To discourage British expansion west of the Mississippi, Spanish Lieutenant Governor Zenon Trudeau invited Daniel Boone to establish a colony of American settlers in this part of Spanish Louisiana. In 1799, Boone and his family accepted land grants and moved from Kentucky to Missouri, crossing the Mississippi River near the east end of Dresser Island, seven miles east of present-day Portage des Sioux. From there, they traveled south through the village of St. Charles before heading thirty miles farther south to Daniel Boone's Spanish land grant. The route then continued southward and west along the Missouri River to the village of Charette, about a mile south of here. This route became known as the Daniel Boone Trail and was followed by other American settlers until the War of 1812. Boone was appointed Commandant of the Femme Osage area around his settlement, and Boone, his wife Rebecca, five of their grown children, and most of their sixty-eight grandchildren lived out their lives in Missouri.