Some History of Sainte Genevieve MO.

Ste. Genevieve was founded by French Canadians who followed Pere Marquette, Joliet and LaSalle down the Mississippi to settle the Illinois Country.
By 1700, a group of French settled near the salt creek, but just when Ste Genevieve proper was founded is not known. Local tradition has long claimed 1735 as the city's founding date, Recent research puts it closer to the late 1740s, when farmers from Kaskaskia (now part of Illinois) came seeking space and fresh soil.
Most of the French who founded Ste. Genevieve migrated to New France in the early 1600s and settled Quebec City, Trois Rivieres, and Montreal in Canada, then Green Bay, Kaskaskia and Ste Genevieve. They were adventurers and voyagers, with few titles among them. They were loyal subjects sent by the King to find gold and riches for the crown. (They never supported the French Revolution) Later, villagers came from New Orleans and directly from France.
By 1750, Ste. Genevieve was a mature village of some 600 people -- both free and slave, French, French Canadian and French Creole. It was now part of the Louisiana Territory ceded to Spain in 1762. More French migrated from the east bank to avoid English rule after France lost the French and Indian war in 1763.

The Move
The original village was founded on the alluvial riverbank south of the present site and by the 1770s was in serious trouble. Erosion, flooding, and Indian raids from across the river were major concerns. In the spring of 1785, the Mississippi burst its banks in another of its terrible floods. Still known as L'anne des grandes eaux (the year of the great waters), the 1785 flood inundated the village to its rooftops. Auguste Chouteau's keelboats were said to have tied up to a chimney as the stunned crew surveyed the carnage. Little by little, Villagers began moving two miles north to Nouvelle Ste. Genevieve (or Les petites cotes, "the little hills," as it was also called).