Judge Fred L. Gates, Iberia Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller


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That well-known citizen, Judge Fred L. Gates, New Iberia, is a native of 
Syracuse, N. Y., born in 1827.  He is the son of Alfred and Amoret (Kossith) 
Gates, both natives of New York Alfred Gates came to Louisiana, locating 
at Baton Rouge when F. L. was a boy.  He operated the first sawmill erected 
on the Teche, at Franklin.  When a young man, before leaving New York, he 
was the first captain of the first passenger boat on the Erie canal.  His 
father served under General Gate., of whom he was a kinsman, during the 
Revolutionary war.  Amoret Kossith Gates, our subject's mother, was of 
French descent.  Her grandfather was the first man in Syracuse who
manufactured salt by the evaporation process.  He owned the land 
near Syracuse that has since become so valuable.  Judge F. L. Gates 
was reared at Baton Rouge, where he received his education.  He studied 
law and was admitted to the bar in New Orleans, having graduated from
the law department of the State University in 1851.  He was the classmate 
of J. B. Eustis, ex-Senator Jonas and ex-Gov. John McEnery, and was 
subsequently a colleague of these gentlemen in the state legislature 
during the extra session of 1865, called by ex-Gov. J. Madison Wells.
Judge Gates, at the beginning of the civil strife, was in Texas, where he had 
removed in 1859.  When Texas seceded he entered the Sixteenth Texas 
cavalry, went to Little Rock, joined Van Dorn, and operated in the line of 
Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas.  He was in the engagements to
repel Banks from Louisiana.  After the war, Judge Gates located in New 
Iberia, and was immediately afterward elected a member of the legislature.  He 
was shortly afterward appointed judge of the Fourteenth Judicial 
district, comprising the parishes of St. Mary, St. Martin, La
Fourche and Terre Bonne.  He served until he was deprived of the 
office by the reconstructionists.  During the time he served as judge he 
resided in Franklin.  In 1878 he removed to New Iberia, erected and began 
the operation of a cotton-seed oilmill one of the largest and most successful 
of the kind in this section.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 483.  Published by the
Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.