Barbier's Point, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Sandra McLellan, Jul. 2005 Special thanks to Jim Perrin for donating it to the archives. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ LIFE ON BARBIER'S POINT In the Ponchatoula Enterprise, 6 Apr 2005 BY JIM PERRIN, Local Historian It takes a hardy and adventurous individual to move his family from the city and settle in an isolated and sometimes dangerous environment in a cypress swamp. The decision to make such a move was taken by Henry Barbier and his family about 140 years ago. The Barbiers left a more comfortable life in New Orleans to settle on a piece of swampland south of Ponchatoula and raise their large family. The piece of land on which they settled came to be called Barbier's Point. Lake Maurepas flows into Lake Pontchartrain through the deep and wide strait called Pass Manchac. The two lakes are also connected by a smaller strait called North Pass Manchac or simply North Pass. Pass Manchac and North Pass flow eastward toward Lake Pontchartrain and merge together at a point about two miles before they enter Lake Pontchartrain. The body of land located between North Pass and Pass Manchac is today called Jones Island, although in the mid-1800's it was also occasionally called Preston's Island. At the extreme eastern end of Jones Island, the land narrows to a point as the two passes merge into one stream. This point of land was the site Henry Barbier selected about 1866 as his family residence. Henry Barbier was born about 1843 in Switzerland according to census records. He is believed to have been the Henry Berbier, age five, who arrived in New Orleans 17 March 1847 on the ship South Carolina from LeHarve, France, with his parents Joseph and Marie Berbier. Henry Barbier married in late 1866 to Mary Ellen Donauer. Mary was born 19 Dec. 1849 in New Orleans, and was the daughter of George Jacob Donauer, a New Orleans carpenter and cabinetmaker (b. ca. 1820 in Bavaria or Prussia, d. 4 Feb. 1879, and Mary Matilda Huet (b. ca. 1822). Henry and Mary Barbier seem to have lived with Mary's parents in New Orleans for a time after their marriage as they are listed in the Jacob Donauer household with their two oldest children in 1870, and their first three children were born in New Orleans. The land which Henry Barbier selected as a new home site would not have attracted many young couples starting a family. The end of Jones Island was part of the vast Manchac swamplands with towering cypress trees festooned with Spanish moss, and inhabited by alligators, snakes, and the much more dangerous mosquitoes which sometimes carried yellow fever or malaria. Henry set to work and built a small house on the point of land looking east towards the lighthouse which marked the entrance to Pass Manchac from Lake Pontchartrain. Henry had been a sailor when he lived in New Orleans and knew his way around the local waters. He worked as a fisherman and trapper in the waters and swamps near his home. He sold the fish, turtles, moss, and pelts he gathered to passing schooner captains who brought these items to sell in New Orleans. There was an active schooner trade through the Pass and the ships would make regular stops at Barbier's Point to see if Henry had anything for them. One of the schooner captains said that Henry was his best customer. On their return voyage, the schooner captains would bring items Henry ordered from New Orleans. Henry wanted to improve the family diet by growing vegetables near his home, but the swampland which was subject to tidal and storm overflows was not appropriate for growing most crops. He soon began to improve his land by clearing some of the cypress trees from his land to have a field. He used some of the lumber he cut to make barrel staves and shingles for sale in New Orleans. Henry also began a decades long effort to build up his land and raise its elevation above the adjacent waters. He went across North Pass to nearby Stinking Bayou and loaded barrels with mud to dump on his property. He also gathered loose soil carried by the wave action called "coffee grounds" from the shoreline around the island. Barrel by barrel, year by year, he dumped dirt and mud onto his property to provide suitable land for cultivation. At one point he hired the use of the schooner Susie M. to bring a load of dirt from the shores of Lake Pontchartrain to help build up his place. Much of this back-breaking work was done in the late afternoons and evenings after his fishing and trapping tasks had been completed. He sometimes even worked on moonlit nights spreading dirt and digging ditches to drain his fields. After many years, and with the help of his sons, Henry had about ten acres of land under productive cultivation. He grew a variety of crops on this land including thousands of heads of cabbage for the New Orleans market. Henry also planted pecan, orange, peach, and fig trees on the land. Besides his house at the point, which Henry improved with pilings to keep the soil from being washed away and a wharf for schooners to load and unload, Henry also built two additional homes for his expanding family. The older home at the point was a two room structure with a back storeroom and a kitchen, which was built about 1874. Henry and Mary later lived in another two room home about 250 feet from the point but closer to the North Pass side of the Island. This was a raised two room house with a gallery around it. A third house for other family members was also constructed. During the decades they lived at the point, Henry and Mary's family continued to grow. Mary gave birth to twenty children during her married life, which was a very large family even in those days when a large family meant extra help around the farm and a type of social security for aged parents. At least six of Mary and Henry's children died as infants or very young children. Some were buried in Mary's parent's tomb in New Orleans, but several were buried in a family cemetery Henry began near his house. Burial in New Orleans was not always an option, as some of the children died in the summer and the schooners would not always arrive when needed making burial near the family home necessary. Once several children were buried in the Barbier Cemetery, this became the logical place to inter other family members. When Mary died 18 March 1901, she was buried in the family cemetery beside her babies. Henry had cut some timber from his land from time to time, to clear his field, and for lumber for his houses and fencing, but in the late 1890's he began to have larger numbers of trees felled. By 1904, Henry and his sons, along with some hired help were shipping out thousands of barrel staves from the point to cooperage firms in New Orleans. During one three week period, 60,000 staves were shipped from Barbier's land on board the schooners Leona and Leander Jane. During the closing decade of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the twentieth century people began to see increased value in the cypress swamps. As methods of harvesting large numbers of cypress trees improved, timber companies began buying large tracts of swampland for future harvesting. Legal ownership of the swamp became of greater interest. In September 1904 the eastern end of Jones Island was surveyed by John E. Kerrigan to determine the boundary between land claimed by Dr. Tobias Nagel of New Orleans and the heirs of Alexander Bootker, Jr. Ownership of the eastern end of the island was disputed in district court beginning in 1905, between Dr. Nagel, the heirs of Alexander Bookter, Jr., the heirs of John Hoey, and Henry Barbier, who all claimed ownership. Although Henry Barbier claimed that he had purchased his land soon after his arrival at the point, he was unable to provide a copy of the deed by which he had acquired title to the land. At the end of the lengthy legal proceedings, he was able to retain a small amount of the land that he had claimed. He was allowed to keep a piece of land beginning at the point and running back on both shores of the island far enough to included the family burial ground, his clearing, enclosed fields, and pecan trees up to the western limits of his improvements. Henry's heirs transferred their interests in his land in 1917 to E. L. Sternberger. Henry died sometime between 1908 and 1917. He and Mary had twenty children including: Henry A., Jr. (1868-1957); Frank W. (b. 1870 in New Orleans, living there in 1917); Mathilda Josephine (1872-1949); Joseph; Louise (1878-1971); Catherine "Kate" (1882-1962); Louis (1884-1968); Annie; Josephine; Henrietta "Yetta;" Andrew; George; Alonzo; and Noel. Barbier's Point has changed much since 1866 when Henry Barbier settled there. The area is now a recreational Mecca for those seeking fun at "the Pass." Many attractive homes or "camps" line the shore of Pass Manchac and North Pass in stark contrast to the three simple houses constructed by Henry Barbier. Henry and Mary Barbier died after hard, but well spent lives. They have left many descendants in this area who can be justly proud of the struggles and successes these pioneers found at Barbier's Point. Anyone with comments, questions, or additional information about Ponchatoula's rich heritage may call Jim Perrin at 386-4476