Towns & Communities: Many, Sabine Parish, La. Source: Sabine Index, Many, La., Apr 21, 1999 Submitted by: Carl Dilbeck carlrad@earthlink.net ********************************************************** ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ************ by Viola Carruth (Editor's Note: Reprinted from INDEX 100th anniversary issue.) When Sabine Parish was created in 1843, Baldwin's Store, a central location on El Camino Real, was chosen as the site for the parish seat. Although Fort Jessup was the largest settlement in the area, it was not chosen for two reasons. First, it was a federal military reservation, and second, it lacked several miles being the central location of the parish. The parish seat was named Many (MAN-e) in honor of one of the most popular and colorful officers serving at Fort Jessup, Colonel James B. Many. He started his army life there in 1827 and served as genial host for many cotillions, band concerts, parties and gatherings to glamorize the social life of the post where civilians were always welcome. After the site had been chosen, according to early historians, there was no land on which to locate a town. However, W.R.D, Speight, I.W. Easton, G.W. Thompson and S.S. Eason donated 40 acres of land to the parish. A plat of the town showing a public square and eight streets was made by Surveyor G.W. Thompson. Five commissioners were appointed by the police jury to govern the town. They were John Baldwin, Alexander Byles, M. Fulchrod, Henry Earls and John Waterhouse, They were given authority to open a sale of lots in Many. The first purchasers of lots were Robert Parott, Williams Edmunson, J.B. Stoddard, P.H. Dillon, Williams Taylor, S.S. Eason and John Baldwin. They were followed by L. Stevenson, L.M. Rogers, B.K. Ford, C. Chaplin, T. McCarty, Tabitha Baldwin, J.S. Elam, and G.E. Ward. All citizens who were interested directly or indirectly in the government of the parish or identified with business pursuits. Another transfer of lots was made in 1847. In consideration of a sum of $20 lots were deeded for the construction of a Masonic Society Hall and Methodist Church. The transaction was between John Baldwin, Robert Stille and G.E. Ward, commissioners of the town of Many, and John Caldwell, John D. Tucker and Robert A. Gay, of the Masonic Society, and Abraham Roberts, William D. Stephens, Robert D. Wright, William Mains and Dr. Henry McCallen, trustees of the Methodist church. A two-story building was erected by the two groups. The upper floor was used for Hamill Lodge and the lower floor for Methodist services. Lots to erect a church were donated to Anthony McGee and Noah Martin, trustees of the Baptist denomination, by Daniel R. Gandy in 1852. Among other lot owners in the original town up to 1869 were Eli Self, J.F. Smith, K.G. McLemore, Wiley Weeks, G.C. DeBerry, James Garner, Joe Hobbs, William Cook, G.G. Garner, B. Campbell, Littleton Cook, Robert Parrott, George Densmore, Louis Vanshoebrook, Louis Levison, John Waterhouse. G.W. Gibson, Isaac Rains, G.E. Jackson, J.B. Stoddard, Dr. E. Thigpen, James Brown, Abe Harris and J.B. Vandegaer. John Baldwin built the first house, a large log structure of the double-pen or Dog Trot design. The house served as a hotel or tavern and was known for its homely hospitality and sociability. The well-disposed stranger was given a cordial welcome, and the hotel was frequently the scene of neighborhood feasts and social gatherings attended by the elite society of Fort Jessup and visiting military celebrities. Baldwin also conducted a mercantile business and was the first postmaster. His name appears frequently in all early and progressive parish movements. William Mains, a native of North Carolina, was probably the first settler in the vicinity. He is reported to have been left an orphan when he was very young. Later he was kidnapped by some traders and carried north where he was apprenticed to a carpenter. He learned to be an expert woodworker. He went to Pike County, Miss., when he became an adult. He married there and moved his family near Many in 1830. Another early settler in the area, was Peter F. Buvens. who came from Belgium in 1837. Still another pioneer was Hosea Presley. Many did not have a municipal government before 1878. At that time the town secured a charter under the "new" constitution. G.W. Small was elected mayor in May 1878. Other elected officials were John Blake, clerk, and A.H. Hogue, R.B. Stille and J.F. Smith, councilmen. Dan Vandegaer was mayor in 1882, and he was succeeded by John B. Vandegaer in 1884. For several years after this the council did not meet and the corporation government was abandoned until about 1898. Leo Vandegaer took the first census of the town in 1880. The population was 147. Robert B. and William B. Stille were the first general merchants in Many. The first power Gin in the parish was built just on the outside of town. Prior to 1885 merchants received most of their goods from New Orleans by Red River steamboats to Grand Ecore in Natchitoches Parish, which were transported to Sabine Parish by freight wagons. After the Texas and Pacific Railroad was completed, goods were received at Robeline and hauled. This was discontinued with the construction of the Kansas City Southern Railway through Many in 1896. Mail service improved with the railroads and later reached its peak with the coming of modern highways and automobiles. The corporate limits of Many were extended in 1901, increasing the town to a mile square. Efforts to boom the town have never been made. Its growth has been described as "the plodding kind", yet progress has been substantial. In 1901 the Sabine Valley Bank built the first brick business house. It was organized with a capital of $12,500. The first newspaper published in the town and parish was the Sabine Southron, which was edited by E.F. Presley and Henry Potts. The first issue was May 5, 1879. Potts retired the following year leaving Presley to continue the paper until he transferred it to his sons. J.H. Caldwell, John Blake and Levi Stewart launched the INDEX in competition with the Southron in 1879. The INDEX gave up in two years and the Southron ceased operation following the anti-lottery campaign of 1892. During the anti-lottery campaign Judge Don E. SoRelle established the Sabine Banner. It was followed by J.H. Williams, Jr. and C.F. Bolton with the Sabine Democrat in 1896. The Sabine Free State was published by J.A. Tetts, a veteran newspaperman in the late 1890's but ceased publication in 1901. Today the parish is served by the SABINE INDEX and the Sabine News. The latter is now domiciled in Many but was started in Zwolle about 12 years ago. Beginning with private schools, education has gradually evolved into a wholly public-owned system. The support was first expressed in small public appropriations, then local support in special districts was used in the desire to provide facilities now provided by state and parish funds. Even in 1843 there were no schools maintained exclusively by public funds. The schools rarely taught anything but reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic. Frequently, the teachers were hardly competent to teach these essentials of a primary education. A movement to provide public education was inaugurated in 1850. W.D. Stephens was named superintendent. No taxes to amount to anything substantial were levied for education. The public school fund consisted only of small appropriation from the state, which were directed to the maintenance of the private schools. Schools were held at Bayou Scie, on Toro, at Fort Jessup and Many and one at the home of Sampson Whatley on Middle Creek in the anti-bellum days. Bellwood Academy, located at old Sulphur Springs near Many, seemed to be the most popular school in the parish in the 1850's. The school, which was founded by C.C. Preston of Ohio, and neat and comfortable buildings to accommodate both boarding and day students. After the Civil War, the Masonic Institute at Fort Jessup did much to revive the education in the parish after the doldrums of the war years. T.R. Hardin served as president following the institutes organization in 1887. Later the institute became the Sabine Central High School and finally was discontinued. In 1873 there were 27 primary and intermediate schools in the parish. Enrollment for the year was 1,321. Three schools in the parish had an average attendance of 108 pupils. Text books were McGuffey's Reader, Webster's Speller, Mitchell's Geography, Greenleaf's Arithmetic, Smith's Grammar, Wilson's History, Comstock's Philosophy and Robinson's Algebra. School land was valued at 50 cents an acre. The Kansas City Southern railroad built through the center of the parish in 1896-97. Following the tracks came lumbermen, setting up mills along the way. They converted the trees that blanketed the state into lumber to satisfy the world-wide demand for Longleaf Virgin Pine. Old-time foresters remember the period between 1904-1913 as the "Golden Years". By 1936 the forest acres were barren, and sawmills moved out leaving vacant houses and ghost towns. Louisiana Long Leaf Lumber Co., in Fisher was one of the few timber companies that reforested its land and as a result the company's timber was constantly renewing itself. Another pioneer was the late A.J. Hodges. He blocked up over 100,000 acres of cutover land, mainly in Sabine and Vernon parishes, planted approximately 39,000 acres of pine seedlings and converted the entire acreage into a managed tree farm. Experiments in forest genetics followed. Pulp and paper mills bought the thinnings, but the birth of Southern Pine plywood. Research, jointly sponsored by Douglas Fir Plywood Association and the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory of Maddison, Wis., and interested machinery manufacturers, developed a glue formula making commercial production of plywood from Southern Pine possible and feasible. Louisiana's first plywood plants were opened by Vancouver Plywood Co., Inc. in Florien and Oakdale in 1964. Oil was discovered in the Pleasant Hill Field in the 1926, in the Zwolle field in 1928 and the Converse district in 1932. Pleasant Hill was also a gas-producing field. In 1957 Many and Kilgore Slough fields had been added. Total production in the parish that year was 190,580 barrels of crude. Activity slacked off again in the 1960's only to be revived again in the middle 1970's. Reforestation lagniappe was the creation of Hodges Gardens, Louisiana's famed "Garden in the Forest" and family resort in the 1950's. This opened up a brand new industry tourism, which was augmented with the completion of the Toledo Bend Reservoir in 1968. In addition to Vancouver at Florien other manufacturing firms in Many are Many Industries, Inc. (a garment factory), Vanply, Inc, (particle board plant) and J-M Poultry Packing Co. Poultry is the largest agricultural enterprise and livestock is second. Over one third of the parish retail outlets are located in Many and over 65 percent of total retail sales in the papsh are attributed to it, making the town the major shopping center for the parish. Since 1977 six new fast food restaurants have opened in Many. The town is the home of Sabine Valley Vocational Technical School, which recently moved into its new facilities on U.S. Highway 171 South. The town went on stream for receiving water from Toledo Lake in late 1978. Voters approved a $1,290,000 revenue bond election in December, 1974, to finance the cost of obtaining water from the lake and sewer improvements. Total cost was $2,190,000 with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) financing 75 percent of the sewer project. Almost completed are enlargement and improvement to Hart Airport made possible a $40,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and a $144,000 grant from the Louisiana State Department of Public Works.