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Cultures of
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Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, December 30, 1997
Berwick names for earliest white settler
by Jim Bradshaw
The earliest settler what is now St. Mary Parish is believed to have been Thomas Berwick, who was born in 1740 in Pennsylvania and who died in Berwick. He was a surveyor in the Opelousas district as early as 1784 and later moved to the lower Atchafalaya area.
It is said that he was born in 1740, that he was an Englishman, and that he immigrated to Louisiana from Pennsylvania by way of the Mississippi River.
We know little about him before 1779, Thomas is variously identified by documents of the time as a native of England, of South Carolina, and of Pennsylvania. It is unknown where or when he married his wife, who is identified variously as Eleanore Wallace, Eleonore Wales, Helene Walles, Elenore Helene Birgitta Wales, and Elena Ouzez. Eleanor Wallace was born in 1748 and died in 1815. They had eight children, one of whom, Joseph, was probably the first settler in what is now the town of Berwick.
Circumstantial evidence suggests that he may have gone to British West Florida before coming to Spanish Louisiana. In April 1769, a Thomas Berwick requested a land grant near Natchez for himself, his wife, and one child. Also, a Thomas Berwick signed a bill of sale in the Manchac district "about 7 miles south of Natchez," in 1777.
Berwick definitely appears in the Opelousas country during the summer of 1779, as one of a number of religious exiles seeking refuge.
In August 1779, Thomas Berwick was involved in the establishment of New Iberia. When Francisco Bouligny left the colony to join Spanish soldiers fighting in the American Revolution, he put Thomas Berwick and William Henderson in charge of the slaves Bouligny had brought to help build New Iberia. An agreement made at New Iberia in December 1781 refers to Berwick as "royal surveyor."
By this time, he was apparently a man of some means. In February 1781, Berwick entered into a partnership with Nicholas Forstall and Joseph Carr to establish a tannery at New Iberia. Berwick and Forstall provided the capital, tools, and slaves necessary to start the business and agreed to pay Carr a monthly salary as well. Carr agreed to teach his partners' slaves the tannery business.
Berwick also speculated in land, making claims for himself and his family in several places in the Opelousas and Attakapas districts. In addition to Berwick Bay, Bayou Barwick in present-day Acadia Parish survives as a place name established by Berwick and his family.
The surveyor James Cathcart visited Thomas Berwick's plantation during his explorations of the Attakapas Country in early 1819. He described Berwick as a cotton planter whose previous year's crop had amounted to 150,000 pounds.
Later in 1819, Thomas and his family apparently moved back to Opelousas. His son, Joseph Berwick, remained at Berwick Bay, at the town that was named for the family.
Joseph eventually became one of the largest planters in St. Mary Parish. Like the majority of his fellow planters, he switched from cotton and other crops to concentrate on sugar cane. In the 1810 census, he is listed as owning two slaves. In 1820, he owned seven slaves. In 1840, he owned 133 slaves. When he died in 1852, his estate was valued at $33,072.50.
James Cathcart visited Joseph Berwick and his "five healthy children" in 1819. Cathcart reported that sugar cane was being grown on a small scale on the Berwick Plantation.
According to Roger Baudier's history of the Catholic Church in Louisiana, "In 1898 ... a new church had been erected at Berwick ... through the efforts of Dr. Michel George Olivier, Mr. Kimich who was a devout Austrian immigrant, and Mrs. Gedeon Hebert, mother of the Gashia family." The church was blessed on August 3.