Historian brings new theory how Cape Girardeau got its name

Local historian Frank Nickell tackled Cape Girardeau’s namesake misconceptions Saturday morning at the Cape Girardeau River Heritage Museum.

As it turns out, the frontier origins of Cape Girardeau’s founding are almost as murky as the river on which it was settled. For decades, Louis Houck asserted the town is named in honor of Jean-Baptiste Girardeau (Or Girardot, Jerardot, Girardo, etc., depending on the record) in his touchstone three-volume history of the area.

But this, Nickell said, is almost certainly inaccurate.

“He was the first one to struggle with the question of where the name comes from,” Nickell said, although Houck essentially stipulated the history couldn’t be known definitively.

But now, working closely with area resident and president of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution Charlotte Slinkard, Nickell was able to present a timeline that, while rough, suggested a different Girardeau patronymic.

Jean-Baptiste Girardeau was born in 1700, and as part of the French army, eventually ended up mostly in Kaskaskia, Illinois. During the approximate decade he spent in Kaskaskia, more than 50 miles away from Cape Girardeau, he left a trail of paperwork. This trail, Nickell said, indicates strongly he would have not had the time nor means to become involved in a town around the riverbend, especially not to the point the inhabitants would name it in his honor.

When he was 30, his military commission was abruptly and somewhat mysteriously revoked, and Jean-Baptiste died of unknown causes on or near July 1, 1730. For a historical reference point, when Jean-Baptiste died, it still was more than a year before the birth of George Washington.

But Girardeau left behind a 6-year-old son, Jean-Pierre, who seems far more likely to have been the Girardeau for whom the Cape is named.

“Jean-Pierre became involved. He’s involved politically; he’s dealing with the Indians; he’s buying property,” Nickell said.

He examined the presumptive reasons a settler would find Cape Girardeau an appealing prospect. It originally was settled in the elbow north of where Cape Rock stands today.

“This looked like a really good place to have a community,” Nickell explained. “But, of course, as they found out very quickly, it flooded.”

So they moved several miles south, to where downtown now stands.

Cape Girardeau, Nickell said, was uniquely suited for river commerce on the frontier. Unlike Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, which at one time was a more or less analogous settlement, Cape’s inland access featured a gradual incline. Ste. Genevieve’s bluffs meant it flooded worse and consequently was left behind in terms of population and trade volume.

The five- to six-mile riverfront served the settlers well, and by 1765, in the maps of a British military officer, the settlement at what we now know as Cape Rock already was known as Cape Girardeau.

Nickell’s case for J.P. and not J.B. Girardeau seemed a revelation to many of the audience members who shared the stories of why they thought Cape Girardeau had been named such.

Some had heard Native Americans had “burned the [Girardeaus] out,” while another had been told Girardeau was “a rascal” and town nuisance, and the town had agreed to name the settlement after him as the price of his exodus.

But Jean-Pierre, Nickell said, was much more likely the best explanation.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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