HEBERT 1845 - Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana BY: NOLA MAE ROSS American Press Writer Publication: American Press Publication Date: 10/21/1990 Page and Section: 23 CT Submitted by Kathy Tell ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ In 1845, Joseph Lastie Hebert arrived in Calcasieu Parish and stopped at a spot about 20 miles northeast of Lake Charles and 12 miles northwest of Iowa and he must have thought he'd found the answer to his dreams. There was plenty of wood for fire, enough lumber to build a home, and abundant water. And a large group of friendly Coushatta Indians lived nearby. He knew they would be helpful in exchanging food and supplies. Hebert had left a tragic life behind him in St. Landry Parish, where his mother, Elizabeth Fontenot Hebert, and four brothers and sisters had died during a smallpox epidemic in 1839. Hebert sought and found a new beginning in Calcasieu. He and his wife, Lucy Augustine, whose father was born in Italy, homesteaded land along the river. They had 11 children who grew up and married into families named LeBleu, Daigle, Hay, Miller, Langley, Treme, Davis, Nelson and Leger, most of whom lived around Iowa and Hecker. Joseph Hebert donated land for the Hebert Cemetery and was the first person buried there, in 1868. One of his daughters, Eleonise, married Major Joseph Camersac LeBleu, whose family was active in early politics and civic affairs. A son, Francois Hebert, later was called Grandpa ''TaTa'' by family and neighbors and became the patriarch of the little village that was later named Hecker. Francois operated a general merchandise store on the river bluff. Francois enrolled in the 28th Louisiana Infantry of the Confederate Army when he was 16, but the Civil War was nearly over, and he spent his time at Camp Buhlow in Alexandria. After the war he walked home to Hecker. His father, Joseph Lastie, was too old to go to war but served in the home guard. When Francois came home from the Civil War, he married Louise Langley. His second wife was Pamela LeBleu. They were married in 1879 and had 14 children, three of whom died young. The last living child, Rosaline Hebert, married John Hay and lived until 1984, when she was 100 years old. John Hay was a logger and farmer at Hecker, where they lived in the old Hebert home. Another daughter of Francois was Lillie Hebert, who married William Corbello, a farmer. Many of their descendants still live in the Hecker-Iowa area. Francois had three other daughters, Melanie (Mrs. Theodule Breaux), Amelia (Mrs. Amadie Hebert) and Adaline (Mrs. Ernest Lee). One of Francois' sons was Raymond Hebert, who married Nannie Miller. He was a prominent rice farmer and police juror in Jeff Davis Parish. Another son, Lastie, who married Roberta Bryan, worked for the Union Sulphur Company for many years. Lastie's daughter, Mrs. Walter House, and son, Millard Hebert, live in Lake Charles today. Another daughter, Maureen Fisher, lives in Slidell. Francois had four other sons. Clopha married Clarice LeBleu, later was remarried to Mary Bureau. Maurice never married. Simon married Leonaise Miller and then was remarried to Susie Corbello. The last son, Fred, lived near his parents at Hecker and was a partner with his father in the mercantile store, a sawmill and a turpentine mill. Mickey Hebert of Lake Charles, son of Fred, recalls that turpentine mill. ''There were about six homes for the workers who collected the sap from pine trees in barrels and then brought it to the factory, where it was heated and made ready to ship to the east coast.'' In about 1912, my father and grandfather also operated a sawmill at Hecker.'' Although the family of Heberts who first settled at Hecker were descendants of grandparents who'd come directly from Burgundy, France, to Louisiana, the name of their community, Hecker, came from an English word meaning, ''Dweller near the gate of a forest.'' And the English name fit the little community like a glove. It was truly the gateway through which logs from the forest were brought to the river, first by oxen and later by rail. Hecker was a logging community, a point halfway between the forests to the north and the mills to the south in Lake Charles. Many families moved into the area with the timber industry. Others moved from St. Landry and points east in search of better living conditions. The new arrivals had family names like Goos, Givens, Humphries, Lemley, Ryan, Gray, Cating, Foreman, Materne, Martin, Hughes, Fairchild, Fruge, Fontenot, Koonce and Stutesman. Mrs. Della Stevens of Lake Charles was one of four children in the A.W. Fairchild family, who originally came from Arkansas. He was superintendent of the Lock-Moore Logging Camp at Hecker, which was about two miles up-river from the Hebrt store. ''Lock- Moore Camp was the typical sawmill town,'' recalls Mrs. Stevens. ''There were at least 30 company-owned houses and a commissary where the women bought their food and supplies. The cost was deducted from their husband's salary.'' The Lemley sisters, Opal Lester Lemley and Vest-Lee Martin, also recall the Lock- Moore Camp at Hecker. ''I still remember the first time I went down river to the Hebert store via boat,'' says Mrs. Martin. ''We had church, which doubled as a school, and it was the meeting place of several Protestant groups. We also had a Doctor McKinney, and before him, a German doctor.'' During the 1918 hurricane, most of the homes in the camp were blown off their blocks, and since the timber was almost gone around Hecker, the houses were never rebuilt. They were sold and moved. ''Francois ''TaTa'' Hebert gave the land for the first school in Hecker, which was used untll buses came along in about 1927 and took the children to school in Iowa. "The teachers usually boarded at our house,'' recalls Mickey Hebert. ''The ones I remember were Anna Jardine, Alma Deshotel, Ruby Pitre, Alice Dugas and Misses Torrey and Doxey. ''Another Lake Charles resident, Sherman Cating, lived in Hecker when the Heberts did. ''Those early years were really family and neighbor oriented,'' said Cating. ''Families tended to build homes close together, and there were always cousins to play with.'' Neighbors helped each other build their homes and do special work. They butchered together, dividing the meat among the families. ''We all fished, mostly for perch and trout, along the Calcasieu River, and we had picnics there. In our spare time, there were always enough kids to play softball.'' Albert Goos of Moss Bluff also recalls the early days at Hecker. ''My father (Albert Goos) worked for Bel Lumber Company as a logging superintendent in Hecker,'' Albert said. ''They free-floated the logs from the Bel and Reeves forests to Hecker, where they were cribbed and then towed to Lake Charles by the Bel sawmill boats.'' In the earliest days, oxen were used to pull logs out of the forest. Later, a railway tram at Hecker brought the logs from the forest to the riverbank. In the river, they were tied together and floated down to the sawmills. Mickey Hebert recalls an incident of his younger days in Hecker. ''Since my father died when I was 11, I spent quite a bit of time with my grandparents, Francois and Pamela Hebert. When he got his first car and was learning to drive, my grandmother rode with him and read the book that came with the car, giving instructions on how to drive it.''One day they were driving and she had the book open to help him, when he hit a pine tree. He yelled, 'Hot dern, Pamela, what does the book say now?''' Today, the number of Hebert families in Calcasieu Parish are second only to the Fontenots. But in 1850, about 10 years after Joseph Lastie Hebert homesteaded property at Hecker, there were only 15 Hebert families in the entire large Imperial Calcasieu region. The descendants of Joseph Lastie Hebert, many of whom still live near Hecker, Iowa, Lake Charles and elsewhere in the parish, are rightfully proud of the rich heritage they received from that first French family to settle at Hecker.