Tales of fortune excited heirs
Sixty-eight million dollars is a lot of money, even if it is going to be split among 120 people, especially if most of them are poor southwest Louisiana farmers.
That's why there was such big exci...
They hunted the rascals down
Rev. J.M. Johnson was the only passenger aboard the stage coach that pulled out of Bayou Chicot in what is now Evangeline Parish about 9 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 3, 1881. But the driver, Robert Fergu...
Jake, Fifine, and Father Forge
Three thousand people, about half of the town population, attended the last rites for Father Ernest Forge, a beloved and long-time pastor of St. John Cathedral in Lafayette in 1905. He was so loved...
Early settlers were true pioneers
When we talk about the American frontier we usually think about pioneers in Conestoga wagons lumbering across the Western prairies. But the first settlers in south Louisiana were every bit the pion...
Jury took up collection
Neighbors rallied around Joseph Hartman after he was convicted of manslaughter in 1847. They even took up a collection to take care of his wife when he was sent to prison.
The story started on May...
Melodious melodions
I had the pleasure earlier this month of sitting down for a long discussion with two of Acadiana's top accordion makers as a part of a UL-Lafayette oral history program.
Randy Falcon, who began ma...
Dueling sheriffs in St. Landry
Gunshots were the inevitable result when two men claimed to be Sheriff of St. Landry Parish in the turbulent days after the Civil War.
Deputy Sheriff S. Mayo was shot and killed in Opelousas in Se...
A coffin in a tree?
On Dec. 22, 1900, the Board of Control of the Louisiana State Penitentiary bought several hundred acres of land between New Iberia and Jeanerette to use as a prison farm.
They named it, somewhat f...
Why is it For-ked? It doesn't keep me awake at night, but one of the things that I've puzzled over from time to time is why we say when we come to a split in the road that it is forked, one syllable, but that when we...
Evangeline required a fight
It took several tries and a big court fight to separate Evangeline Parish from St. Landry.
A good segment of the people of what was the northwestern part of St. Landry Parish started pushing for a...
Remembering Charlene
Thursday, August 11, was the anniversary of the death in 1959 of Charlene Richard, a little girl whom many people call "the Little Cajun Saint." Her story is known across the globe. Miraculous cure...
A miraculous cure in Grand Coteau
In 1866, Mary Wilson confounded her doctors and rose from her death bed at the Sacred Heart Convent at Grand Coteau. She said her cure was a miracle, worked by John Berchmans, a seminarian who had ...
