Echoes From The Attic and Poems, Happywoods, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Don Johnson, Mar. 2001
Typed by Belford Carver
Written by by Edna F. Campbell
Copyrighted by Edna F. Campbell
With special thanks to her family for permission to use her works.

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A JOYFUL SOUND IN HAPPYWOODS

The more urban setting now found in the Happywoods area just west of the (Hammond) 
city limits off the Old Baton Rouge Highway wasn't always that way.  In fact, part 
of that area's former pastoral atmosphere was responsible for the area's present 
name.

The name, according to lifelong residents of the historic settlement, stems from 
the happy, lowing sounds of dairy cattle in that area.  "It was a dairy community", 
commented Ann Adams, the former Anna Maude Halverson, whose grandfather, Halver 
Halverson, passed the legendary information down to his offsprings and to church 
minister, the Rev. Vernis Wolfe, of the Church of God of Abrahamic Faith, 
Happywoods.

As the story goes, the cattle roamed at large in unlimited pastures.  But there 
was a problem keeping the cows from straying into forbidden territory.  Dean Man's 
Curve, now known as the intersection of Highway 51 and West Thomas Street, formed 
the boundary entrance to Hammond.  If the cows strayed past the line, they were 
in danger of being impounded.  A one dollar fee per head was charged.  That was 
big money in that era.

Around four o'clock in the afternoon, the dairymen would begin their familiar 
calls to the roaming cattle.  The calls and the echo of the cattle's lowing 
(mooing), made a joyful sound.  Mrs. Adams quoted her grandfather as summing up 
the sound in the woods as "joyful and happy", thus, the name of Happywoods 
originated.

Ester Bottolfs, granddaughter of Halverson and daughter of another pioneer, 
Gilbert Bottolfs, also recalls the legendary story and the inspiration prompting 
it.  Esther has lived her entire life span on the Bottolf homesite on Happywoods 
Road, as has Mrs. Adams, who lives on the Halverson property.  Other pioneers were 
Ludwig Anthons, Albert Siples, Fred and Ed Schafers, Benedicts, St. Clairs, 
Luzenburgs and Hutchinsons.

Standing out as most prominent of the pioneer settlers were the St. Clairs.  The 
Old Baton Rouge Highway was first named St. Clair Avenue.  The St. Clair family 
owned what later became the Charles Brakenridge home, one of the most widely 
known homes in the area.  Brakenridge operated a lumber mill near Albany at the 
turn of the century.  The Brakenridge home was one of the landmarks demolished 
when it stood in the path of progress building Interstate 12.

Happywoods gained national and international eminence as the birthplace of 
Pulitzer Prize winner and widely acclaimed publisher Hodding Carter.

(From ECHOES FROM THE ATTIC, X, 1979, by Edna Campbell)

(Pic of sign post)