Saint Michel, Missouri

St. Michel is an abandoned village located in Madison County, Missouri, United States.

[2] Among these first settlers were Antoine, Gabriel, Nicholas, Joseph, Francois, and Michel Caillot det La Chance; Peter Chevalier, Gabriel Nicollet, Pierre Variat; Paul, Andrew, and Baptiste De Guire, and Jerome Matis, who were French-Canadians from Ste.

[3] The village of St. Michel was forced to move to higher ground by the floods of 1814 when the Saline and Castor Creeks overflowed their banks, and drove the inhabitants out.

Some of the families refused to return, and established what was known as the new village, one and one-half miles north of St.

Soon after, on the Saline opposite the village, Germans had settled, as well as other groups from North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, and these settlers evidently outnumbered their French neighbors.

The French smelted lead ore in the simplest way by piling it on top of logs in pits that were then set alight, leaving the smelted lead to gather at the bottom of the pit, and these log smelters or furnaces numbered around twenty.