St. John the Baptist Memoir, St. John the Baptist Parish, La.
File prepared and submitted for the LA GenWeb Archives,
Sep 1998 by Sherry Sanford
(SSanf51819@aol.com)


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"Biographical And Historical Memoirs of Louisiana", Vol. II The Goodspeed
Publishing Company, 1892 In the parish of St. John Baptist the culture of
sugar cane and rice, with a considerable area devoted to truck gardening,
occupies most of the cultivable lands. On the west bank of the river is also
a considerable expanse of fine tillable land. Receding from this are swamps
heavily wooded with vaulable timbers which are being utilized in a large
degree in the manufacture of lumber, pickets, shingles, stams, etc. The
parish assessor's compiled agricultural statistics for the crop year 1890-91
show that there was in cultivation for that year 16,200 acres divided as
follows: Acres in cane, 8,745; rice, 4,623; corn, 2,832; hogsheads sugar,
6,619; barrels sugar, 38,719; barrels molasses, 32,923. Edgard, the parish
seat, is also the chief town of the parish. It is a small place with a
population of about 275. Across the river from Edgard is Bonnet Carre', or
St. Peter, a picturesque little town with a population of about 350. It is a
place of some business importance and is the possessor of the only newspaper
published in the parish. This paper, "Le Meschebe," was established 1853 and
is published in both French and English. It is much above the ordinary
standard of the local sheet in point of literary merit. The parish of St.
John originally embraced a part of the "German coast," and was first settled
by a colony of German immigrants under Chevalier d'Arensbourg, receiving a
subsequent immigration of banished Acadians. Among the early settlers the
following, whose names have been perpetuated by numerous descendants, are a
few: Webre', Heydel, Schexnaydre, Roussels, Cambre, Lesche, Jacobs Bossier
and a number of others. Like St. Charles the white population is chiefly
composed of the descendants of these pioneers. St. John was incorporated as
a parish of the territory of Louisiana by an act approved by the
legislature, 1807. The first seat of parochial government was at Bonnet
Carre' Point, on the line between the parishes of St. Charles and St. John.
The present site was selected in 1848, and a courthouse erected. The old
records of the parish under the French and Spanish dominations afford many
amusing examples of the simple and ludicrous manner in which business was
transacted. One was as follows: It seems that the good people had not up to
the date of this transaction (1770) been afforded the blessings of church
edifice, and their good Catholic training prompted them to a serious
conviction of the necessity of such a structure. But a grave trouble arouse;
clearing up land in the Mississippi bottoms was no small undertaking. One
Dubroc, however, seems to have been unusually well fixed in having twelve
arpents of land with a goodly portion cleared and no family to support. The
"community" decided he was the man who was most able to furnish a site for
the desired structure, and acting on the conviction despatched one of their
number, John Pouche', with a petition to Governor O'Reilly, asking him to
issue an order of expropriation. The following is the order, as translated
from the French: " We, captain-general and governor of the province of
Louisiana, on account of representations which have been made to us by the
inhabitants of the German settlement of St. John the Baptist and the request
of Michael Pouche' in the name of said inhabitants, the papers of which are
on file of the government, order that there shall be taken four arpents from
the land belonging to Dubroc, for the purpose of building the church, the
said Dubroc being alone and without family and having twelve arpents of
land. Upon the condition, however, that the community will have cleared on
the eight arpents remaining to him as much land as is cleared upon the four
arpents taken for the church, and also give him as many new pickets as there
are old ones on the four arpents. Given in our hand at New Orleans, February
21, 1770. Signed, O'Reilly. The church was built, and the same site is now
occupied by a magnificent structure in keeping with the growth of the
community in population and wealth. There are in the parish about fifteen
schools - - nine colored and six white. Nearly all the white population is
Catholic.

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