Fam Hist: Colvin Odyssey, Lincoln Parish, Louisiana Submitted by: Dorothy Rinehart Taylor, 111 Racove Drive, West Monroe, LA 71291 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** LONG ODYSSEY IN COVERED WAGON IN SAGE OF PIONEERS By Albert Proctor On the famous old stagecoach road between Monroe and Shreveport in the now nearly deserted pioneer town of Vienna once the Parish seat of Jackson, is a grey, rough hewn, weather-beaten farm house that is today north central Louisiana. The historic structure was built by Jeptha Colvin, whose father, Daniel, was the earliest of the westward seekers who took up land here in what was then a virgin wilderness in the County of Ouachita, the haunts of roving Indians by day and prowling wolves by night. Vienna, where Daniel Colvin settled, was first known as the Colvin community and from that as a local point, with the later arrival from South Carolina of the numerous progeny of his brother, William, stemmed, this great clan of the Colvins whose name is legion throughout the northern part of the state. Today the towns of Dubach, Unionville and Bernice are really communities of Colvins and it is doubtful that there is any village of hamlet in all the surrounding hill parishes that does not have its quota of Colvins. Since 1916 the family has held an annual reunion, and these get togethers now a red- letter event in North Louisiana, invariably bring out from 500 to 1000 descendants of the founders of the clan in the state. FROM DEVONSHIRE The Colvin family had its taproot in Devonshire, England, whence, toward the middle of the 18th century, seven brothers of that name emigrated to settle in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia,,The eldest of them, John, later took up land in Craven County, South Carolina. During the Revolution he, along with one of his sons, joined and fought in many, of the engagements with the irregular troops under Marion Sumter. It is to this Colvin and his wife Hannah Price that the La. branch of the family is traced. Their son, Daniel, who was born about the time of the beginning of the American War of Independence and died at Vienna in 1850, started his long oddssey to Louisiana by covered wagon and flatboat in the Year 1807. With him traveled his wife, born Susan Huey, and some of her relatives, his younger brother Talton, and various members of the Rainey, Stone, Sims, Feasel and Dutze families, who likewise the pioneer ancestors of the numerous branches of those names now residend in the state, Should read 1812 - B. A. Q.) The stout hearted party crossed over the mountains into Kentucky where the men felled trees and built rafts to take them down the Kentucky River. Thence they entered the broad Mississippi and floated down as far as Natchez. Talton left them here to join the Armv fighting against the Creek Indians, later also Participating in the War of 1812. SURVEYORS ADVICE Daniel and the rest of the band continued up the Red River into the Ouachita territory by the strenous method of cross-navigation, which involved using long ropes tied to trees first on one bank of the river and then the other. Their final landing place was at the Point called Old Trenton, about two miles north of the present city of West Monroe. Here the Party is said to have met two surveyors running range lines through the unmapped country who told them if they followed the lines west they would eventually come upon "some might pretty country. Most of the group was determined to continue up the Ouachita, but Daniel and his wife decided to take the surveyor's advice. Thus was founded the town of Vienna, then part of the country named Ouachita by Governor Claiborne, Which until the building of the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railroad through Ruston, four miles to the south, was one of the most thriving towns in the North Louisiana area . The failure of the railroad to come through Vienna was really the town's death blow, most of the merchants moving to the newer town; and with the people following the business houses, the Parish seat was also transferred a few years later to Ruston. In 1873 the northern part of Jackson, Parish, including these towns, was combined with portions of Bienville, Union, and Claiborne to form the present Lincoln Parish. Of Vienna, the -former seat of justice of the whole territory, however, little remains today other than a post office and a few scattered dwellings. Daniel's son, Jeptha, or Jeb, as he was generally known, served as the first postmaster of the town when it was incorporated in 1848. He married Narcissa Rainey and built the house which, as has been said, still stands, overlooking the old highway that was blazed through the primeval forest and that for over three quarters of a century remained the sole artery of traffic across the northern reaches of the state. Along this highway the telegraph company strung its first wires in the region, and to this day it is referred to as the Old Wire Road. SILVER AND FURS Jeb's stable for several years served as a relay station where horses were changed on the long Monroe-Shreveport run of the stage line. It was then still very wild country, and traditions says that even at that time the neighboring woods were filled not only with deer, bear and other game but with wild cattle and hogs believed to have been the descendants of stock strayed from a party of Spanish traders and adventurers who passed this way about 1775 with pack mules laden with silver and furs. The house, typical in its simple, sturdy line of the personally designed and personally constructed farm homes of the territory in antebellum days, is built of heart-pine through out and set on stumpy piers of native ironstone, with a chimney at either end of the same material, though subsequent repairs were done in brick. The lower story contains four large square rooms, two each side of the broad open passage that runs clear through the house from front to back. On the upper story, which is quaintly set back, are two more plain spacious rooms. During the War between the States, when the 28th La. Infantry was camped in the vicinity, these two chambers were used as a regimental hospital. On the floors are to be seen large brownish stains which have been ascribed to be the blood of wounded soldiers. But since no engagements were fought in the area closer than Battle of Mansfield, the assumption is probably to be set down as a bit of embroidery on local legend. Jeb Colvin prospered in his farming and other business ventures and in time owned more than a square mile of land much of it in cultivation. He was described in a diary written by his grand daughter, Narcissa Van Hook, who was brought up in the household, as a big jolly man, full of fun and very kind to his slaves". Of her grandmother who she calls her beloved Grandma Nicy, she relates that "she loved to sit out of-doors and smoke her pipe. One Little Negro was always kept busy fetching a live coal from the kitchen to keep it going". At the outbreak of the war Jeptha sold his house, land and other property and took his family to Texas. In this conflict, incidentally. as the records in the office of the Confederate Adjutant General in New Orleans showed, there were 11 Colvins of the Parish serving in the Army and two in the Navy. HE NEVER RETURNED One of Jeb's last acts before becoming a refugee was to go to Monroe to buy tombstones for all the unmarked graves in the family cemetery, and these, including the marble slabs memorializing his parents, are still in place. When the Negroes were emancipated at the close of the war, Jeb sent back to Louisiana all his former slaves who desired to return to their old homes. He himself never went back. When his wife died he remarried and remained living in the Lone Star State until the end of his days. Note From 1785 to 1812 many passports were issued by the Governor of Georgia to citizens of North and South Carolina who wished to pass through Georgia. What is now know as Georgia, being at that time Indian Territory. Many of these passports have been preserved and offer valuable clues as to where many of our ancestors first settled in the United States. Equally valuable they tell us when they started their trek to Louisiana as well as how many children they had with them.