and esteem. It may truly be said of him that he was not only one of the great Western financiers of his day and generation but was a remarkably progressive man in every respect. During the financial panic of 1857, when banking-houses were failing all over the United States, his bank weathered the storm, its resources unquestioned, his honor and fidelity to the trust reposed in him being regarded by the public as a guarantee of the stability of the institution of which he was the head. He died in 1867, while temporarily sojourning in Cuba, leaving an estate valued at more than five millions of dollars. He was a man of numerous and varied accomplishments, well read in law, medicine, and general literature, and as a banker and financier he had few equals in St. Louis or in any part of the Southwest. He was married three times, and had in all a family of seventeen children. His first wife was a Miss Barton, of Cahokia, Illinois, and one child, which died in infancy, was the only issue of this marriage. His second wife was Miss Hackney, of Pennsylvania, and the children born of this marriage were Sanguinet H. Benoist, who married Miss Curtis; Anne Eliza Benoist, who married Dr. Montrose A. Pallen; Louise Benoist;, who married Cornelius Tompkins; Esther A. Benoist who married Wm. F. Nast and Conde Benoist who married Miss Clemence Christy. His third wife was Miss Sarah E Wilson, a New Jersey lady, and of this marriage, the following named children were born: M. Clemence Benoist who married Charles A. Farris; Eugene W. Benoist who married Almira Lee; Howard Benoist, who married Agnes Foy; Theodore Benoist. who married Mary Hunt; Henry Benoist, who married Ella Carton; Helen A. Benoist, who married John F. Carton; Louis A. Benoist, and Leo de Smet Benoist.16