Elie Ganier, St. James Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Elie Ganier, a prominent planter of the Third ward, and president of the police jury, was born in St. James parish in 1839. He is a son of Francis and Eloise (Le Boeuf) Ganier, the former of whom was born in France about 1785, and the latter in Louisiana about 1818. Mr. Ganier, the father, was born in France, and about the year 1820 came to Louisiana, where he married and engaged in merchandising, and later in sugar-planting. After living in Louisiana about thirty-seven years, he returned to France, to make his future home in retirement. He died there in 1862. His wife died in Louisiana in 1848. Mr. Ganier was a man of some influence and ability. His father was a volunteer in the first French revolution, and was supposed to have been killed in that war. Gabriel Le Boeuf, the grandfather, was a native of Louisiana, where he spent all of his life as a planter. He was a descendant of one of the earliest settlers here, and died of yellow fever in 1854. He reared a large family. Our subject was the fourth of five sons and two daughters three sons and two daughters of whom are still living. All these children were educated in France, and two of the sons, Francois M. and our subject, were in the late war in the Virginia army of the First Louisiana battalion for about one year, and were then in General Bragg's army of the Eighteenth Louisiana regiment for a while, when they were transferred to the trans-Mississippi department under Gen. Kirby Smith. The brother held the rank of a lieutenant, and our subject was a noncommissioned officer. Both were wounded at Mansfield. After the war, Mr. E. Ganier engaged in planting in Madison parish, where he has since lived. His present farm consists of 1,500 acres of fine land, producing as high as 500 bales of cotton in one year. He was married, in 1877, to Miss Amanda, the daughter of Dr. Charles J. and Lucy (Bradford) Mitchell, natives of Kentucky and Louisiana, respectively. Dr. Mitchell was a graduate of the Transylvania university, of Lexington, Ky., and afterward studied in France. He came to Madison parish, where he practiced until the war, then removed to Vicksburg, where he practiced until his death in 1885. His wife is still living. Mrs. Ganier was born in Madison parish. She is the mother of three children. Mr. Ganier served in his parish as a police juror in 1876-77-78, and is president of that body at this time. Though not a very active politician, he is greatly interested in the success of his party. He is one of the parish's best men, and stands very high in the esteem of his fellow-citizens. Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 1), p. 429. Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.