Follow
Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.
Official Website
This area was settled primarily by migrants from the southern United States after the Louisiana Purchase, when the US acquired the vast, former French-claimed territory west of the Mississippi River. White migrants to north and central Louisiana were from the South, and were mainly of British descent and Protestant religions. They brought a new influence into Louisiana. Some also brought or purchased African-American slaves to work on larger plantations. Many of these were from the Upper South, which sold slaves through the domestic market. They brought their own cultural influences as well.
The parish was founded in 1808 and originally incorporated a very large area. As population increased in the region, new parishes were organized from the territory first included in Catahoula Parish. The parish was divided by the state in 1910, when La Salle Parish was formed from its old western section.
At the start of the American Civil War, James G. Taliaferro, who had been a judge in the parish and was a delegate to the Louisiana state secessionist convention from Catahoula Parish, argued strongly against leaving the American Union. Taliaferro "denied the constitutional right [of a state] to leave the Union and painted a gloomy picture of economic chaos, blighted prosperity, staggering taxation and 'fatal prostration of Louisiana's interests under a southern Confederation,' and he could see no way ahead to prevent final anarchy and war. So 'radical' were the ideas of Taliaferro that the convention refused to print his protest in the pages of [its journal]." He is buried along with his wife and many other members of his family in Alexander Cemetery in Manifest, Louisiana.
Catahoula Parish lays claim to its namesake Catahoula Leopard dog breed. The Catahoula breed was owned by Colonel James "Jim" Bowie of the Alamo and his brother Rezin Bowie, both of Louisiana. During the early 1900s, Theodore Roosevelt used the Catahoula when hunting. Louisiana Governor Earl Kemp Long also collected these dogs.
Adjacent Parishes
Towns, Villages & Communities
- Aimwell
- Enterprise
- Foules
- Harrisonburg
- Jonesville
- Larto
- Leland
- Manifest
- Sandy Lake
- Sicily Island
- Wallace Ridge
Cemeteries
Links
USS Catahoula Parish - (LST-528)
Catahoula National Wildlife Refuge (part)
National Register of Historic Places
Louisiana Genealogy & History Network
Catahoula Parish Marriage Records
