Church at Raccourci, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana Part Two of "Historic Sketch" File submitted by Pauline Bizette Brandy This is an excerpt from the booklet, Historic Sketch, St. Ann Parish, Morganza, La. Diamond Jubilee, 1872 to 1947. It was compiled and published for the church's Diamond Jubilee which was celebrated at Morganza, La. on January 18, 1948. It is reprinted by permission of St. Ann's Catholic Church, Morganza, La. For records of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, you may contact the Archives via mail: Diocese of Baton Rouge, Archives, P.O. Box 2028, Baton Rouge, La. 70821-2028 Phone: (504) 387-0561 Fax: (504) 387-8789 E-mail: chancery@diobr.org Or visit their website at http://diobr.org/Welcome.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------ ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------ The plantations along the river front and those around Fausse Riviere had church facilities and the ministrations of the clergy within reasonable distance, provided by the pioneer St. Francis Church of Pointe Coupee, St. Mary's of New Roads and the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Chenal, in the half decade that followed the War Between the Sttes. However, the interior and northern portions of Pointe Coupee Parish lacked such facilities, and residents had to depend on the occasional visits of priests from New Roads or from St. Francis. It was to be expected that they desired a church of their own with a resident pastor in their midst. Above the plantation of Colonel Charles Morgan were a number of settlements that had developed and several large plantations, besides a large number of more modest farms. There were the Lacour plantation, Old Hickory Plantation, the LeJeunes, Charles Stewart's Lakeside Plantation, White Hall, the Latenache Plantation, and others. Among settlements were Torras, Red River Landing, Legonier, New Texas Landing, Creole Landing, Fordoche, Lacour, and others. A chapel had already been erected on the river front at New Texas Landing, where river steamboats paused to disgorge their cargoes destined for these places and plantations of the vicinity. There was some disagreement among those desiring the establishment of a parish church in that section as to its location. When the matter was brought to the attention of Most Rev. Napoleon Joseph Perche, third Archbishop of New Orleans, he took upon himself in 1872, to decide upon New Texas Landing, popularly referred to as Raccourci, four miles up the river from the present town of Morganza. The settlement got its name from the French word for "shortened", referring to the shortening of the Mississippi River a few miles above the settlement in 1848. The area left between the new course and the old river became known as 1849. Raccourci Island. Archbishop Perche bought a piece of property at New Texas Landing on January 4, 1872, from Mrs. Octaving C. Baellio, for the sum of $400. The act of sale was signed before Joseph F. Tounoir, notary public, who described the ground measuring 245 feet front on the Mississippi River, and extending back to the center of Bayou Pays, representing 12 superficial acres. The Archbishop then bequeathed his property to the Archdiocese of New Orleans. By a letter dated December 18, 1872, the Archbishop appointed Rev. Felix Charpentier as "pastor of the new congregation which is to be created in the upper part of the civil parish of Pointe Coupee, the seat of which will be on the ground on which is now erected a temporary chapel, somewhat above the place called New Texas." The Archbishop directed Father Charpentier to show this letter to the counsellors of the new parish, that it be registered in their records, and to use it as credentials to the parishioners whom he was to visit. "Relying on your zeal", wrote the prelate, "for the population which is dear to me, I hope you will do all in your power to gather all the Catholics of that section, and bring back to their duty all who went astray." Father Charpentier promptly proceeded to Raccourci and undertook his duties. On December 29, 1872, he met with the members of the "fabrique" of the new parish in the temporary chapel, presented the letter from the Archbishop, then proceeded to plan with them for a parish plant. The board adopted a resolution for the opening of a subscription list to collect necessary funds, another for the addition of two rooms to the temporary chapel to serve for the pastor's residence, and a third for the sale of pews with the revenue to be dedicated to the support of the pastor. It was voted that the pews on one side be reserved for the white members of the congregation, and those on the other for the Colored. It was also decided that Father Charpentier should go to the city with the treasurer of the board to buy some lumber for the erection of a small presbytery. The expense was to be covered by funds obtained through the subscription list. The new pastor opened the list of donations, heading it with his own generous gift from his meager earnings, and parishioners signed up in varying amounts, but none very large. The new church was placed under the invocation of Our Lady of Seven Dolors, and sometimes in the records was referred to as Mater Dolorosa Church. Archbishop Perche failed to establish specific parish boundaries, except to mention the upper part of the civil parish of Pointe Coupee. However, these were taken to include the Atchafalaya River on the west, the boundary of St. Mary's Parish, New Roads, about the iron bridge, on the east, the Mississippi River on the north, and, on the south, the boundary of Grosse Tete parish and the main line of the Texas and Pacific Railroad. Progress in the new parish was slow. Distances were vast but roads were few and generally impassable. Finances were uncertain and fluctuated, as in all church parishes, of rural sections, with the crops that formed the mainstay of the vast majority of the inhabitants. These were mainly cotton and sugarcane. During the year 1875, Father Charpentier was recalled by Archbishop Perche, and after this he dissapears from the records of the archdiocese, having evidently left for France. The Archbishop then sent Rev. Patrick R. Glendon, who assumed the pastorate of Our Lady of Seven Dolors Church at Raccourci in 1875, and continued his ministrations until 1880. He revived the subscription list, opening up a new one for the erection of the church. The statistics for the parish indicate slow progress, but in the case of Baptisms, for example, one suspects that all were not registered, as is evident from the following figures for white Baptisms: 1875, 9; 1876, 26; 1877, 6; 1878, 21; 1880, 20. However, Baptisms in early years were not much more numerous. Here Father Glendon ministered, making the rounds of his far-flung parish by horse and buggy, when weather permitted use of the few roads. Like his predecessor, he struggled with finances and sought to realize on the pledges of the parishioners. Father Glendon left Raccourci in 1880, and withdrew from the archdiocese. Both Father Charpentier and Father Glendon served during the difficult period of the Reconstruction, in the midst of political turmoil, poverty, and efforts of plantation owners and farmers to adjust themselves to a new order without the aid of slave labor. Memories of depradations and invasion by Union troops were still vivid, and this part of Pointe Coupee Parish suffered considerably. Federal soldiers had camped on Morganza Plantation. Exchange of prisoners took place at Creole Landing. Beloved Father Mittelbronn had been arrested and imprisoned at Baton Rouge. Homes had been set afire and looting had been suffered. Bitterly disillusioned people were striving to readjust themselves and earn a livelihood. It is not surprising that church progress was slow and finances very low. After Father Glendon's departure, Archbishop Perche, in April, 1880, sent a young French priest to take charge of Our Lady of Seven Dolors Church. This was Rev. Amable Doutre, but his pastorate was brief, and under the circumstances he accomplished little. He was recalled to New Orleans in March, 1882, and stationed at the Archbishopric, the Archbishop's residence. For a time after 1878, Rev. Charles Clark is listed as stationed at Red River Landing and New Texas Landing. Archbishop Perche had become infirm, and the archdiocese labored under a heavy debt. Bishop Leray had been called by the Holy See from Natchitoches to take charge of the financial affairs of the New Orleans archdiocese, in an effort to relieve the ponderous burden of debt, engendered by the property of the Reconstruction days. Every parish, including Raccourci, was required to contribute its quota in an attempt to liquidate this indebtedness. The pastorate of Our Lady of Seven Dolors was vacant and it remained so until August, 1883. The congregation now had to depend upon the clergy of neighboring parishes. Rev. Joan Pierre Berthet was then pastor of the pioneer Church of St. Francis of Pointe Coupee, and he journeyed to Raccourci to minister to the widowed parish, during several months of 1882. In 1883, he went to Chenal as pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, but he renewed his visits to Raccourci, even from that more distant parish. Rev. Philibert Gutton, who had been pastor of St. Mary's Church at New Roads, Fausse Riviere, for many years, also went up the river to Raccourci to serve the parishioners of Our Lady of Seven Dolors. Father Gutton died at False River on February 18, 1896, at the age of 68, gratefully remembered and mourned by the parishioners of Raccourci. Among names of pioneer families of the parish, occuring in the records during the first decade of the formative years of the Raccourci parish, one finds the following: Oubre, Gauthier, Langlois, Tournoir, Brady, Vignes, O'Connell, Baillio, Porche, Ortis, Lacour, Bourgeois, Laiche, Bergeron, Beauvais, Hess, Stonacker, Buquoi, Decuir and Ricard. The year and one-half vacancy of the pastorate marked the end of the difficult pioneer years of Our Lady of Seven Dolors parish, and with better economic conditions, better times came too for the new parish.