R.H. Irvine, Rapides Parish Louisiana
Submitted by: Suzanne Shoemaker

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Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana
The Southern Publishing Company, Chicago & Nashville,  1890

     R. H. IRVINE, of Alexandria, was born in Bastrop, Tex., in 1862, and
remained in that State until 1869, when he came with his parents to
Shreveport, La., in the fall of that year.  The parents located in
Shreveport, La., and there our subject remained in the public schools until
nearly grown, when he returned to Texas.  He first went to Gonzales and
kept a hotel there and at Harwood, Tex., his sister being with him in this
business.  After this he commenced trading in horses, and as he had
followed this business from the time he was nine years of age, he was well
posted on all matters pertaining to it.  He paid license to trade all the
time he was in Shreveport, and after quitting the hotel business he again
returned to the stock business as an employee.  Later he went to the Black
Hills, followed the stock business for four consecutive years, and was the
leader in any hazardous undertaking.  He had many narrow escapes from death
during his career as a cowboy, and has been over the plains four times
where Gen. Custer was massacred.  He shipped cattle to different companies
in Chicago, and was in the stock business nearly five years, becoming
thoroughly familiar with the whole western country.  After this he was in
the saloon business at Provencal, La., for two years, and then went to
Boyce, where he kept saloon and hotel for three years.  While there he was
married to Miss Maggie Barbia, a native of Pineville, and of French
descent.  After marriage Mr. Irvine abandoned the saloon business and
embarked in the grocery business, which he still continues.  He owns town
property in Boyce and Alexandria, and with his wife owns a 320-acre
plantation, forty acres of land joining the town, and besides valuable city
property.  In politics he is a stanch Democrat.  Mrs. Irvine is a member of
the Roman Catholic Church.  The parents of Mr. Irvine, Capt. E. and Harriet
R. (Watson) Irvine, were born in County Tyrone, Ireland, and Tennessee,
respectively.  The mother was a church member all her life, and was a
Christian in every sense of the word.  The father was a ship carpenter by
trade, and followed steamboating on the Mississippi River and tributaries
for thirty years.  He was the second or third man on the Red River with a
steamboat.  He built the "Old Mohawk" steamer in St. Louis, Mo.  The mother
is still alive, and visits among her ten children now living.  She is young
and spry for her years, and has twenty-one grandchildren.