Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, September 30, 1997

Port Barre was ear1y trading post

by Jim Bradshaw

LeKintreck was one of the coureurs de bois who were among the first Europeans to come to Acadiana in search of trade. His practices -- especially that of trading whiskey to the Indians -- did not always sit well with the government authorities in New Orleans, but they had neither the mind nor the muscle to do much about it.

LeKintreck was born in Brittany in 1689 and arrived in Louisiana sometime before 1716. By the time he ventured into the Opelousas territory, he had been involved in exploration, trapping, and trading expeditions in Louisiana for some 20 years. He'd claimed land on the Mississippi River above New Orleans, married Anne Marie Baftz, and had fathered several children. He had also managed to acquire the title Sieur and the alias "Dupont."

LeKintreck's enterprise was prompted by the semi-nomadic Opelousas Indians themselves, who, in 1733, petitioned Gov. Bienville to send traders to the district. They offered pelts, tallow, and horses, and promised to "settle in villages like other nations."

The government didn't think too much of the idea but LeKintreck thought he might be able to turn a profit in Opelousas trade. He found a partner in Joseph Blanpain, another veteran trader, and a backer in New Orleans merchant Gerard Pery. LeKintreck and Blanpain agreed to furnish Pery with furs and with "whatever tallow and bear's grease our trade may produce."

The traders broke their contract with Pery before their Opelousas enterprise really got started (indeed, LeKintreck served as jailer at the New Orleans prison in 1738), but by 1740 LeKintreck and Blanpain were ready to see what the Opelousas district would bring. They left New Orleans that spring, traveling up the Mississippi River to Plaquemine, then west across the Atchafalaya Basin to the junction of bayous Teche and Courtableau. Then they went northwest on the Courtableau to the site of present-day Washington, before traveling overland onto the prairie to find the wandering Opelousas Indian traders.

The site they chose as their trading post was at the point where the bayous meet in present-day Port Barre.

The Indian trade did, in fact, turn a profit, and LeKintreck, then 52 years old, decided to move his family to the area. LeKintreck's first wife, Anne Baftz, died in 1747, and he remarried to Catherine Menu, the widow of Jacques Courtableau (père). She was a native of Paris who had come to New Orleans in 1720 aboard La Baleine, a ship carrying deported women. Her son by her first marriage was Jacques Guillaurne Courtableau, who also had a reputation as a trader. He soon formed an alliance with LeKintreck and expanded his association when he married LeKintreck's daughter, Marguerite. She was the widow of Claude Desbordes and the mother of five children.

LeKintreck died in 1753, but Courtableau continued trading. His expeditions took him to what later would become Calcasieu Parish, and further west into Spanish Texas. By 1756, Courtableau had amassed a fortune in land, cattle, and slaves, and had become the largest landowner and planter in the area.

His home on Bayou Teche near Bayou Marie Croquant served as the first church in the area and was a center for visiting church and government officials. Although some historians believe his titles were self-proclaimed, Courtableau was Capitaine de Quartier des Opelousas, and was recognized as being one of the first officials in the Opelousas territory.

In 1765, Courtableau gave land grants to 32 Acadian immigrants who came to the Opelousas district. That same year, he sold 8,800 arpents of land, including the site of the first trading post, to Charles Barre. The post later became known as Barre's Landing, and then Port Barre. It was a busy port during the steamboat days of the early 1800s.