ALLEN JEFFERSON PERKINS : 1836-1895 CALCASIEU PIONEER BY Janice Batte Craven ** ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ The earliest known ancestor of Allen PERKINS was Samuel PERKINS who was the immigrant to the new world. Samuel came to America soon after 1700 from Wales, fleeing the persecution there of the Primitive Baptist denomination of which he was a member. He first settled in Welsh Tract, Pennsylvania. Among those who came with him were his in-laws, Daniel and Elizabeth REES, along with their daughter, name unknown, who was or would become Samuel's wife. They stayed in Pennsylvania only a few years and then moved to Welsh Tract, South Carolina. They had seven known children. One of their sons, Rees, was born in 1729 in Prince Frederick Parish, South Carolina and died 13 March 1805 in South Carolina. Rees married Elizabeth Colson about 1749 in Charleston, South Carolina and they had eight children including James b. 11 November 1751 in Prince Frederick Parish, and d. 12 Nov 1826 in Marion Co Mississippi. James had married Margaret Chandler before 1771 in South Carolina and fought in the Revolutionary War. They had eight children, the oldest being another Rees b. 6 April 1774 in Cheraw District, South Carolina and d. 8 February 1846 in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. Rees is buried at Big Woods Cemetery in Edgerly, Louisiana. On 8 January 1796 Rees married Martha Morgan and they had eight children. The seventh was the father of the subject of this article. Their eighth child was named Rees Washington PERKINS and was b. 8 December 1812 in Marion Co. Mississippi, d. 4 July 1895 in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana and m. on 8 November 1834 to Viena COWARD, daughter of Hardy and Elizabeth BATES COWARD who came to Calcasieu Parish from Mississippi at the same time as the PERKINS family and also became prominent among the first settlers. Allen Jefferson PERKINS was born on 25 January 1836 in PERKINS, Louisiana, six miles south of DeQuincy, Louisiana d. 10 May 1895 in Lake Charles, Louisiana (bur. Graceland/Orange Grove Cemetery) m. 30 March 1853 to Margaret ANDRUS. He was the first son of Rees Washington PERKINS and Viena COWARD PERKINS. His brothers and sisters were: 1 Minerva b. LA m. O S Lyons 2 Iven A b. 5 Feb 1841 Calcasieu Parish, LA d. 16 June 1904 m. Abt 1860 in LA to 3 Ernestine LYONS 4 James K "Jack" b. 25 Oct 1845 Calcasieu Parish, LA d. 15 Oct 1930 in DeQuincy, LA (bur. Rigmaiden Cem.) m. Anna __?__> 5 Martha b. 1848 m. John LYONS 6 Reese W. b. abt 1851 Calcasieu Parish d. bef. 1895 Virtually nothing is known about the early childhood of Allen PERKINS, other than the first years were spent in PERKINS, LA. He was still living there when at the age of 18 he married Margaret ANDRUS, daughter of Claiborne and Ellen LYONS ANDRUS who had moved their family to Choupique from St. Landry Parish after 1840. The family of Claiborne ANDRUS was enumerated in Calcasieu Parish for the 1850 Census. Allen PERKINS lived in PERKINS close to his family and worked at logging and farming. All of his children were born in PERKINS, Louisiana. They were: 1 Rees W. b. 2 May 1856 d. 7 June 1889 in Lake Charles, LA m Frederica GOSS 2 Catherine Lavonia b. 11 January 1858 d. 7 January 1929 Vinton, LA m. 11 February 1876 to Charles Pleasant HAMPTON 3 Claiborn Theodore, b. 30 December 1859 d. Nov 1880 m. to Nancy KIRKMAN 4 William Felix, b. 21 August 1862 d. Lake Charles, LA m. to 1.Katherine MUNNS 2.Kate RYAN 5 Allen J. Jr., MD b. 14 November 1865 d. Lake Charles, LA m. 14 Nov 1889 to Pearl SNYDER 6 Thomas L. b 20 September 1867 d.30 September 1868 7 Charles Baxter "Tede" b. 30 September 1837 m. 6 Aug 1903 to Opal SIVAGE In 1861 when the Civil War started Allen PERKINS joined the Confederate Army. After the War, Capt Daniel GOSS built a second lumber mill on the south side of Lake Charles which was larger than his first mill in Gossport. Business soon became so prosperous for the sawmills that Jacob RYAN was unable to supply enough logs for Capt. GOSS' mill and his own mill. A new man was put in charge of this operation, Allen PERKINS. He perfected the machinery of the lumber market and brought order out of the confusion and at the same time laid the foundation for his own fortune. In 1870 Allen PERKINS became partners with Charles MILLER and formed PERKINS Miller Sawmill and they bought the W B Morris Mill south of Westlake. This mill was then expanded into one of the largest mills of the area. At about this same time he had accumulated a fleet of schooners. His sawmill produced the lumber and his schooners carried the lumber to ports from New Orleans to Galveston to be carried from there to points beyond. Sand bars in the Calcasieu River made passage by the schooners impossible in times of low water and in 1880 the owners of the lumber mills appointed a committee to investigate the possibility of dredging out these sand bars to make the river passable at all times. The men appointed to this committee were Allen PERKINS, J W BRYAN, C P HAMPTON, D J GOSS, M D HUTCHINS, A H MOSS, George H WELLS and William L HUTCHINS. Allen PERKINS not only transported his lumber by ship, but he also saw the potential of rail transportation and built a railroad to be used exclusively to transport logs from the forest to the sawmills. This railroad was built in 1892 and was called the Calcasieu and Vernon Railway. It began at White Bluff on Hickory Branch Creek north of Westlake and eventually reached all the way to Leesville, Louisiana. As his lumber business grew, so did his mercantile business. What was originally a small commissary grew into a large general merchandizing business that, by 1889, was housed in a large two story building with warehouses. One could purchase feed, hardware, furniture, and clothing. There was a section where ladies could select linens and silks in bolts and a millinery shop tended by a lady from St. Louis, Missouri. People came from as far as forty miles to trade and make various purchases. In 1875 Allen PERKINS moved his family from PERKINS to Lake Charles for better education facilities for his children. He bought a large tract of land between the lakefront and Ryan Street, which later became known as Margaret Place, and built a house where the Lock PARET home is today on Shell Beach Drive. At that time, he had to travel by boat, or cross the lake on one of the ferries to get to work in Westlake, as the first bridge was not build until 1916, 21 years after his death. By 1889 Allen PERKINS and several other business leaders saw the need in Lake Charles to form a bank if the area was going to continue to grow. So in October of that year the First National Bank of Lake Charles was chartered and the bank opened it's doors in a building in the 600 block of Ryan Street. The seven other businessmen who joined Allen PERKINS in this venture were A W THOMAS, Capt. A W WHERT, H C DREW, A R MITCHELL, William E RAMSEY, Leopold KAUFMAN and Charles A TURNEY. At the time that the bank opened, there were only five other financial institutions of its kind in the state. Allen PERKINS has been called the "Father of Westlake" because he donated 160 acres to be subdivided into lots and sold to form the town of Westlake. At one time he owned three straight miles of land on the west side of Lake Charles and the Calcasieu River. He also owned prime property in Lake Charles. He owned most of what is now the land along the lake on Shell Beach Drive, but these things are not what impressed me the most about the stories I heard as a child about Grandpa PERKINS. My grandmother, Kathryn HAMPTON BATTE who was the daughter of Catherine Lavonia PERKINS HAMPTON told me stories of her grandpa going to New Orleans on his schooners and coming home with trunks of clothes, shoes, corsets, silk stocking, hats and all the latest fashions for his children and grandchildren. She remembered times when he would bring home these trunks and set them down in the middle of the floor and everyone would choose what they wanted from the trunks of wonderful fashions from New Orleans. What A Grandpa!! Sources: Lake Charles American Press, Sunday Feb. 28, 1988 p 31 Lake Charles American Press, Special Souvenir Supplement, Sunday, Nov. 18, 1989 The History of Lake Charles, LA: A Thesis by S A Ferguson March 1931 The Centennial History of Lake Charles 1867-1967 ed by Donald J Millet Family Bible of Allen J PERKINS and Margaret ANDRUS PERKINS owned by Janice Batte Craven Civil War Veterans of Imperial Calcasieu Parish by SWLGS Southwest Louisiana Historical And Biographical by Perrin 1850 Census of Calcasieu Parish Cemetery records of Graceland-Orange Grove Cemetery, Lake Charles, LA Prepared by: Janice Batte Craven ~ 2008 Cheryl Lane ~ Lake Charles, LA 70611-3339 Phone: 318-855-4465 E-mail: jcraven@iamerica.net