Orleans Parish LA Genealogy – Access Genealogy

Slave Narrative of George Taylor Burns

Interviewer: Lauana Creel Person Interviewed: George Taylor Burns Location: Evansville, Indiana Ex-Slave Stories District #5 Vanderburgh County Lauana Creel THE LIFE STORY OF GEORGE TAYLOR BURNS [HW: Personal Interview] Ox-carts and flat boats, and pioneer surroundings; crowds of men and women crowding to the rails of river steamboats; gay ladies in holiday attire and gentleman in tall hats, low cut vests and silk mufflers; for the excursion boats carried the gentry of every area. A little negro boy clung to the ragged skirts of a slave mother, both were engrossed in watching the great wheels that ploughed the Mississippi river … Read more

Hubert Grey Todd of New Orleans LA

Hubert Grey Todd9, (James A.8, Alfred7, Caleb6, Caleb5, Stephen4, Samuel3, Samuel2, Christopher1) born Sept. 1, 1872, in Sherman, Mich., married Jan. 16, 1907, Annie Lee, daughter of Frederick A. and Lee J. (Guice) Dicks, who was born Oct. 30, 1876, in Natchez, Miss., her father having been born in Mississippi and her mother in Minnesota. He went with his parents in 1874, to Burr Oak, Mich., where he attended school and graduated from the High School there in 1888. He took a commercial course in 1892. He began learning the printing business in March 1888, when he secured a position … Read more

Views on the Choctaw and Fables – North American Indians

The territories of the Choctaws in 1723, in which year the seat of the French government in Louisiana, then under Bienville, was definitely transferred from Natchez to New Orleans, then containing about one hundred houses and three thousand inhabitants, extended from the Mississippi River to the Black Warrior, east: and from Lake Pontchartrain to the territories of the Natchez, west, and Chickasaws, north. They possessed upwards of sixty principal towns, and could muster, as was estimated, twenty-five thousand warriors. The Choctaws called all fables Shukha Anump (hog talk) as a mark of derision and contempt. Some of their fables, handed … Read more

Slave Narrative of Moses Smith

I was born in New Orleans, but don’t remember anything about that place for I was sold to Master Jack Dunn when a little boy and moved to Paris, Texas. Master Jack and his wife, Suda, owned four pretty big farms around Paris and he was kept busy all the time going around to each of them, with me going along sometimes on a horse beside him. He’d be gone for a week at a time, come home and get some home cooking, clean up and be gone again. There was twelve slave families on the farm where I lived … Read more

The Natchez and the French

But alas for the poor Natchez! An evil day brought the pale-faces among them in the year 1716, who built the Fort Rosalie among them and in it garrisoned, as a matter of course, a body of soldiers as a protection in their intended aggressions upon and usurpations of the Indians rights; and from that day the sun of the Natchez’s happiness began to wane, but to speedily set forever in the oblivion of utter extermination. As an introduction, Cadillac, on his way up the Mississippi river to search for gold and silver, stopped at Natchez. As soon as the Indian … Read more

Why Not Bigger Than London

The great Creole city’s geographical position has always dazzled every eye except the cold, coy scrutiny of capital. “The position of New Orleans,” said President Jefferson in 1804, “certainly destines it to be the greatest city the world has ever seen.” He excepted neither Rouge nor Babylon. Put man’s most positive predictions are based upon contingencies; one unforeseen victory over nature bowls them down; the seeming certainties of tomorrow are changed to the opposite certainties of today; deserts become gardens, gardens cities, and older cities the haunts of bats and foxes. When the early Kentuckian and Ohioan accepted nature’s highway … Read more

Natchez Trace

In 1792, in a council held at Chickasaw Bluffs, where Memphis, Tennessee, is now located, a treaty was made with the Chickasaws, in which they granted the United States the right of way through their territory for a public road to be opened from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi. This road was long known, and no doubt, remembered by many at the present time by the name “Natchez Trace.” It crossed the Tennessee River at a point then known as “Colberts Ferry,” and passed through the present counties of Tishomingo, Ittiwamba, Lee, Pantotoc, Chickasaw, Choctaw, thence on to Natchez, and … Read more

A Hundred Thousand People

What a change! The same Governor Villeré could not but say, “The Louisianian who retraces the condition of his country under the government of kings can never cease to bless the day when the great American confederation received him into its bosom.” It was easy for Louisianians to be Americans; but to let Americans be Louisianians!-there was the rub. Yet it had to be. In ten years, the simple export and import trade of the port had increased fourfold; and in the face of inundations and pestilences, discord of sentiment and tongues, and the saddest of public morals and disorder, … Read more

Biography of William A. Horan

Rev. William A. Horan, late pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, at Freeport, Ill., was born in Pierce township, DeKalb Co., Ill., on Feb. 2nd, 1851, and is the son of the late Patrick M. and Mary (Hanaghan) Horan. Patrick M. Horan was a native of Ireland,, and was born in the year 1800. When a young man he removed to England, where he served in the British army. In 1839 he married Mary, a daughter of Malachy Hanaghan, of county Mayo, Ireland, their union resulting in the birth of twelve children, five of whom are still living. In … Read more

Biographical Sketch of James Glenn

James Glenn and his wife, Sarah Grigg, with their two children, James and Nellie, came from Ireland to America, and settled in Virginia. After their settlement there the following children were born Polly, William, Thomas, and Whitehill. Mr. Glenn and his three sons, William, Thomas, and Whitehill, moved to Ohio; the rest of the children married and settled in Kentucky. James, William, and Thomas were in the war of 1812, and the former was killed at the battle of New Orleans. The other two were with the armies that operated in Canada and the northern part of the United States. … Read more

Slave Narrative of James Cornelius

Person Interviewed: James Cornelius Location: Magnolia, Mississippi Place of Birth: Franklin Louisiana Age: 90+ James Cornelius lives in Magnolia in the northwestern part of the town, in the Negro settlement. He draws a Confederate pension of four dollars per month. He relates events of his life readily. “I does not know de year I was borned but dey said I was 15 years old when de War broke out an’ dey tell me I’se past 90 now. Dey call me James Cornelius an’ all de white folks says I’se a good ‘spectable darkey. “I was borned in Franklin, Loos’anna. My … Read more

The Chickasaw War of 1739

Through the instigation of The French the war was continued between the seemingly infatuated and blinded Choctaws and Chickasaws during the entire year 1737, yet without any perceptibly advantageous results to either. A long and bitter experience seemed wholly inadequate to teach them the selfish designs of the French. No one can believe the friendship of the French for the Choctaws was unassumed. They were unmerciful tyrants by whatever standard one may choose to measure them, and without a redeeming quality as far as their dealings with the North American Indians go to prove; and their desire for the good of that race of people utterly out of … Read more

Flush Times

The brow and cheek of this man were darkened by outdoor exposure, but they were not weather-beaten. His shapely, bronzed hand was no harder or rougher than was due to the use of the bridle-rein and the gunstock. His eye was the eye of a steed; his neck-the same. His hair was a little luxuriant. His speech was positive, his manner was military, his sentiments were antique, his clothing was of broadcloth, his boots were neat, and his hat was soft, broad, and slouched a little to show its fineness. Such in his best aspect was the Mississippi River planter. … Read more

Choctaws views on God and Murder

Among every North American Indian tribe from their earliest known history down to the present, there was and is a universal belief in the existence of a God, and Supreme Being, universally known among all Indians as the Great Spirit; and with whose attributes were associated all the various manifestations of natural phenomena; and in point of due respect and true devotion to this Great Spirit their acknowledged God they as a whole today excel, and ever have excelled, the whites in their due respect and true devotion to their acknowledged God. Never was an Indian known to deny the … Read more

Alfred Lewis Todd of McComb MS

Alfred Lewis Todd10, (Wilmer L.9, Henry8, Ezra L.7, Ezra L.6, James5, James4, James3, Samuel2, Christopher1) born May, 13, 1876, in New Orleans, La., married at McComb City, Miss., Adele Ford, who was born Jan. 14, 1884, in McComb City, Miss., where they were living in 1918. Child: 2819. Belden Wilmer, b. Aug. 22, 1902.

Slave Narrative of John White

Person Interviewed: John White Location: Sand Springs, Oklahoma Date of Birth: April 10, 1816 Age: 121 Occupation: Yard Worker Of all my Mammy’s children I am the first born and the longest living. The others all gone to join Mammy. She was named Mary White, the same name as her Mistress, the wife of my first master, James White. About my paopy. I never hear his name and I never see him, not even when I was the least child around the old Master’s place ‘way back there in Georgia more’n one-hundred twenty years ago! Mammy try to make it … Read more

Prominent White Men among the Chickasaws

At an early day a few white men of culture and of good morals, fascinated with the wild and romantic freedom and simplicity of the Chickasaw life, cast their lot among that brave and patriotic nation of people. I read an article published in Mississippi a few years ago, which stated that a man by the name of McIntosh, commissioned by British authorities to visit the Chickasaw Nation and endeavor to keep up its ancient hostility to the French, was so delighted with the customs and manners of that brave, free and hospitable people that, after the accomplishment of his mission, he … Read more

Early Exploration and Native Americans

De Soto and his band gave to the Choctaws at Moma Binah and the Chickasaws at Chikasahha their first lesson in the white man’s modus operandi to civilize and Christianize North American Indians; so has the same lesson been continued to be given to that unfortunate people by his white successors from that day to this, all over this continent, but which to them, was as the tones of an alarm-bell at midnight. And one hundred and twenty-three years have passed since our forefathers declared all men of every nationality to be free and equal on the soil of the North … Read more

Establishment of Fort Gibson in 1824

By Act of Congress of March 2, 1819, Arkansas Territory was established July 4, embracing substantially all of what are now the states of Arkansas and Oklahoma; though the civil government of Arkansas Territory was limited to that section lying east of the Osage line, divided into counties, and embracing approximately the present state of Arkansas. That west of the Osage line was the Indian country, and in later years became known as Indian Territory. James Miller of New Hampshire was appointed the first Governor of Arkansas Territory, and among the duties of his office was that of supervision of … Read more

The Battle of New Orleans

Once more the Creoles sang the “Marseillaise.” The invaders hovering along the marshy shores of Lake Borgne were fourteen thousand strong. Sir Edward Packenham, brother-in-law to the Duke of Wellington, and a gallant captain, was destined to lead them. Gibbs, Lambert, and Kean were his generals of division. As to Jackson, thirty-seven hundred Tennesseeans under Generals Coffee and Carroll, had, when it was near Christmas, given him a total of but six thousand men. Yet confidence, animation, concord, and even gaiety, filled the hearts of the mercurial people. “The citizens,” says the eye-witness, Latour, “were preparing for battle as cheerfully … Read more