FIRST SETTLERS
                          Vermilion, LA


Contributed by Margaret Rentrop Moore
Source: Southwest Louisiana Biographical & Historical by William
Henry Perrin; published 1891 pages 254.

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Settlement of the Parish Ä He who attempts to present 
with unvarying accuracv the annals of a single neighborhood 
or parish, whose history reaches back through nearly a century,
imposes upon himself a task beset with many difficulties. 
These difficulties, manifold and perplexing in themselves, are
often augmented by conflicting statements, and varying data
furnished by well-meaning descendants of early settlers, as
material from which to compile a true and faithful record 
of past events. To give facts, and facts only, should be 
the aim of him who proposes to deal with the past. But,
with the ever changing geographical lines of civil divisions, 
it is very hard to confine those from whom the writer must 
obtain his information to certain localities. Hence settlers
sometimes get a little mixed as to the place of location.
     Among the first settlers in this parish may be mentioned
Marin Mouton, G. Mouton, Levi Campbell, Bartlett Campbell,
Charles Barrington, John Mermion, Samuel R. Rice, Auguste
Broussard, Louis Laugemais, Olivier Blanchett, Joseph LeBlanc,
John Lahan, Robert Perry, John Gregg, Joseph Trahan, Jean
R. LeBlanc, J. F. Bourque, Pierre Desorneaux, Wm. Harrington,
John B. Theall, P. P. Thibodeaux, Abram Abshire, Pierre Laponte,
Vital Laponte, Z. Trahan, Shadrick Porter, etc.
    The Moutons originally settled in the present parish of
Lafayette, where they are most particularly mentioned. The
Campbells, settled on the lower Vermilion bayou. Harrington
settled near Cow Island; Mermion was a native of England and 
a very early settler. After this settlers came in so rapidly 
it was hard to keep trace of them.
     The parish was organized in 1844, and was incorporated 
under the following act:
    SECTION I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives in General Assembly convened, That all 
that part of the parish of Lafayette, on the south side 
of the following described line, to-wit: starting at the 
point where the line dividing the parishes of Lafayette 
and St. Martin crosses the Bayou Park Perdu; from said 
point in a direct line to the first woods on the coulee
known by the name of Dalby's Coulee; from thence down
said coulee to the Bayou Vermilion; thence along said
coulee to the mouth of Grange's Coulee to the last timber
thereon; thence in a direct line to the first timber on the
Indian Point Coulee; thence down said coulee to the mouth 
or its junction with the Bayou Queue Tortue; thence down
along the line now fronting the boundary of the parish of
Lafayette to the place of starting, and all the territory 
within said boundary line to be known by and called the 
parish of Vermilion.