Independence, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Robert Vernon, Nov., 2000

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>From "Individual Studies of Place Names in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, James Valsin 
Coumes, Tangipahoa Parish Resource Unit, Tangipahoa Parish School Board, 1972."

INDEPENDENCE

About six miles south of Amite on U. S. Highway 51 is the town of Independence.  Some 
important information on when and why Independence received its name is contained in the 
following article of September 26, 1946, entitled "Old Letters Trace History of Independence":

Harry D. Wilson, Louisiana commissioner of agriculture, who will be honored with a 
special day during the annual Tangipahoa parish fair at Independence, was responsible 
for the incorporation for that town more than 43 years ago, letters in the state files 
reveal here.

The letters, written by Wilson, who was then a Tangipahoa parish representative in the 
state legislature, to Gov. W. W. Heard during 1902 and 1903, were discovered by 
Carey Comish, assistant to Secretary of State Wade O. Martin, Jr.

The correspondence discloses that Gov. Heard considered the three square mile area 
requested for the town too large for "a village of 308 people" and suggested that it be 
reduced.

Independence originally named "Uncle Sam," had its beginning in 1852 when the New 
Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern began operation, following an unsuccessful attempt 
by a railroad chartered in 1835 under the name of "The New Orleans and Nashville 
Railway Co."

In 1856, Dr. William D. Wilson, the Commissioner's father built a store building in 
Independence now considered the oldest building in town.

Directors of the Tangipahoa parish fair have designated Oct. 5 as "Harry D. Wilson 
Day" in honor of the veteran public official.

That Mr. Wilson's information is reliable is also substantiated by the facts that he was born 
and reared in Independence and worked for the Illinois Central Railroad as a express 
messenger, which job he left in 1898 to begin his political career.

Mr. Wilson's date -- 1852 -- for the naming of Independence proves that the name has nothing 
to do with the later coming of Italian families into the area.  It also indicates that the name 
did not originate with the establishment of the Independence Post Office on July 18, 1855.  A 
map of Independence dated December 1, 1854, is on file in the clerk of courtıs office in Amite.

When the entry on "Uncle Sam" is read and the "State Times" article on Mr. Wilson is reread, a 
logical conclusion can be reached on why Uncle Sam became known as Independence.  
Determined to succeed where the first railroad failed, the New Orleans, Jackson & Great 
Northern Railroad changed the name of Uncle Sam to Independence in order not to have the 
stigma of failure on it.  In conjunction with this, it is possible that the iron rails were laid 
through the Uncle Sam region in the first part of July of 1852.  If so, a big Fourth of July 
celebration could have inspired the "Picayune" of July 1, 1855:

The New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad offers great inducements to 
visit the pine woods on the Anniversary of our Independence.  An express passenger 
train leaves the depot, corner of Calliope and Clara streets, at 8 o'clock A. M., and 
reaching Osyka at half-past 12 o'clock, remains over until half-past 4 o'clock P. M., so 
as to allow parties to visit the grant barbecue to be given by the patriotic citizens of that 
vicinity upon the banks of the beautiful Tangipahoa.  There is to be a grand ball in the 
evening at the Osyka Hotel, besides the one at the Amite Hotel, just noticed.

It could be that a similar celebration was held on the banks of the Tangipahoa River east of 
the point of Uncle Sam three years earlier, even though no excursion editorials could be found 
in the "Scrapbook on the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad Company, 
1852-1870."  Anyway, Independence is certainly a more dignified name than Uncle Sam, and 
this fact must account in part for the renaming.

One other point of interest is that the New Orleans & Nashville Railroad was going to 
establish its machine and engine factories at Uncle Sam.  The Asher and Adams map of the 
region in 1871 shows in north-central T5S-R7E, "S. Car Works (Independence, P. O.)."  In other 
words, the Southern Car Works did exist at Independence at the time of the New Orleans, 
Jackson & Great Northern Railroad.

Independence was incorporated as a village on March 27, 1903; as a town on August 22, 1912.