Union Parish Louisiana

French & Spanish Control of Louisiana (1540 – 1803)

After De Soto's exploration of the 1540s, we have little evidence of any European activity in the Ouachita River valley until the latter 1600s. European interest in the region then came in three distinct waves. The French hunters, trappers, and traders appeared first and operated along the Ouachita River valley until the Natchez Indian massacre of 1729, which frightened away any developers for a while. Next, in the 1740s and 1750s, French settlers meandered north from the Pointe Coupee Post in south Louisiana and named many of north Louisiana's bayous and prairies. These settlers returned south for Pointe Coupee before the Spaniards took possession of Louisiana in the late 1760s. The third wave of European settlers were actually descendents of the second wave, most true Louisiana Creoles born near the Point Coupee and Opelousas Posts. A few Canadians came down the river from the Arkansas Post, and a few native French traders also operated along the river in the 1770s.

With the exception of occasional failed colonization schemes, prior to 1782 Europeans ignored the vast Ouachita Valley, which extended from the area around Hot Springs Arkansas southward towards the Mississippi River in Louisiana. This changed with the 1779 – 1782 war between England and Spain. After their defeat at the Battle of Baton Rouge in 1779, the English yielded control of Natchez to the Spaniards, and this led to several years of fighting as the English settlers resisted Spanish rule over them. After the ultimate English defeat, many settlers fled to the Ouachita Valley region, creating the threat of English/American rebel activity in the Ouachita Valley region. This prompted the Spanish governor, Don Bernardo, the Comte de Galvez, to establish a strong buffer zone between the independent American states and the Spanish province of Louisiana. In 1781 Galvez created the "Poste d'Ouachita" and named Jean-Baptist Filhiol (also known as Don Juan Filhiol) as the commandant. Filhiol served in this capacity between 1782 and 1804, and through his service helped to keep a firm Spanish grip on activities in the region.

Filhiol, his new wife, and a few others arrived in the Ouachita country in April 1782 He traveled up the river, past present-day Union Parish, to the old trading post called "Ecore a Fabri" (now Camden, Arkansas). For various reasons, after a few years Filhiol decided not to build his headquarters there and took his group back down river to the "Prairie des Canots". With the help of a few early settlers, in 1790 – 1791, Filhiol built Fort Miro, named after the Spanish Esteban Miro. The Americans took over control of the region in 1804 and later changed the name of the settlement that grew up around the fort from "Fort Miro" to "Monroe", after President James Monroe.

From Filhiol's reports to the Spanish governor, we learn that his corporal Augustin Roy had a claim to land surrounding Noyer's Bluff, near the mouth of Bayou D'Loutre in present-day Union Parish by the early 1790s. No clear record exists to indicate how long (if at all) Roy resided near Noyer's Bluff, and this is perhaps the earliest documented reference to land in present-day Union Parish. Filhiol also reported that several men settled in the region north of Fort Miro along Bayou D'Arbonne between 1790 and 1800, including Baltazard Foguel, Andre and Simon LeBoeuf, and the American John Price. It is unclear precisely where they settled, although presumably in present-day northern Ouachita Parish, closer to the mouth of the D'Arbonne near the Ouachita River.

The earliest known permanent European settler of what is now Union Parish, John Honeycutt, Sr., arrived in the Ouachita Valley region with his family between 1790 and 1795. He obtained the first known Spanish land grant for property that later fell into Union Parish. Honeycutt's land lay along Bayou D'Arbonne, and on 14 October 1797 he sold his "habitation with ten arpents frontage by the usual forty arpents depth with its stock of hogs with his mark" to Zadoc Harman, a man of African descent who had formerly lived in North Carolina (Ouachita Parish Louisiana Conveyance Book Z, folio 46, Deed 68). Although we do not know the specific location of the land that Spain granted to Honeycutt, it was probably near the property that his son John Honeycutt, Jr. purchased from the United States government in 1826, when it finally opened the first land office in Monroe. John Honeycutt, Jr. was among the very first purchasers to appear at the Ouachita Land Office in Monroe that year; he bought eighty acres near Bayou D'Arbonne in present-day Union Parish, located just a mile below the present-day Lake D'Arbonne dam.

Commandant Filhiol's reports written in the 1780s and 1790s to the Spanish governor gave little information on the origins of the place names already well established in the Ouachita Valley. He referred to Bayous D'Loutre and D'Arbonne by 1784. The Loutre was named for the French word for otter, but the D'Arbonne was named for Jean Baptiste Darban or d'Arbonne, the son of Jean-Baptiste d'Arbonne of Natchitoches. They were descendents of Gaspard Derbanne, a Canadian hunter who accompanied Louis Jucherneau St. Denis to the Red River in 1714.

The Early American Period (1804 – 1838)

As mentioned above, the earliest recorded permanent white settlers of the modern Union Parish region were John Honeycutt, Sr. and his family, who arrived in the Ouachita Valley between 1790 and 1795 and obtained a Spanish grant for land along Bayou D'Arbonne. He sold his Spanish land in 1797, but remained in the region with his family. Between the early 1790s and about 1810, the Honeycutts were the only known permanent white residents of what is now Union Parish. By 1814, Honeycutt's John Honeycutt, Jr. owned a plantation of 625 acres on Bayou D'Arbonne. The Honeycutts lived in what soon became known as the "Upper Pine Hills" or the "Piney Hills", the region surrounding Bayou D'Arbonne in what is now southern Union Parish. John Honeycutt, Jr. was born about 1774 in Tennessee; when George Feazel moved into the Honeycutt's neighborhood in early 1814, John Jr. almost immediately married his daughter, Mary Feazel. It appears that John Honeycutt, Sr. died shortly after 1820, but John Jr. and his wife Mary remained in southern Union Parish until the mid-1850s.

The next earliest Union Parish settlers were John Stow, who arrived in the Ouachita Valley prior to 1810, and Mills Farmer, who arrived by 1812. Both born in 1780 in South Carolina, Stow and his wife Dorcas settled on land now in Lincoln Parish near the modern Union/Lincoln Parish line. Farmer apparently settled a few miles east of what later became the Town of Downsville in extreme southern Union Parish. Farmer married Susannah Wood McGowan on 13 February 1812 in Ouachita Parish. In 1814, he joined a unit of soldiers raised by William Wood (his father- or brother-in-law) to help defend south Louisiana from invasion by the British. Farmer served as the unit's sergeant, and they marched south to help fight the British during the War of 1812. He saw service around Baton Rouge and New Orleans and afterwards returned to north Louisiana. Although he practically lived isolated in a wilderness, Farmer somehow managed to educate his children well, for his son William Wood Farmer (27 April 1813 – 29 October 1854) is the earliest recorded justice of the peace for what is now Union Parish. The younger Farmer was a lawyer and surveyor, often performing surveying work for the United States government. After serving two terms in the Louisiana Legislature, William W. Farmer was elected as the lieutenant governor on the Democratic ticket with Governor Paul Octave Hebert. While on a trip to New Orleans to collect surveying debts from the United States government, Farmer contracted yellow fever and died. He was first interred in the Protestant Girod Street Cemetery in New Orleans, but a joint committee appointed 15 January 1855 by the legislature authorized the removal of his remains to the Farmerville City Cemetery.

Daniel Colvin and his father-in-law, James Hughey, Sr., left Chester District South Carolina in late 1811 and went to Georgia. There they appealed to the Georgia Governor for passports to move their families across the Federal Road through the Creek Nation (in present-day Alabama) on their way to Louisiana. The Georgia government approved the passports on 15 January 1812, and apparently Colvin and Hughey went on towards Louisiana. They passed through the Creek Nation a mere eighteen months prior to the beginning of hostilities between the United States and the Red Sticks, the faction of the Creek Nation who followed the teachings of the Shawnee prophet Techumsa and attempted to eradicate the whites in Alabama and Georgia. The 1813 – 1814 Creek War began with the Fort Mims Massacre on 30 August 1813. By all accounts, the Colvins and Hugheys had safely passed through the Creek Nation long before the hostilities. Daniel Colvin and James Hughey, Sr. settled near what is now Vienna upon his arrival in about 1812. This region belonged to Union Parish between 1839 and 1845, and lay just outside Union Parish until the creation of Lincoln Parish in 1873. Daniel's son, Jeptha Colvin, opened the first United States Post Office in Union Parish on 24 March 1838, called Colvin's Post Office. The name was changed to Vienna in 1850.

William Lyles apparently arrived in the region at the same time as Mills Farmer and settled near him in what is now southern Union Parish. John "Liles", probably William's brother or son, served in the Louisiana militia in 1814 with Farmer.

Another early Union Parish settler was Johannes Gorge (George) Feazel, who arrived in Ouachita Parish in early 1814 and settled near the Honeycutts. Feazel's daughter Mary married John Honeycutt, Jr. on 31 March 1814. In 1822, George Feazel traveled from north Louisiana to Texas, where he had a meeting with Stephen F. Austin. However, Feazel decided to not settle in Texas and soon returned to north Louisiana. In 1824, Feazel's son John married Christina Ferguson, the daughter of Revolutionary War soldier John Ferguson, who arrived in what is now southern Union Parish in the early 1820s from Mississippi.

Prior to 1826, the only documented landowners in what is now Union Parish are John Honeycutt, Sr., who obtained a grant from the Spanish government in about 1795, his son John Honeycutt, Jr., who in 1814 owned 625 acres of land on Bayou D'Arbonne granted (presumably) by Spain, and Mills Farmer, who owned 20 acres in 1814. Others who cleared fields and built cabins were technically squatters on government land, and this situation provided little incentive to draw settlers to north Louisiana.

The United States finally completed the task of surveying and platting the land surrounding Monroe in about 1825, thus opening the door for the government to finally begin selling some of these lands to farmers. The Ouachita Land Office opened for the first time in mid-1826, offering land at $1.25 per acre. Only around forty or fifty men purchased land in northeastern Louisiana that year, including six who bought eighty-acre tracts of land located in what would soon become Union Parish. The first purchase was on 19 August 1826, when John Stow and Gideon P. Benton traveled to Monroe and bought land located a few miles east of the present-day Town of Downsville in southern Union Parish. Benton went to the land office strictly as the representative of William Lyles, and the government issued a land patent to Lyles a few months later. However, shortly after he paid for his land, Stow must have sold it to John Honeycutt, for the government issued the patent to Honeycutt, not Stow.

One month later, on 18 September 1826, John Honeycutt, Mills Farmer, and Farmer's brother-in-law Shepherd Wood appeared at the Ouachita Land Office and purchased their own eighty-acre tracts of southern Union Parish land. Farmer bought land two miles due east of what later became Downsville, whereas Wood chose property one mile south of Farmer's, on the modern Union/Ouachita Parish line. Honeycutt, however, purchased property located just below the modern dam on Lake D'Arbonne, apparently land that adjoined his existing plantation. Daniel Colvin, who had arrived in the Ouachita Valley prior to 1814, also purchased eighty acres near Vienna in 1826.

The Ouachita Land Office did little business in 1826 and 1827, with no land in present-day Union Parish purchased. In fact, the only other pre-1836 sales of what later became Union Parish property were Mills Farmer's 5 July 1828 purchase of an 80-acre tract that adjoined his existing farm, as well as the 5 October 1832 purchase by John Huey of 40 acres on the Union/Ouachita Parish line, south of Farmer's farm. The Hueys had settled not too far south of Mills Farmer prior to 1814, and although fairly close neighbors, they primarily resided in the region that is now northwestern Ouachita Parish.

The vast majority of land sold at the Ouachita Land Office between 1826 and 1833 lay in the region surrounding Monroe – including present-day Ouachita Parish and the southernmost portions of Union, Lincoln, and Morehouse Parishes. Very little of Claiborne and nothing in Union Parish north of the modern Lake D'Arbonne dam was yet offered for sale. Undoubtedly a few settlers made their homes in that region in the 1820s, but the only one of record is Lawrence Scarborough. He settled on Bayou Cornie in the 1820s and made improvements to a total of 200 acres located about four miles due south of Spearsville. Lawrence was a Baptist minister born in 1767 in Edgecombe County North Carolina; his father, Major James Scarborough, fought for the patriots during the Revolutionary War and became one of the heros of the Battle of Kings Mountain. Lawrence had settled in Burke County Georgia in the 1790s, moved to Mississippi Territory by about 1810, and traveled throughout southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana before settling on Bayou Cornie. He preached at various Baptist churches in Claiborne Parish and Arkansas in the 1820s and 1830s.

Other early settlers of northwestern Union Parish include Powhatan Boatright, who in 1835 settled in what is now the Zion Hill Community, about four miles south of Scarborough's farm. About the same time, Francis W. Turpin settled in what is now Spearsville.

Apparently prompted by some unknown sequence of events (perhaps some bureaucratic red tape that prevented the government from offering certain tracts for sale earlier), the floodgates opened in 1836 with thousands of land purchases at the Ouachita Land Office. Thirty-six settlers purchased land in Union Parish that year, primarily in the southern half of the parish near Bayous D'Arbonne and D'Loutre. Immigration increased dramatically in 1837 with the arrival of the first large wave of Alabama settlers, and continued unabated until the beginning of the War Between the States in 1861.

Creation of Union Parish

The Louisiana Legislature created Union Parish on 13 March 1839 from Ouachita Parish. At that time it bordered Union County Arkansas on the north, the Ouachita River on the east, Claiborne Parish on the west, and Ouachita Parish on the south. Union Parish reportedly took its name from a statement made by Daniel Webster: "liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable."

These influential local citizens petitioned the legislature for the creation of Union Parish: Wiley Underwood, Peter J. Harvey, John Taylor, Matthew Wood, Stephen Colvin, Philip Feazle, Daniel Payne, and William Wood Farmer. The legislature appointed John Taylor as the first parish judge, a position for twenty years. Elections for police jury members were held in March and April 1839. Upon the order of Judge John Taylor, the first meeting of the Union Parish Police Jury was held at the home of William Wilkerson near the mouth of Bayou Corney on 15 May 1839. Police Jury members elected included: John N. Farmer (Ward 1), Jeptha Colvin (Ward 2), Phillip Feazel (Ward 3), Matthew Wood (Ward 4), Needham M. Bryan (Ward 5), Bridges Howard (Ward 6), and D. P. A. Cook (Ward 7). As its first item of business, the Police Jury elected Matthew Wood as their first president. The second item of business was to elect Thomas Van Hook as the clerk of the police jury. Matthew Wood's son-in-law, William Cleaton Carr, was elected as the first sheriff of Union Parish, and the police jury appointed him tax collector. The first tax assessors for the parish were Thomas J. Greer, David Ward, and James Roan. Thomas Jefferson Seale and Thomas J. Greer were the first parish constables.

The Building of Farmerville

The Union Parish Police Jury deliberated all day on 17 May 1839 concerning the location of the parish seat. Still meeting at the house of William Wilkerson on May 18th, they agreed that the "seat of justice" should be located near the confluence of Bayous D'Arbonne and Corney. They also selected the name of Farmerville for the parish seat, undoubtedly in honor of early settler and War of 1812 veteran Mills Farmer, who had died a few years earlier on 21 October 1834.

Union Parish Police Jury President Colonel Matthew Wood went to the government land office in Monroe on 28 May 1839 and purchased 160 acres of government land for $1.25 per acre for the purpose of establishing the parish seat of Farmerville. A public square was selected and marked out, as were the adjacent town lots. The police jury began selling the lots in July 1839, but the town streets were not built until the next year. Farmerville grew slowly, not receiving her town charter from the state until 1842.

James Hayden Seale (18 Mar 1814 – 1865/1870) had arrived in north Louisiana with Colonel Matthew Wood in February 1837. A veteran of the 1836 Creek War in Alabama, Seale was also a lawyer. He became quite active in the construction of Farmerville and in Union Parish politics for the next few years. By July 1839, Seale had removed many stumps from the town square and dug the first well there. When the Farmerville post office officially opened on 2 May 1840, Seale became the first postmaster. On June 1st, the police jury put Seale in charge of the construction of Farmerville's first streets, ordering them to be fifty feet wide. The following year, Seale was still clearing the courthouse square, for on 8 June 1841 the police jury paid him $100 for "digging up 84 stumps, rolling, piling, and burning logs, and filling up a large hole on the public square..." Seale served as the tax assessor for 1841 and 1842, and beginning in 1842, he served one term as Union Parish sheriff. He left Union Parish for New Orleans in 1846, and later moved to Jackson Parish, where he served as the clerk of court in 1850.

The early meetings of the police jury frequently became chaotic, and, on 12 July 1841, the police jury required Sheriff William C. Carr to attend the meetings regularly, as they were “...frequently Disturbed by officious and disinterested persons..." whose conduct was not “...in accordance with the laws and general Customs of our State.” The police jury allowed Carr $2 a day for preventing “...any person or persons intruding upon this body by Loud words or medling [sic] with business in which they are not Directly concerned...” In September 1841, the police jury passed a procedural motion stating that its members:

...shall have the priviledge to speak without interruption from other members untill [sic] he may git [sic] through his Subject provided it does not exceed 20 minutes and that no abusive Language Shall be used by one member toward another member & that each member Rise on his feet When he speaks on any subject....Violators subject to a $5 fine."

The first serious controversy in Union Parish occurred around the 1840 Presidential election. Although most of the story comes from local tradition rather than recorded facts, documented evidence exists of a serious disturbance between Matthew Wood and Peter Harvey that resulted in Wood's migration to Texas. The story according to Dr. Max H. Williams:

Wood and Harvey had differing opinions about parish business which may have originally put them at odds with each other. To make matters worse, Wood was a staunch Whig, where as Harvey was a fervent Democrat. Following President William Henry Harrison's premature death shortly after taking office on 4 April 1841, Wood and Harvey casually met on the street in Farmerville. Wood, wearing a black armband around his coat sleeve as a sign of mourning for Harrison, greeting Harvey. However, Harvey refused the salutation, remarking that he would not speak to anyone who mourned such a scoundrel as Harrison. In anger, Wood drew his pistol and shot Harvey at close range. A button on Harvey's coat is said to have caused the bullet to deflect, leaving him with only a minor flesh wound. Harvey reportedly then wrested the pistol from Wood and beat him with it until bystanders intervened. At that moment, Wood's son Willis Wood arrived and put his father on a horse and took him home. Shortly thereafter, Wood left Louisiana for Texas, likely persuaded by his sons-in-law John Taylor and William C. Carr, the parish judge and sheriff. We have no record that Wood ever stood trial for his assault upon Harvey.

The first recorded public executions that occurred in Union Parish occurred in the summer of 1844. On July 22nd, the police jury authorized the payment of $5 to Sheriff James H. Seale

... for erecting a gallows for executing to [sic] criminals...

We do not know the identities of those executed.

Earliest Towns and Post Offices

As immigration increased dramatically from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi in the 1840s and 1850s, other Union Parish settlements formed rapidly, including Ouachita City (on the Ouachita River), Marion, Cherry Ridge, Spearsville, Shiloh, and Downsville. For information on early post offices, visit the Union Parish Louisiana Post Office Page.

Newspapers

It appears that Farmerville had her first newspaper by the latter 1840s. The Farmerville "Inquirer" was in publication in the mid-1850s, followed briefly by the "Union Democrat" , 1859 – 1860. Thomas Charles Lewis, III founded the "Union Record" in February 1866, the Reconstruction newspaper of the parish. Judge Lewis' political nemesis, Judge James E. Trimble, founded the "Gazette" in 1878 to compete with the "Union Record", which ceased publication in 1879. Trimble's "Gazette" has been published each week in Farmerville ever since. Other Union Parish papers published during the 1880s include the "Baptist Messenger", "North Louisiana Appeal", and the "Home Advocate". All had ceased publication by 1890. As the Populist movement began in earnest in the 1890s, the Farmerville Herald debuted in July 1895 to give a Populist voice to counter the staunchly-Democratic Gazette. It ran as long as the Populists held sway in the parish, until just after 1900.

For more information on the early newspapers, see the Union Parish Newspaper History. In addition, from the older papers, we have available both newspaper abstracts and early newspaper articles.

Nineteenth Century Transportation: Steamboats

At its creation in early 1839, Union Parish consisted of thick pine forests interspersed with cypress swamps along the various bayous. A few Indian trails led trappers and hunters across the region, but the parish had no maintained roads. The only means of easy travel into to region was by water. Traveling up the Ouachita River from Monroe, one could take Bayou d'Arbonne and make it to Farmerville and on up Bayou Corney towards Shiloh. In the 1840s and 1850s, many pioneers making their way west from Alabama and Georgia continued on up the Ouachtia past the mouth of the d'Arbonne to what is now known as Alabama Landing, where they followed old trails headed northwest across the parish and on into Arkansas. During periods of high water, some probably poled their way up Bayou d'Loutre, although it is not particularly well-suited to navigation.

Even after the parish began building and attempting to maintain roads, the preferred mode of transportation remained water throughout the nineteenth century. Steamboat inventor Robert Fulton established a regular steamboat route from New Orleans to Natchez by 1814, and soon steamboats began navigating both the Red and Ouachita Rivers. We have no direct proof, but it appears that steamboats made regular trips from Monroe to Farmerville as early as the 1840s. In 1866, the "Champion", commanded by Captain A. J. Dye, made regular runs from New Orleans to Alabama Landing, and the "Victoria", commanded by Captain O. S. Burdett, took freight and passengers from Monroe to Farmerville. Several ships operated on the d'Arbonne in 1870.

Steamboats proved vital to the development of the parish. In addition to bringing freight to the merchants of Farmerville and Shiloh, they took passengers to and from Monroe. More importantly, steamboats shipped the baled cotton produced by the Union Parish farmers downsteam to Monroe and New Orleans. The entire Union Parish economy relied upon the steamboat industry, and the boats did not always have access to the Union Parish landings. During periods of drought, the water levels fell too low in the bayous to permit the steamboats from getting to the Farmerville Landing, Stein's Bluff, the landing near Shiloh, or Rugg's Bluff, the landing between Farmerville and the mouth of the d'Arbonne. Numerous steamboat accidents occrred due to issues of high water, such as this one of "Victoria." Steamboats operating in the Union Parish waterways during the 1890s include the "Belle Darbonne," commanded by Captain H. W. Williams and operating along Bayous d'Arbonne and Corney to Monroe, and the "City of Camden," which operated along the Ouachita River between Monroe and Camden, Arkansas. A few industrious Union Parish residents even built their own steamboats in the parish, including "Rosa B" built by Cicero M. Bearden, a native of the parish.

Steamboats remained the primary means of transportation in and out of the parish, as well as the primary means by which farmers transported their cotton to New Orleans markets until the early 1900s. The coming of the railroads signaled the end of the steamboat era, both in Union Parish and across the nation.

War for Southern Independence

Like the rest of the South, the War Between the States devastated Union Parish economically and morally. A glance at the many widows and orphaned children in the parish on the 1870 census reveals the vast number of lives affected by the war. The effects of the war proved long-reaching, as many of the dead soldiers' families struggled for decades to make ends meet in the postwar economy.

On the other hand, the parish saw no Yankee armies enter its boundaries, nor were any Union Parish homes burned or ransacked. In fact, the only documented presence of Yankees in Union Parish during the war comes from the April 1864 naval Yankee Excursion to Ouachita City. Although the Yankee armies never materialized in the parish, residents certainly feared an attack up the Ouachita River or Bayou d'Arbonne from Monroe. In fact, stories linger that Union Parish Recorder William C. Smith and other Farmerville officials took all parish books from the courthouse to secure locations in the event that the Yankees might try to burn the town. Reportedly, some books never made it back to the courthouse, which may explain what became of some probate records immediately prior to and during the war, as well as the 1854 – 1866 marriage records.

When the political turmoil between the South and North came to a head in late 1860, Louisiana planned a Secession Convention in January 1861. Each parish elected two representative delegates, and Union Parish chose Spearsville plantation owner Sidney Henry Griffin and long-time resident Dr. William Cleaton Carr. Not every region of the state favored secession, but both Griffin and Carr voted for the Ordinance of Secession.

Union Parish certainly contributed its fair share of soldiers to the Confederate cause. Due to significant loss of records, it is impossible to give an accurate count of the number of Union Parish men who served in the Confederate military, for many sent into other parishes or states to enlist in the same units as their relatives or friends. However, Union Parish sent at least twelve military units (including infantry, artillery, and cavalry) totaling approximately 1100 soldiers to serve in the Confederate Army, and these men saw action in nearly every theater of the war. For more information on the various military units raised in Union Parish, see Confederate Military Units from Union Parish.

Those left behind in Union Parish while the soldiers went off to war had a hard time dealing with the absence of the primary work force. The situation worsened in 1862, when the Confederacy began requiring all able-bodied men to serve in the military and the market for cotton had evaporated. Without cotton sales, Southern farmers lost their only real cash crop, and many families found it difficult to survive. In a special session held in Farmerville on 6 May 1862, the Union Parish Police Jury appropriated $10,000 to aid the families of Confederate soldiers. This aid to soldiers' families continued throughout the war, and was in addition to the regular charity aid that the police jury awarded to needy families.

Reconstruction and its Aftermath

After the war ended, Northern politicians refused to admit representatives from the former Confederate states to Congress or to allow the Southern states back into the Union without some atonement for their struggle for independence. This led to what is known as the Reconstruction period, roughly 1868 – 1876. It was an unpleasant period for most Southerners, both white and black, who, in many cases, struggled to survive and regain political control of their region.

Louisiana Reconstruction politics became particularly nasty as the 1872 elections approached. The Unionist Democratic ticket headed by gubernatorial candidate John McEnery fought to return Louisiana to self rule and rid the state of the occupying Federal troops (detachments of which were stationed throughout the state, including one in Monroe). However, Republican William Pitt Kellogg usurped the governor’s post from McEnery in what was regarded as another rigged election, and, in the ensuing uproar, many prominent Union Parish citizens were arrested on various charges. In this election, Thomas C. Lewis was elected parish judge and James E. Trimble district judge. These two archrivals became the leaders of two differing political groups within the parish. The ensuing animosity and threats to his life led Lewis to fear for his family's safety, and, at the end of 1879, he ceased the publication of his "Union Record" and took his family south to St. Landry Parish. He returned in 1884 and founded the "Home Advocate" to compete with Trimble's "Gazette". The rivalry between Trimble and Lewis soon resurfaced and became rather intense during the summer and fall of 1885.

The hostility among Farmerville's businessmen did not limit itself to Trimble and Lewis. Trimble and Farmerville lawyer James A. Ramsey (9 Mar 1852 – 19 Dec 1887) also shared quite a bit of animosity. These hard feelings may have lingered from the Reconstruction issues of the 1870s, but tradition suggests a more personal basis. At some point Ramsey’s children boarded at Trimble’s house in Farmerville while attending school. Trimble filed a lawsuit against Ramsey for failure to pay their board, and in court Ramsey produced a receipt for payment, humiliating Trimble. Interestingly, in 1880 Trimble, his law partner William K. Rutland, and Ramsey all lived in Farmerville within only a few houses of each other; Ramsey moved to the country soon after 1880.

Shootout in Farmerville!!!

It is believed that these earlier conflicts led to further hostilities between Ramsey and Trimble. On 8 November 1887, at a political rally held in Farmerville, James A. Ramsey gave a speech in which he sharply criticized Trimble for his editorials in the "Gazette" against Louisiana Governor Nichols’ official conduct. Apparently Ramsey had previously presented Trimble with proof that his public criticisms of Nichols were without merit, yet Trimble refused to publish a retraction or correction. In response to Ramsey’s speech, Trimble assailed Ramsey’s moral character in his next editorial. Incensed at Trimble’s attack on his friend, in the November 18th issue of his "Home Advocate", Thomas Lewis published an ad signed by him and many of Farmerville’s citizens in which he certified Ramsey’s "high moral rectitude” and integrity. Lewis’ ad also announced that Ramsey’s conscientious scruples prevented him from

"...appealing to the dueling code to wash out the affront put upon him by Editor Trimble..." 

We have no records of the precise events that occurred over the next month. However, what we do know is that Judge Trimble drank heavily on December 19th. In several public outbursts that day, he threatened to shoot Ramsey if Ramsey came to town. Not wanting to appear cowardly, Ramsey ignored Trimble’s threat and came to town. In a chance encounter in front of Stein’s store in Farmerville at about 5:15 pm, Ramsey met Trimble. After a hot exchange of words that drew a large crowd of men in front of the store, the two lawyers drew their pistols, five or six shots were fired, and both fell dead. A coroner’s investigation revealed that Ramsey died from a bullet fired by Trimble’s gun, but Ramsey’s gun had not been fired. According to tradition passed down in the Ramsey family, Ramsey’s nephew George McFarland was in the crowd of men gathered in Stein’s store watching the altercation between Ramsey and Trimble. After Trimble pulled his gun and shot Ramsey, McFarland, an excellent marksman, shot Trimble. Several newspaper accounts exist to describe this event, including those published in the Ouachita Telegraph and the Daily Capitolian Advocate.

The 1890s: Populism, Severe Drought, Railroads, & the Demise of Shiloh

Three primary topics dominated Union Parish headlines during the 1890s: the rise of the Populist Party, the unprecedented drought of 1896 – 1897, and the coming of the railroads to Union Parish.

Populist Movement. Southern farmers attempting to recover from the economic depression that followed the War Between the States and Reconstruction faced repeated set-backs during the 1870s and 1880s. Farm prices fluctuated frequently during the 1870s before plummeting in the 1880s, causing many small farmers and sharecroppers across the South to fall deeply into debt. These events rekindled long-term grievances the Southern and Western farmers held against the northeastern financial interests, who they blamed for the depressed economy. Groups such as the Farmers' Alliance and Knights of Labor emerged throughout rural areas in the latter 1880s, and this led to the formation of the Populist, or People's, Party in 1891. The Populists gained their primary support from the middle and lower-class white farmers, previously solid Democratic supporters. They had suffered from years of economic depression and saw the Populist platform as a way to improve their condition. However, race played a major role in American politics of that era, and the fear that a Democratic split could revive the old Republican–black alliance kept many Southern farmers firmly in the Democratic camp.

The Populists ran strong nationally in 1892, which energized them with optimism for the 1896 election. Building up to the 1896 election in Louisiana, the Populists attempted to sway black voters to support them instead of the Democratic establishment. This strategy worked to some extent in the hill parishes of north/central Louisiana, including in Union Parish. However, in the Mississippi Delta region, the wealthy Democratic plantation owners maintained control over their black sharecroppers, keeping them firmly in the Democratic column. The result was that, although they ran well, the majority of the statewide Populist candidates lost by slim margins in 1896. The strong showing of the Populist candidates across Louisiana and the South worried the Democrats, who realized that to retain their political power, they needed to neutralize the black vote. This quickly led to suffrage reform, laws enacted that required literacy and land ownership in order to register to vote, unless one's father or grandfather had voted prior to 1867. These "Grandfather Clause" laws effectively prevented the vast majority of Southern blacks from voting. In fact, not one single black man registered to vote in Union Parish in 1898.

Louisiana held a Constitutional Convention in 1898, one important goal of which was suffrage reform. Like most states across the South, Louisiana's Grandfather Clause became law that year. This is an ironic outcome of the Populist attempt to improve racial attitudes and equality only a few years earlier. The Grandfather Clauses in the Southern states remained in effect until 1915, when the United States Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional.

In Union Parish, the Populists held regular meetings in the 1890s, such as these in 1894, 1895, and 1897. In the 1896 statewide election, most Populist candidates won in Union Parish by slim margins. In particular, Union Parish resident Joseph C. Rockett handily won the majority of parish votes for State Senator. However, the Democratic voters in adjoining parishes won by larger margins, giving virtually all elections to the Democrats.

All parishes held elections in early 1898 to select delegates to Louisiana's Constitutional Convention. That election season involved both parish Democratic Convention and Populists Convention, as well as the debate held at the courthouse Again, the Union Parish race was tight, with the Populist Candidate Joseph C. Rockett running very strong against Democrats Robert B. Dawkins and Captain Elisha T. Sellers. Although the votes were basically evenly split, Dawkins and Sellers won by slim margins.

The 1896 presdiental election turned out to be one of the more dramatic ones in American history. Using the issue of fusion, the Populists managed to gain control of the Democratic Party and secured the nomination of William Jennings Bryan for President. After a turbulent campaign, Bryan's narrow defeat by Republican McKinley severely damaged the Populist Party, and the movement lost steam and died out in the early 1900s. Ironically, the Democratic Party adopted many of the Populist ideals, and these became law in the early years of the twentieth century.

Drought. The Panic of 1893 signaled the beginning of the worst economic period in United States history up to that time. This situation helped to fuel the rise of the Populists in Louisiana, and the poor crop yield of 1895 did not help the mood of the people of the hill parishes of north Louisiana. True disaster struck in 1896, when but a few sprinkles of scattered rain fell across north Louisiana from April until the end of September. This led to widespread crop failures in the region, including in Union Parish. A reporter for the New Orleans Picayune made the following report on July 30th:

"Bayous and creeks quit flowing, springs and wells drying up; corn crop a total failure in the hills; cotton bolls dropping from the stalk; grass sizzling under the rays of old Sol; trees shedding their leaves; bushes dying; cattle and hogs dying in the woods for want of food and water; gardens all burned up – such is the condition of affairs in the greater portion of Richland, Ouachita, Morehouse, Union, Jackson, Caldwell and Franklin parishes. The people of this fair section of North Louisiana are mostly an agricultural class, and as such are the biggest sufferers, and are experiencing now what the farmers of western Kansas and Nebraska had to endure last year.

The drouth is on in all its fury. No rain has fallen in the above named parishes, with the exception of a few local showers of short duration, and that in isolated localities, since April 13th, and from present indications it will be some time yet before any will fall. There is no hope for any immediate relief, and what makes the drouth more destructive than it would be otherwise is that at noontimes a stiff easterly breeze starts up and blows until dark. Nearly all vegetation has ceased growing. I have traveled over portions of this and adjoining parishes the past few days and found field after field of corn where the planter would not make seed enough to plant next year's crop with. The same state of affairs exist regarding peas, potatoes and goobers. Many farmers are cutting their corn down for the purpose of saving a little fodder.

In conversing with an old farmer in Jackson parish, who had followed farming for a livelihood for the last half century in that parish, he told me that this drouth was the longest and severest this country has ever had since his recollection, and that this is the first time since 1860 that he did not make enough on his farm to tide him over until planting time, which usually takes place about the 1st of March.

The old gentleman told me that his neighbors were in worse condition than himself, that there were many...who could not get a pack of meal or a pound of meat on credit. From the present outlook, a majority of the farmers will not be in a condition to pay their taxes. I know of several who had to dispose of their last cow, calf or hot in order to get something to eat. I know of many farmers west of the Ouachita river that will make fifty pounds of seed cotton to the acre, where they formerly made from seven to eight hundred pounds...

Three weeks ago the cotton prospect in the above named parishes was the best ever known. Old farmers predicted that a bale to the acre would be a fair estimate. Today conditions are reversed, and if a fifth of a bale is made it will be a good crop.

The section of country lying between the Ouachita river and the ridge of hills on the west that divide the Red from the Ouachita valley, will be the greatest sufferer, as in the region above mentioned the soil is of a sandy nature, and as a consequence cannot withstand a drouth as well as the alluvial soils on the east side of the Ouachita.

Cotton picking has begun in earnest and will be general in another week. There will be no sorghum or cane syrup made this year, the former is a total failure, while the latter is only about two feet high and has no juice in the stalk..."

Ordinarily, after a failure of either the corn or cotton crop, farmers would plant large gardens of vegetables to help them survive until the next growing season. However, the rains did not come in August or early September, leaving the too dry for anything to grow. To make matters almost as bad as possible, that fall the mast (acorns on the oak, beech, and other trees that hogs and cattle eat) failed due to the dry conditions. This left absolutely no food for either humans or livestock for the upcoming winter of 1896 – 1897. This grim situation was unprecedented in Louisiana recorded history.

A general rain fell across the parish on 29 September 1896, breaking the drought. However, the damage was already done, and this deluge did little but wash away the dusty roads. A large segment of the population faced starvation without significant quantities of food from other regions. In October, Louisiana Governor Foster appointed regional and statewide committees to help get food and supplies to those suffering from the effects of the drought. The Union Parish Police Jury appointed a committee to take control of what little corn and produce on hand in the parish. They rationed this little produce accordingly, but this would not suffice to prevent starvation. By November, a state committee had purchased corn in St. Louis and other locations across the midwest to sell at half-price to those who could afford it. They gave corn to the truly destitute. Other regions, including south Louisiana who had not experienced the drought, began sending in corn to prevent starvation, but at times the water levels were so low in the bayous that the steamboats could not always make it upstream to Farmerville.

Food from the midwest and south Louisiana finally began arriving in February, preventing the feared starvation. Only the elderly seemed affected by the disaster, with more of them perishing than normal. The drought did wipe out a large amount of livestock weakened from the food and unable to make it through the severe cold of early 1897. Dry conditions continued into 1897, and it wasn't until the 1898 harvest before farmers had a sufficient yield to signal the end of the drought and the accompanying suffering and starvation.

In terms of human suffering, the 1895 – 1897 drought and crop failures probably constitute the worst calamity to befall Union Parish in recorded history. There was much political fallout and blame placed for these events afterwards, with attempts made to diversify the crops planted by Union Parish farmers to make the region self-sufficient in the event of another such disaster. Meetings such as this one on growing wheat in Spearsville occurred throughout the parish.

Railroads Come to Union Parish! In the second half of the nineteenth century, railroads held the power to make or break towns all across the American West. The coming of the railroads to a town signaled great prosperity, and towns by-passed by the rail lines frequently died out quickly as commerce followed the iron horses. The specific location of the north/south from Union County Arkansas to Alexandria caused much political discussion across north Louisiana throughout the 1890s. For a while, it appeared as if the first railroad laid through the parish would pass directly through Farmerville. The newspapers heralded plans for what they hoped would be the parish's first railroad in January 1897, and excitement rose again in October 1897. The railroad company dashed Farmerville's hopes the next year, when they by-passed Farmerville and laid the rail line from Junction City southward towards Ruston. For much of 1898, residents of Shiloh (the center of commerce for western Union Parish since the 1840s) believed they would get a railroad. As late as March 1898 railroad surveyors worked around Shiloh, with plans to lay the rail line through that village. However, for some reason they decided to lay the rail line two miles west of Shiloh, which helped to seal the fate of that old village. Rail service did not reach the parish seat until 1904, when Farmerville held a large celebration barbeque attended by Governor Blanchard and various other dignitaries.

Shiloh's Doom. Shiloh had served as the western center of commerce for the parish since the 1840s. Located between Bayous d'Arbonne and Corney about twelve or thirteen miles west of Farmerville, the Shiloh merchants received their goods by steamboats up Bayou d'Arbonne. During the rainy seasons, the water level was high enough for the steamboats to reach Stein's Bluffs, a few miles south of Shiloh. When the decision was made in late 1897 to lay the parish's first railroad to the west of Farmerville, Shiloh had high hopes of becoming Union Parish's first railroad town. However, to the local citizens' dismay, the railroad commissioners laid the line two miles west of Shiloh. Then, a second blow struck shortly after midnight on 20 March 1899 when an arsonist caused most of Shiloh's stores and the post office to be burnt to the ground. The losses totaled over $40,000 and included the spring stock that the merchants had just received by steamboat. The town never recovered from this double tragedy. Since the railroad eliminated the need for a water route for transporting cotton to market and bringing the merchant's their goods from Monroe, instead of rebuilding, business moved two miles west to the railroad stop. Reportedly named after the railroad commissioner's daughter, the rail stop of Bernice soon replaced Shiloh as the western business center of the parish. Shiloh's demise occured rapidly, with the Shiloh Post Office officially closing on 31 October 1906, just seven years after the fire.

Famous Union Parish Residents

President Bill Clinton's great-grandfather Lemma Newell Grisham, was born in Union Parish. In addition, four governors of two states claim Union Parish Louisiana as their birthplace:

1. William Wright Heard, Governor of Louisiana 1900 – 1904, born near Shiloh
2. Ruffin G. Pleasant, Governor of Louisiana 1916 – 1920, born near Shiloh
3. George W. Donaghey, Governor of Arkansas 1908 – 1912, born near Oakland
4. Thomas J. Terral, Governor of Arkansas 1924 – 1926, born near Holmesville

Sources

Acts of the Louisiana Legislature, Union Parish Police Jury minutes, Records of the Ouachita and Monroe US Land Offices, Union Parish court records, Farmerville and Monroe newspapers. In addition, I have used the publications of Dr. E. Russell Williams on early Ouachita Parish history in compiling the above list.

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This page was last updated on 26 April 2008.

Copyright 1998 – 2008, by T. D. Hudson for the