Hungarian Settlement, Livingston Parish, Louisiana
File prepared by D.N. Pardue



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From the book entitled "The Free State - A History and Place-Names Study
of Livingston Parish" by the members of the Livingston Parish American
Revolution Bicentennial Committee in cooperation with the Livingston 
Parish Police Jury and the Louisiana American Revolution Bicentennial
Commission, 1976.  Reprinted by permission.  Dedicated to the memory of
Reuben Cooper and Raymond Riggs.

HUNGARIAN SETTLEMENT is the area south of Albany which surrounds the former

site of the Charles Brakenridge lumber mill. When settled by immigrant Hun-

garians around the turn of the century, the area was also called Maxwell

and Arpadhon, the latter in honor of Arpad, a great Magyar leader.

     Three Brakenridge workers, Theodore Zboray, Julius Bruskay and Adam

Mocsary, are given credit for placing advertisements in the Hungarian lang-

uage newspaper Szabadsag of Cleveland, Ohio and other northern papers.

They advertised for fellow Hungarians to come to Arpadhon to work in the

mill.  The plan was to sell the cutover timber land to the mill workers

so that they could gradually shift from lumbering to farming as the forests

were stripped.  

     By 1910 there was a Presbyterian Church (1908), the newly built St. 

Margaret Catholic Church, the OK Club (a private social organization), 

and the First Hungarian Farmers Association.

     In 1916, when all the timber had been cut from the Brakenridge land,

the mill closed and Maxwell or Arpadhon declined and Albany grew into

the main Hungarian center supported by its surrounding farms and their

acres of strawberries.

     For a time the Hungarians kept their cultural identity largely through

isolation; Hungarian was the language and Magyar married Magyar.  In 1923,

under the direction of Presbyterian minister Alexander Bartus, a Hungarian

Community House was built for meetings, plays and motion pictures.  A 

Catholic Hall was built in 1927 for the same purpose.  Both churches tried

to keep the old customs alive and often prayed and sang in the Mother

tongue.  Rev. Bartus regularly conducted a two-month Hungarian summer 

school from April to May from 1922 to 1935.  Here he taught the language

and history of Hungary.

     As the old settlers have died, however, interest in the motherland

has fallen by the wayside.  Perhaps the best still remains though: the

close-knit Magyar family that takes much pride in hard work, thrift, 

honesty and open-handed friendliness. -- Louis C. Bartus

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