Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, January 27, 1998

Lafayette grew up around Jean Mouton land donation

by Jim Bradshaw

When the Acadians began to spread westward from their first settlements on Bayou Teche, one of the first places they came to was present-day Lafayette Parish. A number of those Acadians made their way up Bayou Tortue and into the area of what is now the City of Lafayette.

One of the most prominent of these pioneers was René Trahan, who received a land grant of more than one square mile on May 4, 1776. Trahan claimed the land where the banks on either side of the river were the highest, and where the river ran north and south. That made it a natural river crossing, and that is why it became what is today the heart of the City of Lafayette.

Others receiving early Spanish grants that are now within the Lafayette corporate limits included Claude Martin, Theodore Thibodeaux, Olivier Thibodeaux, Michel Meaux, Joseph Broussard, Jacques Faustin, René LeBlanc, Germain Trahan, Paul Trahan, Michel Trahan, Augustin Broussard, and Louis Broussard.

These men settled on their lands, but Trahan died in 1789 and most of his first neighbors passed away soon after. When they were gone, their children and grandchildren sold much of the early holdings. Among the buyers were Jean Mouton and John Reeves, who would wage a spirited fight to make their respective lands the center of the community springing up along the Vermilion River. They were among a number of merchants and the community traders who began to come into the area about 1800 and to invest in land along the Vermilion. These also included men such as Richard Crow, James Hargrave, Peter Lee, Isaac Baldwin, Alexander Stephans, Elisha Green, John Norton, Thomas Brashear, John and William Greig, and John Reeves' brother, William Reeves.

John Reeves made his first land purchase in the Lafayette area on Nov. 1, 1809, when he bought six arpents on both sides of the Vermilion River. He operated an inn that stands today as Café Vermilionville, possibly the oldest standing building in Lafayette. He wanted the town to grow up around his inn and the nearby Pinhook bridge. Mouton, who first bought land here in 1816, had other plans. On March 21, 1822, he donated nearly five acres for the Church of St. Jean, today's cathedral and the first permanent church on the Vermilion.

Reeves responded in April 1823, three months after the creation of Lafayette Parish, by donating two arpents near the bridge for a courthouse and jail. A crude prison was, in fact, built there. But the courthouse would go someplace else. Mouton once again moved quickly, this time to Baton Rouge, where he got the state legislature to call a parishwide referendum to see where the courthouse should be put.

Some people say there were votes bought during that contest, but when they were counted, Mouton's town site had been selected. The day after the election, he donated the site where the courthouse sits today.

The village of Vermilion began to grow around lands Mouton had given for the courthouse and church, not at Reeves' Pinhook site. On March 11, 1836, the state legislature issued a municipal charter to Vermilionville. The act of incorporation was amended in 1884 to change the name to Lafayette as a tribute to the Marquis de La Fayette.

The original act of incorporation described the boundaries of Vermilionville as "the east boundary of East Street, the south boundary of Third Street, the north boundary at a street to be constructed one square north of Vermilion Street, and the west boundary at a line running north and south intersecting Third Street and the street to be built, including the Roman Catholic Church and its grounds."

Lafayette historian Harry Lewis Griffin tells us, "Before the coming of the railroads, Lafayette remained a mere village. The court house was the centre (sic) of all business activities and the street running in front of it was the main business thoroughfare. There were few sidewalks and those were of wooden boards, The streets were of dirt and during the rainy season frequently became impassable for vehicles.

"As time went on the town acquired by slow degrees all the improvements that bring the comforts of a modern city," Griffin continued. "In 1897 were voted bond to the amount of $30,000 for the installation of water works and an electric light plant. Six years later were built the first cement sidewalks. In the same year the city officials authorized the purchase of equipment for a voluntary fire department. In 1902 the citizens voted bonds amounting to $50,000 for the first high school, for a public market and for extending the water and electric light services.

"In 1915 an ordinance provided for sprinkling the streets. In the same year the people voted $75,000 in bonds for gravelling the two main streets and the roads leading out of town. Three years later another $75,000 in bonds were issued for the purpose of constructing a modern sewer system. In 1919 came the climax when the citizens voted $425,000 in bonds for the gravelling of all important streets, the paving of Main Street, the construction of storm sewers and the extension of water mains, and improvement of the water works."

Griffin wrote in that 1936 report: "With the rapid increase in the number (of people) who owned automobiles and depended on them for transportation, the gravel roads came to be looked upon as an inadequate and unsatisfactory highway for automobile traffic. When, therefore, Governor (Huey) Long in 1928 proposed a huge bond issue to build a system of paved roads throughout the state, the plan received hearty support in Lafayette. In pursuance to this program the Old Spanish Trail had been paved entirely through Lafayette by 1931, and the roads to Carencro and Breaux Bridge by 1932. The work of completing the pavement from Carencro to Opelousas is now under way, and bids for the completion of the pavement from Abbeville into Lafayette are expected to be requested soon. When these two projects have been completed Lafayette citizens will be able to drive on pavement to every important center in Southwest Louisiana and the entire state.

"Communications facilities were further increased in 1928," Griffin continued, "when the citizens voted $25,000 for a municipal airport. With this sum was purchased 160 acres of land on the old Broussard road, which was graded for a landing field. Later were installed a gasoline station, markers, and a hangar. The result is that Lafayette has an air school and scarcely a day passes that planes are not landing with passengers or leaving for some distant point."

The church built on Mouton's donated land was the only Catholic Church in Lafayette until 1911, when St. Paul Parish was established.

According to Roger Baudier's history of the church in Louisiana, "While ... Monsignor W.J. Teurlings was pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church at Lafayette, he noted that the single Catholic Church was inadequate to accommodate both whites and Negroes and that many of the latter were being lost to the faith, neglecting to attend church, and failing prey to preachers. He decided upon the establishment of a Catholic church for Catholic Negroes in Lafayette. ... The Archbishop promptly approved the project and work got under way in 1911. The new church, dedicated to St. Paul, a large and imposing structure, was completed the following year. The Sisters of the Holy Family were invited to take charge of the school that was annexed to St. Paul's and this institution also reached capacity in a short time. ... The Holy Ghost Fathers ... were invited to take