USA > Louisiana > Louisiana; comprising sketches of counties, towns, events, institutions, and persons, Volume II > Part 39
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the first constitutional convention, and in 1812 was one of the first presidential electors from Louisiana. Mr. Poydras never married. At the time of his death in 1824 he owned over 1,000 slaves. In his will he directed that in 25 years after his death they should be set free, but that provision was not carried out. Among his be- guests were $30,000 to the parish of Pointe Coupée and a like sum to West Baton Rouge, the interest of this fund to be given to poor girls when they were married. To the New Orleans charity hos- pital he gave $40,000; to a college for poor orphans in Pointe Coupée parish, $30,000; founded and endowed the Poydras asylum, which still bears his name and carries on the work of charity. Re- cently a monument was erected to his memory in Pointe Coupée parish.
Prairieville, a money order post-town in the northern part of Ascension parish, is 4 miles east of Bullion, the nearest railroad town, and about 20 miles north of Donaldsonville, the parish seat. It is located in a rich agricultural district and in 1900 had a popula- tion of 100.
Prentiss, Seargent Smith, a brilliant orator and distinguished ornament of the Louisiana bar, was born at Portland, Me., Sept. 30, 1808, a descendant of Puritan stock. As the result of a very severe illness during his infancy, one limb became crippled by paralysis and Mr. Prentiss always required the aid of a cane. His boyhood was spent on a farm near Gorham. Me., whither his father. William Prentiss, removed with his family soon after the War of 1812. Capt. William had been a prosperous shipmaster but Jef- ferson's embargo and the War of 1812 caused the downfall of his fortunes, and the remaining years of his life were spent in farming. The little lame boy. Seargent, was fond of reading and study, attended the village school, and later the Gorham academy. In leisure hours he stored his mind with the lore of the woods and during long evenings read with consuming interest the Bible, Pil- grim's Progress. the Arabian Nights and Don Quixote. A rapid reader and brilliant student, he won honors both at the preparatory academy and at Bowdoin college, which he entered at the age of 15 years. After his graduation in 1826, young Prentiss entered upon the study of law with Josiah Pierce of Gorham, in whose ' office he remained only a short time before he decided to try his fortune in the Southwest. He accordingly left Gorham in 1827 and went to Cincinnati, via Buffalo and Sandusky. Through the aid of Bellamy Storer he obtained a position in the office of Judge Wright in Cincinnati. Opportunities further south now attracted Mr. Prentiss, and at the instigation of Cincinnati friends and by their financial aid, he went to Natchez, Miss., where he soon found employment as tutor in the family of Mrs. William B. Shields. Here was placed at his disposal one of the finest law libraries in the state. From July, 1828, to Feb .. 1829, he taught a school near Natchez, which he left to enter the law office of Robert J. Walker at Natchez. In June, 1829. he was admitted to the Mississippi bar and became the law partner of Gen. Felix Huston. Social condi-
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tions in the South, arising from slavery, repelled Mr. Prentiss and longings for his northern home filled his heart and mind. Finan- cial. considerations, however, urged his stay in the South, and he decided to make Vicksburg his home.
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Seargent Prentiss had little admiration for Gen. Jackson, whom he actively opposed in his campaign for reelection. At this time his publie and political speeches won him a reputation for brilliant wit and clear and forceful statement, so that when he entered into a law partnership with John 1. Guion, his life-long and devoted friend, the firm met with marked success from the beginning. Though a young man Prentiss already showed that stoutness of build that was a characteristic, though his height was only five feet six. Stout as he was, his head was large for the body. His forehead was wide, high and almost semi-circular in outline, as in the portraits of Shakespeare. The temptations to which such a man as Prentiss was exposed, coming as he did and whence he did, were like those experienced now by a visitor to the tropics. Not that the people he left were any better, but there was a great change of conditions and powerful restraints were withdrawn. Intoxication, gambling, dueling, frivolous skepticism of anything truer than "today we drink and tomorrow we die," were so prevalent as to obscure the solid elements of society that were building the state. Prentiss yielded very.largely to reckless habits, though he kept his purity of thought and expression, and throughout his life was religious in the highest sense.
Until the year 1845, he resided in Vicksburg, and became noted as one of the greatest lawyers of the South. He continued active in politics and was elected to Congress, where he interested the greatest statesmen of the day by his wonderful oratory. The charm of his person and voice, the brilliant flights of his imagination. combined with logical reasoning expressed in beautiful and pic- turesque diction, held his hearers spell-bound. Of a speech deliv- ered in Faneuil Hall, Boston. Daniel Webster said that he had "never heard anything like it except from Mr. Prentiss himself." On March 2, 1842, he married Mary, daughter of James C. Williams of Natchez. and in 1845, with his wife and daughter Jeanie, he re- moved to New Orleans, where he continued the practice of law. His removal to New Orleans is said to have been caused by his disgust at the repudiation by the state of Mississippi of its bonded debt, a measure which Mr. Prentiss had opposed with all the force of his remarkable personality in every county of the state. Finan- cial ruin had also overtaken him and he set to work with unexam- pled courage to retrieve his fortunes. His success at this time in passing from the practice under the common law to one based on the code of Napoleon, without losing prestige, is one of the most wonderful things in his career. Before him many brilliant lawyers had gone to New Orleans and into eclipse because of the difficulties of the transition. During the 4 remaining years of his life he ac- tively opposed the war with Mexico, but eloquently welcomed the returning troops. He made a famous appeal for relief of the Irish
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sufferers from famine in New Orleans, Feb. 7, 1847, from which the following extract is the peroration: "It is now midnight in Ireland. In a wretched hovel a miserable, half-starved mother presses to her shriveled breast a sleeping infant. whose little care- worn face shows that the coward Famine spares not age or sex. But lo! as the mother gazes anxiously upon it and listens to its little moaning, the baby smiles! The good angel is whispering in its ear that at this very moment, far across the wide sea, kind hearts and generous hands are preparing to chase away haggard hunger from old Ireland, and that ships are already speeding rap- idly to her shores, laden with the food which shall restore life to the parent and renew the exhausted fountain of its own young existence."
When the cholera invaded New Orleans in 1848, he was sick near to death, and this, joined to the exhaustion of his political campaign for Gen. Taylor, weakened him beyond power of recovery. He made one more visit to Maine, and his mother saw his hair thick set with gray and his face lined with sorrow and disease. There was a last visit to Webster and Clay, and then returning, he spent much of the spring of 1850 in a cottage at Pass Christian with his wife and the + children. With revived spirit, he plunged into work with an almost insane energy and no sign of decay of intellectual power. About the middle of June he appeared before Judge Mc- Caleb in behalf of Lopez, the revolutionist, and on concluding fell in a faint. The end had come and the dying man's request was "take me home." He died at Longwood, his home near Natchez, among his favorite roses, Monday evening. July 1, 1850. His body is buried in the old family ground of the Sargents.
Presbyterian Church .- (See Protestant Churches.)
Presidential Elections .- (See Electoral Vote.)
Presley, a post-hamlet of Natchitoches parish, is near the south- western boundary on Bayon D'Arbonne, about 6 miles south of Robertsville, the nearest railroad station and 16 miles south of Natchitoches, the parish seat.
Press Association, State .- Within the last half century persons engaged in the same line of business or professional work have learned the advantages to be derived from organization. In 1880 a few of the editors of Louisiana newspapers got together and issued a call for a meeting at Baton Rouge for the purpose of organ- izing a State Press Association. At that meeting 17 papers were represented by the proprietors in person, and 7 others sent proxies. But little was attempted at that time further than the adoption of a constitution and the election of the following officers: George W. McCrainie, president : W. M. Smallwood, first vice-president; Mrs. Eva Hildebrand, second vice-president : L. E. Bentley, secre- tary and treasurer. This was a modest beginning, but the founders of the association persevered, and each succeeding annual meeting has seen a larger attendance and an increased membership. At these annual meetings various topics pertaining to journalism and the conduct of newspapers are discussed, while the social features,
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such as banquets, excursions to points of interest, etc., are by no means neglected. In this way new ideas are exchanged, new ac- quaintances formed. and a more fraternal spirit among the members is engendered. The results are reflected in the character and tone of the newspapers of the state. At the annual meeting held at Covington in May, 1909, the membership was reported as repre- senting 120 papers-about 75 per cent of those published in the state. The officers elected at that meeting for the years 1909-10 were as follows: E. D. Gianellini of the Assumption Pioneer. Na- poleonville, president : Robert Roberts, Jr., of the Webster Demo- crat, Minden, first vice-president ; Mrs. Lottie Aite Weir of the New Orleans Daily States, second vice-president ; L. E. Bentley of the Donaldsonville Chief. secretary; Albert Bienvenue of the St. Martinville Messenger, treasurer.
Price, Andrew, planter and politician, was born on April 2, 1854. at Chatsworth plantation, near Franklin, St. Mary parish, La. He was educated at various private schools and the collegiate depart- ment of Cumberland university, Lebanon, Tenn., and graduated in the law department of the same university in 1875. He continued his legal studies for 2 years in the law department of Washington university at St. Louis, Mo .. and received his degree from that institution in 1877. For 3 years he practiced law in St. Louis, then returned to Louisiana to become a sugar planter. He was a dele- gate to the Democratic national convention in 1888, and the same year was elected a representative from Louisiana to the 51st Con- gress as a Democrat, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of his father-in-law. Hon. Edward J. Gay, and was reelected to the 52d, 53d and 54th Congresses.
Prichard, a post-hamlet in the northern part of Catahoula parish. is 3 miles northwest of Harrisonburg. the parish seat, and about 14 miles southwest of Florence. the nearest railroad station.
Pride, a postoffice in the northeastern part of East Baton Rouge parish, is a station on the Zachary & Northeastern R. R., about 20 miles northeast of Baton Rouge, the parish seat.
Primary Elections .- The first application of the primary election method of making party nominations for offices higher than parish officials was in 1892. when Newton C. Blanchard, then a candidate for Congress in the 4th district. asked the Democratic district com- mittee to order a primary election. to be held in all the parishes of the district on the same day, to make the nomination of representa- tive in Congress by a direct vote of the people. The result was highly satisfactory and the example was quickly followed by other Congressional districts. In 1903 Mr. Blanchard became a candi- date for the Democratic nomination for governor, and through his influence the state central committee of that party ordered a pri- mary election for the nomination of all state officers, as well as United States senator. This was the first time in the history of the state that state officers had been nominated by primary election. ,and the people were so well pleased that they asked for the passage of a law making the method compulsory. . Prior to this time there
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had been no legislation on the subject, further than an act passed by the legislature of 1900, which permitted political parties to make nominations in this manner and directed how the primaries should be conducted when ordered by a political committee.
On June 29, 1906. Gov. Blanchard approved an act providing that "All party nominations, United States senators, representatives in Congress, state, district, parochial and ward officers, members of the general assembly, and all city. town and village officers, shall be made by primary election." The act defined a political party as any organization that cast ten per cent or more of the vote at the last preceding state election. It also provided that nominations for state officers should be made not less than 70 nor more than 90 days prior to the election ; nominations for Congressmen not less than 60 nor more than 70 days before the election, and in case of a special election the nominating primary should be held within 10 days after the special election was ordered. The state central com- mittee and subordinate committees were made the legal governing power of political parties, the state committee to consist of one member from each parish and one from each ward of the city of New Orleans, to be elected at the same primary that nominated state officers. In the primaries for the nomination of U. S. senator, Congressmen, governor and other state officers the ballots were to be printed at the expense of the state, and in all other elections by the candidates. The rent for polling places, ballot-boxes, remunera- tion of clerks and commissioners of election were to be paid by the respective parishes, cities, towns and villages. The act also fixed the assessments of candidates for election expenses, and pro- vided that in case any candidate failed to receive a majority of all the votes cast, a second primary should be held, at which only the two candidates receiving the highest and next highest vote at the first primary should be voted for, or, if one of these should decline to make the race the second time, the other should be declared the nominee of his part. Each candidate was to submit to the parish committee, at least 15 days before the primary election, the name of a voter to act as commissioner, and from the list of names this proposed the committee was to select by lot 3 commissioners and 2 clerks in each voting precinct. Voters were required to register 10 days before the election, and on election day all barrooms within one mile of voting places were to be closed. The state committees were to select the date of the primary election, and all party nomi- nations were to be made on the same day.
Under this law a primary election was held in the early part of the year 1908 to nominate Democratic state and local candidates. A contest arose between the candidates for lieutenant-governor, grave charges of illegal practices, ballot-box stuffing, etc., being made. The state committee decided that it had no power to go behind the returns and took no action on the contest save to call the matter to the attention of the legal prosecuting authorities. A suit was brought in the district court at New Orleans by one of the candidates whose charges of fraud had been ignored by the
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committee, but was dismissed for want of proper jurisdiction, the plea being sustained that the suit should have been brought in the court of the domicile of the candidate who had been declared the nominee by the committee. Regarding this occurrence Gov. Blanchard, who had been a consistent advocate of primary elec- tions from the first, said in his message to the legislature, May 12, 1908: "The time has passed for letting charges of fraud go unan- *
swered. * * I believe the power to investigate charges of fraud to be inherent in those vested by law with the power to de- clare the result of an election. But if political committees deny or will not exercise this inherent power and require it given them by express mandate of the law, then amend your primary law and give it them. * * The enemies of the primary election method of nomination will seize upon the failure of our primary election law to urge a return to the convention method. But I say to you that, under the political conditions prevailing in Louisi- ana, the primary method of nomination is the proper one. Here it is well known that the nomination for office of the dominant politi- cal party is equivalent to election. This has been the case for years. Being the case, the people themselves, by direct vote, should make the nominations. * * * I advise, therefore, that you stand by the primary election law; but dissect it and take it to pieces and cut out the rotten and dishonest parts of it, and then put it together again, making it a clean wholesome statute under which right will prevail, the truth be established, the people's true will carried into effect."
Protestant Churches .- For 120 years from the time of La Salle, Louisiana was under the domination of France and Spain, nations that knew and recognized no religion but the Roman Catholic, hence the early Protestant missionary found it a difficult matter to make converts, establish churches, or even to gain a hearing in the province during that period. This was due to no spirit of bigotry or intolerance on the part of the resident population. for the early Protestant missionaries were often housed and fed by Catholics, and with few exceptions they were treated with uniform courtesy. But the people were satisfied with their religion, which had been that of their ancestors for generations, and they saw no necessity for a change.
The Methodist Episcopal church claims to have been the first Protestant denomination to send missionaries into Louisiana. Jones, in his "History of Methodism in the Mississippi Valley," accords to the eccentric preacher, Lorenzo Dow, the honor of hav- ing been the first Protestant minister to visit Louisiana with a view of establishing a church there. In the fall of 1803 the Western conference sent three preachers to the Natchez settlements. On the way they met Dow, bound for the same region, and traveled several hundred miles in his company. The following year, when these three preachers wanted to attend the meeting of the confer- . ence in Kentucky, Dow went over into the Attakapas country to buy some mustang ponies for them to ride, and upon his return
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he told of having held "services" at several places where he found a few English speaking settlers, and according to Jones "there is no record of any Protestant minister or labors in Louisiana pre- vious to this." The conference of 1804 appointed Rev. E. W. Bow- man to Opelousas "for the ensuing year," Revs. Nathan Barnes and Thomas Lasley being assigned to the Natchez district. After spending some time in the city of New Orleans, in a futile endeavor to organize the few Protestants there into a congregation, Bow- man went on to Opelousas and spent the year of his appointment in traveling over the Attakapas country from Vermilion bay to the Catahoula, and from the Teche to the Rio Hondo, preaching when- ever and wherever he could get a few people to listen to him.
In 1806 the conference met in Greene county, Tenn., and the Rev. Learner Blackman, presiding elder for Mississippi and Louisi- ana, succeeded in having a new circuit established in Louisiana, with Mr. Bowman in charge, and before the close of the conference year a church was established at Prairie Jefferson, not far from the present city of Monroe. By 1809 this church, known as Washita church, numbered 30 members, and the entire Territory of Orleans reported a membership of 43. During the War of 1812 the work of the church extension made but little progress, owing to the hostile or uncertain attitude of the Indian tribes. The Missis- sippi conference, including Louisiana, was formed in 1812 and held its first meeting in the fall of 1813. The preachers sent to Louisi- ana that year were: F. D. Wimberly, to Rapides ; Miles Harper, to New Orleans; Thomas Griffins, to Washita; and John S. Ford, to the Attakapas district. The next year Miles Harper was made presiding elder. Methodism continued to grow slowly until 1845, when the Louisiana conference was established. The ante-bellum records of this conference have been lost, but it is known that in 1860 the state had six districts, 89 traveling ministers, 10,220 white and 7.849 colored members.
The first Methodist church in New Orleans was erected at the corner of Poydras and Carondelet streets. It was burned in 1851 by sparks from the St. Charles hotel fire, after which the congre- gation sold the ground and built a new house of worship at 147 Carondelet street. In 1844, a year before the Louisiana conference was created. the Methodist church divided as a result of the agi- tation of the slavery question, the congregations north of Mason and Dixon's line retaining the old name of "Methodist Episcopal church," and those south of that line taking the name of the "Methodist Episcopal church. South." Since the abolition of slavery the two branches have become reconciled, to some extent at least, and there are now 9 Methodist Episcopal South and 24 Methodist Episcopal churches in the city of New Orleans. Of the latter, 16 are for colored people, and one is an Italian mission. The conference of 1890 redistricted the state into six districts-New Orleans, Shreveport, Alexandria. Arcadia. Delhi and Opelousas- each under the charge of a presiding elder. The membership at that time was nearly 20,000. Since then the growth of the denomi-
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nation has been slow but steady, until now there is scarcely a town of any size but has a Methodist church.
. The Baptists dispute the claim of the Methodists, as to their being the first Protestant organization to hold religious meetings in Louisiana. According to the Baptist account, Rev. Joseph Wil- lis, a mulatto and a native of South Carolina, preached the first Protestant sermon in Louisiana at Vermilion, about 1798. Owing to his color he was not popular and remained but a short time in the colony. About the time of the transier of Louisiana to the United States he returned and located at Bayou Chicot, in what is now the parish of St. Landry, where on Nov. 13, 1812, he organized a Baptist church-the first in Louisiana. Toward the close of that year another Baptist church was organized at Franklin. St. Mary parish ; in 1816 a church was organized at Bayou Boeuf; and in 1817 churches were formed at Vermilion, Plaquemine, Brules and at Hickory flat.
In 1816 Rev. James Reynoldson came to New Orleans as a Bap- tist missionary and organized a congregation which met at the residence of Cornelius Paulding on Dorsière street, not far from the custom house. He was succeeded by a man named Davies as pastor, and in 1820 the first additions to this church were baptized in the Mississippi river in front of the custom house, the ceremony being witnessed by a large assemblage of people, most of whom had never before seen anything of the kind. Davies did not stay long, and after his departure the congregation grew apathetic and finally disbanded. In 1826 Rev. William Rondeau, an Englishman, came to New Orleans, gathered together about 20 of the members of the old church and reorganized it, but a year or so later he went away and again the church was dissolved. In 1842 the Baptist Home Missionary society sent the Rev. Russell Holman to New Orleans as a missionary. He collected a few of the faith, preached to them, and later in the year 1843 organized the "First Baptist church of New Orleans." Mr. Paulding died in 1851 and in his will he be- queathed the building later occupied by the Soule commercial col- lege, with instructions to his executors to sell it and apply the pro- ceeds to the erection of a new and independent Baptist church. This was the origin of the Coliseum Place Baptist church. Accord- ing to the latest available information there were 21 white associa- tions in the state with a membership of 25,000, and 18 colored associations with about 75.000 members. Among the white people of New Orleans the Baptist church has not prospered as well as some of the other Protestant denominations, but it has always been a favorite church with the negroes. In 1906, of the 57 Baptist churches in that city, 49 were colored.
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