The Monroe Confederate Reunion of 1913

Back in 2018, I made a post about the above photo. You really can't make out who anyone in the photo is, because it is scanned so small. The photo itself is very long, as you can tell. I decided to go to the Special Collections department, where the original is housed, and take close … Continue reading The Monroe Confederate Reunion of 1913 →

Elderly Former Enslaved Man Passes Away

Any mention of an enslaved person gets my attention, since so few of their stories remain. On the front page of the Southern Broadcast, Saturday, January 9, 1937, was the obituary of a 93 year old man named Thomas Jefferson. He had been the former personal body servant of Daniel Armand Breard, Sr. I will … Continue reading Elderly Former Enslaved Man Passes Away →

Membership List of the United Confederate Veterans

Here is the preliminary list of members of the United Confederate Veterans, Henry W. Allen Camp, Monroe, LA. I found the membership lists at LSU. I also used the 1892 Charter Members List I told you about in an earlier post. The names in bold are those charter members. I found no rosters for 1893-1897, … Continue reading Membership List of the United Confederate Veterans →

I Broke a Code Tuesday

Bear with me as I explain this. Ever since I got the list of Monroe UCV members, I've been furiously researching them. Not just the founding members. All of them. Too much to go into at the moment. Lets just say, I have a list of about 160 names I am researching. Anyway, looking back … Continue reading I Broke a Code Tuesday →

A New Treasure

A little over a month ago, a box was donated to Special Collections full of the papers of Judge Americanus Willis, who was here from the late 1800's to the mid 1910's. My boss has slowly been going through them and the historical documents are exciting! Some of them are being prepared to be digitized … Continue reading A New Treasure →

A Pioneer’s Tale

As told by Daniel Armand Breard, Sr. to the News-Star, December 4, 1925, Page 5. BREARD HAS SEEN CITY GROW FROM VILLAGE OF 350Octogenarian Tells of Early Days in Ouachita Parish Seat. Recalling Monroe as a little village of 350 people, back when his memory first began to function, D.A. Breard, Sr., told reminiscently today … Continue reading A Pioneer’s Tale →

A Great Ouachita Parish Genealogy Resource

Many genealogy societies are beginning to place their magazines online. When you are doing genealogy research, you may not think about genealogy society newsletters and magazines. They are great research tools! Some have information you will absolutely never find anywhere else. Among the societies that are digitizing is the Ark-LA-Tex Genealogical Association. They have scanned … Continue reading A Great Ouachita Parish Genealogy Resource →

The Red Knights: An Unknown Confederate Unit

While browsing along the other day, I stumbled across this little document found in the Boston Anthenaum. It has no date on it, but it clearly was printed during the Civil War. It was calling on local men in the Monroe area to organize a rifle company to fight the Federal army (I won't use … Continue reading The Red Knights: An Unknown Confederate Unit →

The Ouachita/Key House: Monroe’s Confederate Hospital?

The Ouachita Hotel, was located where the park is now at the corner of 3rd and DeSiard. It was built in 1861 by Sloan and Mason. In 1890, F.G. Key bought the building and it became the Key House. In 1895 a case of Smallpox broke out at the hotel which made the Shreveport paper: … Continue reading The Ouachita/Key House: Monroe’s Confederate Hospital? →

A Yankee Buried by Confederate Veterans

One of the sweetest stories I have found, concerns the burial of a Union veteran handled by the Henry W. Allen Camp of United Confederate Veterans. Fifteen or so years ago, a lady contacted me for information on a Union soldier that had been buried in the Old Monroe City Cemetery. She was indexing … Continue reading A Yankee Buried by Confederate Veterans →