HANSEN, CAPT. THOMAS
                        Lake Charles, LA


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Source: Southwest Louisiana Historical and Biographical by William Henry Perrin
published in 1891; page 160.
Typed by Margaret Rentrop Moore

Capt. Thomas Hansen, Lake Charles - Capt. Thomas Hansen, the proprietor of a
large shingle manufactory of Lake Charles, was born in Holstein, Prussia (then
Denmark), November 12, 1831.  He was educated in Holstein, where he learned ship
building.  When twenty years of age he came to New Orleans, where he worked at
his trade until the opening of the war.  Durig this period he
was engaged in the Confederate States service in building gun-boats.  He was in
New Orleans when it ws taken possession of by Federal troops, on which event he
went to Mexico, and was located at Matamoros when the war closed.  He was
afterward the owner and master of a schooner, which plied between the
Mississippi and Mexico.  While master of this schooner, Capt.
Hansen penetrated all the bayous, bays and rivers of Southwest Louisiana.    In
1867 he located at Lake Charles, where he continued in ship building.  In 1882,
in partnership with Jacob Ryan, he erected a shingle manufactory at Lake
Charles, which he has operated since that time.  This mill
has a capacity for the manufacture of seventy thousand shingles per day.  The
timber from which they are manufactured is obtained from cypress swamps, and
rafted down the Calcasieu River to Lake Charles.  The business has grwon until
the firm have a large demand from different sections of the country for their
shingles.  Capt. Hansen was married, in 1861, to Miss Elizabeth Peetz, a
native of Denmark, but at the time a resident of New Orleans, They became the
parents of five children, three sons and two daughters.  Capt. Hansen has been
several times a member of the town council, and takes an active part in
municipal and parish affairs.  He is a Mason and a K. of H.