Grenes & Cole Families, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Sandra McLellan, Sep 2006 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 ************************************************ THE GRENES & COLE FAMILIES EARLY PONCHATOULA MERCHANTS BY JIM PERRIN, Local Historian One of Ponchatoula first merchants, Christian Grenes was born in Germany in the year 1818. He came to Louisiana in 1835 according to his tombstone inscription and located in this area by November 1842 when he witnessed a land sale in the Wadesborough area. In June 1845 and over the following two years Christian purchased three lots in the growing community of Wadesborough from the town's founders Richard and Mary Wade. By Feb. 1849 Christian was engaged to marry Lavinia "Viny" Tucker (b. ca. 1816, daughter of Zelotas Tucker and Sarah Snow). Christian donated his half interest in the schooner Rebecca Ann to his intended bride. The schooner which carried goods between Wadesborough and New Orleans was co-owned by Christan Grenes and Samuel Richardson. Christian also donated half of his assets and contents of his warehouse on the Ponchatoula River at Wadesborough to Lavinia. Christian and Lavinia were married soon thereafter but their marriage was brief as Lavinia died in October 1849 in a failed attempt to give birth to triplets. About 1851, Christian Grenes married Mary Elizabeth "Eliza" Mathews, who was born 11 June 1834. While living in Wadesborough, Christian served as the village postmaster, with the post office probably located in his place of business. Christian continued to operate his schooner business in Wadesborough, but he soon realized the commercial possibilities available in James Clark's new settlement of Ponchatoula on the tracks of the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad. Christian purchased Lot 2 in Square 41 in the newly surveyed town in Oct. 1854. This lot was just back from the corner of West Pine Street and Southwest Railroad where Jake Abels would much later built an impressive two story brick building. In 1857, Christian and Mary sold the warehouse and associated properties in and near Wadesborough and made Ponchatoula their home. They resided and had their main store and related buildings on Lots 2, 3 & 4 in Square 40 in Ponchatoula which is located on South Sixth Street just south of where Papa John's Pizza business is currently located. The Grenes general store was well provisioned and according to existing records did a good business during the 1857-1860 period. Christian Grenes was a member of the Livingston Lodge of the Masonic Order by 1858 and served for a time as the lodge treasurer. He died 7 Sept. 1860 at Ponchatoula and after an impressive Masonic ceremony attended by most of the forty other members of the lodge, he was laid to rest in what would later be called the Wetmore Cemetery west of Ponchatoula. He and Mary had three children during their marriage: Charles Carroll Grenes (3 Jan. 1852-27 Aug. 1875, bur. Wetmore Cem.); Ida Eudora Grenes, (1857-1907), m. John George Cole; and Lorin Chapman Grenes (1860-6 Sept. 1862, bur. Wetmore Cem). Christian's succession was opened in the Livingston Parish court the week after his death and an inventory was ordered. The inventory was conducted by Purnell F. Starns, with Darling B. Cason and William Akers acting as appraisers. Mr. Cason and Mr. Akers began inventorying the contents of the Grenes' store and residence in Ponchatoula on Sept. 14 and working every day they completed their task by Sept. 22. Among the very detailed inventory were notes and open accounts by more than 130 persons who lived in and near Ponchatoula. The court also named Mary Mathews Grenes natural tutrix of her three minor children and John Mathews was named the under-tutor. Mary Mathews Grenes continued to operate the store after Christian's death even through the hard economic times of the War Between the States. Mary married in 1866 to Thomas Robert Cole, of St Helena Parish, who was born 7 Aug. 1842 in Maine, son of Robert E. Cole and Ann Vincent. Because of her remarriage Mary had to go back to court to be renamed the natural tutrix of her two surviving children and file accounts of the funds from Christian Grenes succession used to provide for her children. Accounts during the 1867-1871 period indicate that her children Charles and Ida Grenes were taught by a local teacher and future parish surveyor Thomas Garahy, and Ida received piano lessons from a Miss Hunt. When the children needed boots and shoes they were purchased from the local shoemaker Peter Drude, the ancestor of the several Drude families in this area. When Ida needed a fancy new hat it was purchased from Frank Axtman's store, next door to Cole's store, on the corner of South Sixth Street and West Pine Street. In it not known by this writer how Thomas R. Cole came to be acquainted with Mary Mathews Grenes. It is interesting to note that the family listed next to Thomas Cole's family in Greensburg on the 1850 census schedule was that of the widow Eveline Patterson Rheams, who moved from Greensburg to Ponchatoula in the 1850's and opened a hotel. At any rate, Thomas moved to Ponchatoula about 1865-1866, and after his marriage he and Mary together operated the store for a number of years. They started their own family with the birth of their son Thomas James Cole on Nov. 23, 1870. Mary's youngest son Lorin had died as a child in 1862 and her other son from her first marriage Charles C. Grenes died unmarried in 1875 at the age of 23. Sometime in the 1870's and probably after the death of her son Charles, Mary and Thomas Cole moved their family to Greensburg in St. Helena Parish, where they resided for the rest of their lives. In 1887, Mary sold her several lots in the town of Ponchatoula to her daughter Ida E Grenes Cole. Mary Mathews Grenes Cole died in St. Helena Parish in May 1917 and was buried in the Greensburg Cemetery. Thomas R. Cole died in August 1924 and was buried beside Mary. Mary Eliza Mathews, widow of Christian Grenes, and wife of Thomas Cole, lady merchant of early Ponchatoula, was a witness to the birth of the piney woods town of Ponchatoula and helped develop the community over the next two decades. Anyone with questions, comments or suggestions for future articles, may contact Jim Perrin at 386-4476.