DRIVE: BRIGADE IS ATTRACTION ALONG TOUR

For those who wonder what life was like when Louis Lorimier founded his trading post here two centuries ago, the Zenon River Brigade provides a moving picture made of hides and muskets and hand-sewn clothing.

Stephen Winingnear, a 25-year-old security guard and sales clerk from Cape Girardeau, carries a musket and a knife with a deer-antler handle. He wears a breech cloth and leggings an adaptation from the Indians below his hand-made linen shirt. He eats with hand-forged utensils.

The Jackson-based brigade, an encampment of men, women and children dressed in clothing representative of 1795, flies the 15-star flag of the United States. The brigade is encamped this weekend at Elks Park off North Kingshighway and County Road 619.

The encampment, sponsored by the Bicentennial Commission, is entertaining visitors during this weekend's Mississippi River Valley Scenic Drive. The 131-mile self-conducted drive continues today, with events throughout the area.

Among the others present are an accountant, a few history teachers, a carpenter and a metallurgical engineer.

Winingnear is spending the weekend in a canvas lean-to undoubtedly much more comfortable than anything real frontiersmen called home.

The times and the environment posed many difficulties: "The French, the U.S., the English, Indians, bears, quicksand, the elements there were a lot of dangers," Winingnear said.

Most frontiersmen carried long rifles, which were more accurate than the muskets the Hudson Bay Co. issued its trappers. Even at that, Winingnear said, "I have hit a four-inch square at 60 yards."

Some of the women are dressed in Indian costumes because most frontiersmen who married wed Indians. These women, who might have been won or lost in a game of chance, were expected to carry heavy loads and work for their husbands.

"They were treated as subservient," said Kim King, wearing an elk-hide dress she made. "...The white women were treated much more delicately."

She has researched the woman she portrays, an Osage. She enjoys just sitting around the campfire at the encampments. "There is a lot of information shared and knowledge gained," she said.

King works at the physical plant at Southeast Missouri State University. Her husband Bruce, who is a horticulturist at the university, also belongs to the dozen-member group.

The brigade, which honors Lorimier, his family and friends who were Cape Girardeau's first permanent settlers, was the brainchild of Linda and Phil Nash. A history teacher at Jackson High School, her studies and teachings about the region's beginnings made him want to find out more about how these people lived.

"I just slipped into it," he said.

Both found visual demonstrations can excite people about history when books don't. "(The brigade) was a way to interest kids and other people in history and to teach them about the history of the area," he said.

The Nashes' 8-year-old son, Gabe, also participates in the encampments along with other members' children.

The Zenon River Brigade takes its title from the former name of Hubble Creek, which runs through Jackson. Linda Nash is at work on a translation of one of Lorimier's journals that has never been translated from French. She obtained the journal from the Center for Louisiana Studies.

She says Lorimier, a junior officer by the age of 15, was a much more important figure in the development of the Western frontier than most people realize.

"He was an Indian agent for the British, the Spanish and the United States," she said. "He received letters of commendation from Thomas Jefferson."

Steve Richardet, who teaches history and science at Central High School, joined the brigade as a result of investigating his French background. He wears a waistcoat of authentic length, center-seam Eastern woodland moccasins and full-length trousers. The last didn't replace the knee-high breeches until about 1800, but they're much warmer in Saturday's gusty wind.

Richardet is giving bonus points to students who visit the encampment this weekend.