Eyes of an Eagle: Jean-Pierre Cenac, Patriarch: An Illustrated History of Early Houma-Terrebonne

Contents, Foreword, Preface

CONTENTS Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 1. 1858: Barbazan Debat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2. Descending the Mountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3. November 1860: Determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 4. The Crossing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 5. March 21, 1861: The Decision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 6. The Call of the Good Earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 7. 1862: First Encounter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 8. A Lush Paradise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 9. February 14, 1862: The Baker’s Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 10. Tangled Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 11. Early May, 1862: Witness to War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 12. The War Comes to Town. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115 13. August 9, 1865: The Future Smiles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122 14. From Artisan to Entrepreneur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 15. 1883: The Cradle Falls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 16. Progress and Heartbreak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 17. December 24, 1898: La Tristesse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 18. A Place of Substance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 19. May 30,1899: Expanding Visions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 20. Houma’s Golden Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191 21. September 1913: Looking Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 22. The Oyster Is King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 23. April 5, 1914: Here to Stay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 24. Passing the Torch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Appendix I: Terrebonne Sugar Estates c. 1900. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Appendix II: Terrebonne Parish Canals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Appendix III: Genealogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Appendix IV: About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 Appendix V: Glossary of French Words and Terms. . . . . . . . . 290 More to Come. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 FOREWORD During the decades immediately preceding the American Civil War, New Orleans was a boomtown and the Francophone civil parishes in the city’s economic orbit were among the nation’s most prosperous counties. This unbridled prosperity served as a magnet for Europe’s “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Indeed, for much of the antebellum period, the Crescent City was the nation’s second-leading port of entry. As one would expect, Gallic immigrants—popularly known as the Foreign French to distinguish them from native French-speakers—constituted a large percentage of south Louisiana’s swelling multitude of European transplants. After initially gathering in the great port city’s immigrant slums, many of the Foreign French dispersed in search of better opportunities and living conditions in the rural parishes. This migration followed a rather predictable pattern as anxious immigrants—often travelling alone—sought out friends, relations, and even acquaintances who had established the initial rural beachheads. Literate members of the Foreign French community generally tended to congregate in towns, where they constituted the backbone of the professional classes, while persons with farming backgrounds typically became yeomen in the countryside. Once afforded an opportunity to set down permanent roots, these economic refugees quietly, systematically, and resolutely set about the work of expanding and enhancing economic infrastructures in their respective host communities. The results have been dramatic throughout Louisiana’s coastal plain, where the Cenacs, Burguières, Patouts, and a host of other families have played major roles in the region’s diversification and modernization. Louisianians in general, and south Louisianians in particular, nevertheless know little of their noteworthy modern contributions, in large part because of the families’ propensity for avoiding the limelight. Still less is known about the critical early years of the immigrants’ adaptation to their new homeland, particularly during the turbulent years of Civil War, Reconstruction, and Redemption, when Acadiana’s economic development was literally rolled back a half-century. This enduring informational lacuna magnifies the significance of Eyes of an Eagle, the intriguing story of Pierre Cenac’s migration to Louisiana on the eve of the Civil War, his subsequent professional odyssey as a baker-turned-entrepreneur, and, finally, his twilight years as the patriarch of a large and successful family. I’m sure that, like me, you’ll find Pierre’s triumphal saga as fascinating as it is informative. Carl A. Brasseaux, Ph.D. One of the world’s leading authorities on French North America. Author, co-author, and/or editor of more than 40 books, and articles, academic papers, essays, poetry. Doctorate from the University of Paris. Former Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, former director of the Center for Louisiana Studies and director for Cultural and Eco-Tourism at ULL. Recipient of a research fellowship at Yale University and numerous awards at the state and national levels. PREFACE Readers will want to be aware of a device the authors have used to give this book greater scope than it would have had otherwise. At a point when much of the documentation was completed, the authors became aware (through the honesty of friends) that Pierre’s story as written then was lacking one compelling dimension. We did not see and hear Pierre...