Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, August 26, 1997

Duson brothers were pioneer builders in parish

by Jim Bradshaw

Curley was born in 1846. He would become one of the most influential politicians of his time, and would be recalled as the "Father of Acadia Parish." William was born in 1853. He achieved equal stature as a businessman. Their lives reflected the influence of their father, Cornelius Duson, who fled Canada early in life rather than kowtow to the British. But there was more than that to their story.

Curley Duson was born at Webb's Cove, near Mermentau, on Aug. 31, 1846. He was the eldest of the five children of Cornelius Duson and Sarah Ann Webb. W. W. Duson was the fourth child, born near Breaux Bridge in St. Martin Parish on Oct. 5, 1854. The brothers had three sisters, Mary Ann, Ellen, and Laura.

W. W. Duson was a businessman who didn't mind taking big risks for big rewards. He made his stake running a general store. He made his money setting real estate. He made his legend drilling for oil. Curley Duson participated in most of his brother's ventures. But his was a more romantic reputation, of the old-time, guntotin' lawman who always got his man.

Curly would serve a term in the Louisiana Legislature before he was done, and would be named a U.S. Marshal by President Teddy Roosevelt. But he made his name during his 14 years as Sheriff of St. Landry Parish, in the days when it was still one of the roughest sections of the country. The parish stretched from the Atchafalaya River to the Calcasieu River during his term.

Curley got his nickname because he was bald. He laughed at himself, but took his badge seriously. He began chasing crooks and killers before St. Landry and Acadia had separated into two parishes. He was a 21-year-old deputy to Sheriff James G. Hayes, with whom he'd served in the Civil War. Hayes was killed, and his brother, Egbert O. Hayes, became sheriff and named Curley chief deputy.

From the start, Curley believed that his business was to hunt criminals and send them to the penitentiary or to the gallows. William Henry Perrin, writing in 1891 in "Southwest Louisiana Historical and Biographical," reports one of the early incidents:

"With two other deputies, (Duson) tracked the Guilroy brothers, noted criminals who had long defied the law to Catahoula Parish. There a fight ensued, in which eight shots were fired -- three by the Guilroys and five by the deputies, terminating in the death of both Guilroy brothers."

Curley Duson ran against his boss in 1872, but lost. He ran again in 1874, this time unseating the incumbent, and also beating a third candidate, J.O. Chachere. Perrin tells us:

"One of the first things he accomplished was the breaking up of organized bands of outlaws who for years had scourged the country. He followed criminals to the border of Mexico, into the mountains of the Indian Territory (Oklahoma), and as far north as Illinois. He had three desperate fights in his attempts to capture fugitives ... (and) was at different times the target for the bullets of those whose only chance of escape ... lay in his removal from their path."

An early episode that helped stamp his reputation involved two Ville Platte residents. Louis Rousseau kept a barroom and Cyrius Brignac owed him money. When Rousseau demanded payment, Brignac said he couldn't pay. Rousseau killed him and fled. Months afterward, Duson located him in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma. Rousseau was hanged June 8, 1877.

Another of Sheriff Duson's noted cases was the capture of W. H. Slane, wanted for the rape of a 10-year-old girl. Duson chased him for 29 days, finally catching him in west Texas.

It helped that Duson was a crack shot. The St. Landry Democrat of May 6, 1882, noted that Sheriff Duson shooting from a boat near Morgan City had killed 96 alligators with 96 shots.

Duson retired as sheriff when he was 41 years old, at the time when St. Landry was divided, to join his brother in promoting the new parish. By the late 1880s, the Duson brothers had acquired large tracts of land in the area and were promoting it through the W. W. Duson & Bro. Real Estate Co. Advertising in the North and Midwest, the brothers helped bring hundreds of new families into the parish, many of them to settle on Duson lands.

Later, with the support of a group of businessmen from Opelousas, they formed the Southwestern Louisiana Land Co., lured the Southern Pacific switch to their lands, and established the town of Crowley. About this time W. W. Duson moved to Crowley to act as business manager for the land company and to involve himself in a number of other businesses.

He had acquired the Rayne Signal and moved it to Crowley. C. C. and W. W. Duson were among the first stockholders in the Louisiana Irrigation and Milling Co. organized in 1904. They were also officers of the Abbott-Duson Canal System. The companies would build canals that would irrigate more than 20,000 acres of Acadia Parish farmland. Eventually, W. W. held interest in a bank, the newspaper, four rice mills, three canal companies, and the largest rice farm in southwest Louisiana.

But his most romantic enterprise was in a race to find oil.

In 1901, when the Spindletop gushers in east Texas were touching off oil fever, a group of southwest Louisiana businessmen formed the Crowley Oil and Mineral Co., with W. W. Duson as president. They began drilling on the same day as the Heywood brothers began the well near Jennings that would establish Louisiana's first oilfield.

In April 1901, W. W. Duson had successfully negotiated with Judge J. G. Parkerson of Lafayette to buy a 640 acre tract in Acadia parish adjacent to the one where the Heywood well would be drilled. Duson's derrick was completed and pipe was on hand by early June. The Heywoods were also ready to drill just next door. Crowds gathered to watch when the drilling began. The Crowley group broke ground first. The Jennings group got started an hour later. The race was on.

Drilling pipe broke in the Jennings well, so a new site was selected. The same thing happened to the Crowley well, and it, too, was moved. Drillers worked at a feverish pace. Duson ran out of time and luck on Sept. 21, 1901. The Heywood well gushed oil. Duson drillers were still finding dust.

The Crowley group kept drilling, but its bad luck kept on. It wasn't until a year later, on Sept. 11, 1902, that Crowley Oil and Mineral finally got its gusher. It was less than 100 feet from the Heywood well.

That first strike brought better luck. Within the year, Crowley Mineral and Oil brought in a second well and started on a third, by the end of 1904, it owned 14 producing wells. By 1905, the field was being called "the greatest in the history of the oil business." The good news was that a single well in that field produced a million barrels of oil that year. The bad news was that oil sold for only 13 cents a barrel.

Curley Duson died on Oct. 19, 1910, in a New Orleans hospital, and is buried in the old Crowley Cemetery.

W. W. Duson died at his home at 705 E. Third St. in Crowley. on Oct. 3, 1929. His widow, Clara Thayer Duson, lived to be 101 years old. They are both buried in the old Crowley Cemetery.

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