EAST CARROLL PARISH
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History
General
East Carroll Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 7,759.[1] The parish seat is Lake Providence.[2]
The original Carroll Parish, before it was divided into "East" and "West" segments, was named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton,[3] Maryland, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence and the last surviving signer of the document. Prior to 1814, all of the territory covered by the current East Carroll Parish was part of the now defunct Warren Parish.
The famous black bear hunt waged in 1907 by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt began in East Carroll Parish near Lake Providence. When a particular bear managed to elude the hunters, the camp was moved to Bear Lake in Madison Parish near Tallulah. The 21-year-old Arthur Spencer of Richland Parish took a picture of Roosevelt in the heavily armed hunting party. Among the hunters was future Governor John M. Parker, the vice-presidential choice of the Bull Moose Party ticket in the 1916 presidential election.[4]
Civil War
The Lake Providence area first opened for European-American settlement in the late 1830s, after Indian Removal. New settlers drained the cypress swamps and cleared the land for cultivation. By 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, the region consisted entirely of large cotton plantations worked by thousands of slave laborers.
The town of Lake Providence began with the arrival of the Union Army in the spring of 1862. Under the direction of General Ulysses S. Grant, Lake Providence was established as a supply depot and base of operations for the Vicksburg Campaign. The soldiers dug a canal between the Mississippi River and Lake Providence. The area was called "Soldiers' Rest", but Grant subsequently moved his troops south for further temporary residence at Winter Quarters south of Newellton in Tensas Parish. As freed or runaway slaves swarmed into the camp at Lake Providence from surrounding plantations, the population quickly soared from a few hundred to several thousand. What began as a simple military supply camp quickly transformed into a "city of negroe refugees.".
By the time Vicksburg fell to the Union in 1863, most planters in the Lake Providence area had fled and left behind their vacant estates. The historian John D. Winters, who was reared in Lake Providence, wrote in the mid-20th century about this period:
The long line of abandoned plantations was then leased by the army and treasury agents to carpetbaggers and to southerners who took the oath of allegiance (known as scalawags). Since the necessary Negro labor, farming implements, and mules were provided by the army, lessees were responsible only for feeding and clothing the Negroes until the harvest, when they paid off their obligations to the army and to the laborers, Yearly expenses ran between $5,000 and $30,000 on a plantation of a thousand acres, while profits might run higher than $200,000. There was little trouble finding lessees for the plantations.[3]
Winters continued:
Many of the white lessees showed far less regard for their hired Negro laborers than the most negligent planter had shown for his slave. Negroes old, or infirm, or too young were weeded out and sent to Federal contraband villages and camps located along the river, where they had to be cared for by the provost marshals. In 1863 few lessees paid their labor except in food and clothing. For these items they often charged the Negroes five times the actual value, and at the end of the year the Negro was told that nothing was due him. Some lessees realized up to $80,000 profits, paid their labor nothing, and then boasted of their ability to swindle the Negro. A few lessees used their plantations for shipping out stolen cotton or for illegal trade. Provost marshals and labor agents often were bribed to shut their eyes to malpractices carried on by the lessees.[4]
On July 29, 1863, at Goodrich's Landing south of Lake Providence, Confederate partisan Rangers surprised two companies of black troops in a small fort located on an Indian mound; they seized two hundred prisoners. The Rangers burned cotton gins, plantation houses, and Negro quarters on the estates along the river and in the back country which were occupied by federal lessees and scalawags, the term heaped on those southerners who pledged loyalty to the Union.[5]
In June 1864, some Confederate troops raided the area south of Lake Providence and seized mules and horses and some of the Negroes. Winters writes that these raids
during the critical growing season greatly disrupted affairs, and many plantations grew up in weeds before new laborers and mules could be found. During the Union occupation, lessees rarely made as much as half of the pre-war cotton crop and most made less. . . . [6]
20th century
Residence of African American tenant farmer beside the Mississippi River levee near Lake Providence (June 1940)
After white Democrats regained power in the late 19th century, Louisiana, like other southern states, enacted a new constitution in 1898, and laws that controlled voter registration and electoral rules, effectively disfranchising blacks despite their stated 15th Amendment right to vote.
This situation persisted until the 1960s. Until 1962, no African Americans had been allowed to register to vote in Lake Providence in forty years. That year, however, the U.S. District Judge Edwin Ford Hunter, Jr., based in Lake Charles in the far southwestern corner of the state, personally registered twenty-eight African-Americans in Lake Providence under a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which had been signed into law by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In doing so, Hunter came into a confrontation with Louisiana 6th Judicial District Judge Frank Voelker, Sr., based in Lake Providence, in a dispute over the poweers of the national government that attracted national attention.[7]
With its large African-American electorate, Lake Providence today remains a stronghold of the Democratic Party, after many of the more conservative whites switched to the Republicans. In the 2008 and 2012, East Carroll Parish voted handily for Democrat Barack H. Obama of Illinois, rather than his Republican opponents, John S. McCain of Arizona and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.[8][9]
source: Wikipedia, 8/10/14
East Carroll Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 7,759.[1] The parish seat is Lake Providence.[2]
The original Carroll Parish, before it was divided into "East" and "West" segments, was named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton,[3] Maryland, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence and the last surviving signer of the document. Prior to 1814, all of the territory covered by the current East Carroll Parish was part of the now defunct Warren Parish.
The famous black bear hunt waged in 1907 by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt began in East Carroll Parish near Lake Providence. When a particular bear managed to elude the hunters, the camp was moved to Bear Lake in Madison Parish near Tallulah. The 21-year-old Arthur Spencer of Richland Parish took a picture of Roosevelt in the heavily armed hunting party. Among the hunters was future Governor John M. Parker, the vice-presidential choice of the Bull Moose Party ticket in the 1916 presidential election.[4]
Civil War
The Lake Providence area first opened for European-American settlement in the late 1830s, after Indian Removal. New settlers drained the cypress swamps and cleared the land for cultivation. By 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, the region consisted entirely of large cotton plantations worked by thousands of slave laborers.
The town of Lake Providence began with the arrival of the Union Army in the spring of 1862. Under the direction of General Ulysses S. Grant, Lake Providence was established as a supply depot and base of operations for the Vicksburg Campaign. The soldiers dug a canal between the Mississippi River and Lake Providence. The area was called "Soldiers' Rest", but Grant subsequently moved his troops south for further temporary residence at Winter Quarters south of Newellton in Tensas Parish. As freed or runaway slaves swarmed into the camp at Lake Providence from surrounding plantations, the population quickly soared from a few hundred to several thousand. What began as a simple military supply camp quickly transformed into a "city of negroe refugees.".
By the time Vicksburg fell to the Union in 1863, most planters in the Lake Providence area had fled and left behind their vacant estates. The historian John D. Winters, who was reared in Lake Providence, wrote in the mid-20th century about this period:
The long line of abandoned plantations was then leased by the army and treasury agents to carpetbaggers and to southerners who took the oath of allegiance (known as scalawags). Since the necessary Negro labor, farming implements, and mules were provided by the army, lessees were responsible only for feeding and clothing the Negroes until the harvest, when they paid off their obligations to the army and to the laborers, Yearly expenses ran between $5,000 and $30,000 on a plantation of a thousand acres, while profits might run higher than $200,000. There was little trouble finding lessees for the plantations.[3]
Winters continued:
Many of the white lessees showed far less regard for their hired Negro laborers than the most negligent planter had shown for his slave. Negroes old, or infirm, or too young were weeded out and sent to Federal contraband villages and camps located along the river, where they had to be cared for by the provost marshals. In 1863 few lessees paid their labor except in food and clothing. For these items they often charged the Negroes five times the actual value, and at the end of the year the Negro was told that nothing was due him. Some lessees realized up to $80,000 profits, paid their labor nothing, and then boasted of their ability to swindle the Negro. A few lessees used their plantations for shipping out stolen cotton or for illegal trade. Provost marshals and labor agents often were bribed to shut their eyes to malpractices carried on by the lessees.[4]
On July 29, 1863, at Goodrich's Landing south of Lake Providence, Confederate partisan Rangers surprised two companies of black troops in a small fort located on an Indian mound; they seized two hundred prisoners. The Rangers burned cotton gins, plantation houses, and Negro quarters on the estates along the river and in the back country which were occupied by federal lessees and scalawags, the term heaped on those southerners who pledged loyalty to the Union.[5]
In June 1864, some Confederate troops raided the area south of Lake Providence and seized mules and horses and some of the Negroes. Winters writes that these raids
during the critical growing season greatly disrupted affairs, and many plantations grew up in weeds before new laborers and mules could be found. During the Union occupation, lessees rarely made as much as half of the pre-war cotton crop and most made less. . . . [6]
20th century
Residence of African American tenant farmer beside the Mississippi River levee near Lake Providence (June 1940)
After white Democrats regained power in the late 19th century, Louisiana, like other southern states, enacted a new constitution in 1898, and laws that controlled voter registration and electoral rules, effectively disfranchising blacks despite their stated 15th Amendment right to vote.
This situation persisted until the 1960s. Until 1962, no African Americans had been allowed to register to vote in Lake Providence in forty years. That year, however, the U.S. District Judge Edwin Ford Hunter, Jr., based in Lake Charles in the far southwestern corner of the state, personally registered twenty-eight African-Americans in Lake Providence under a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which had been signed into law by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In doing so, Hunter came into a confrontation with Louisiana 6th Judicial District Judge Frank Voelker, Sr., based in Lake Providence, in a dispute over the poweers of the national government that attracted national attention.[7]
With its large African-American electorate, Lake Providence today remains a stronghold of the Democratic Party, after many of the more conservative whites switched to the Republicans. In the 2008 and 2012, East Carroll Parish voted handily for Democrat Barack H. Obama of Illinois, rather than his Republican opponents, John S. McCain of Arizona and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.[8][9]
source: Wikipedia, 8/10/14
Demographics
2010
Whereas according to the 2010
U.S. Census Bureau:
There were 2,969 households out of which 36.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.00% were married couples living together, 27.70% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.90% were non-families. 25.60% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.82 and the average family size was 3.40.
In the parish the population was spread out with 30.30% under the age of 18, 11.50% from 18 to 24, 27.20% from 25 to 44, 18.50% from 45 to 64, and 12.50% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 104.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 106.90 males.
The median income for a household in the parish was $20,723, and the median income for a family was $24,554. Males had a median income of $22,099 versus $18,672 for females. The per capita income for the parish was $9,629. About 32.60% of families and 40.50% of the population were below the poverty line, including 56.80% of those under age 18 and 32.70% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
2011 poverty data Of 3,197 counties ranked by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2011 for "estimated percent of people of all ages in poverty", East Carroll Parish was fifth. It was estimated that 44 percent of the county's residents lived in poverty.[12]
source: Wikipedia, 8/10/14
- 28.9% White
- 69.0% Black
- 0.2% Native American
- 0.6% Asian
- 0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
- 0.7% Two or more races
- 1.6% Hispanic or Latino (of any race)
There were 2,969 households out of which 36.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.00% were married couples living together, 27.70% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.90% were non-families. 25.60% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.82 and the average family size was 3.40.
In the parish the population was spread out with 30.30% under the age of 18, 11.50% from 18 to 24, 27.20% from 25 to 44, 18.50% from 45 to 64, and 12.50% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 104.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 106.90 males.
The median income for a household in the parish was $20,723, and the median income for a family was $24,554. Males had a median income of $22,099 versus $18,672 for females. The per capita income for the parish was $9,629. About 32.60% of families and 40.50% of the population were below the poverty line, including 56.80% of those under age 18 and 32.70% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
2011 poverty data Of 3,197 counties ranked by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2011 for "estimated percent of people of all ages in poverty", East Carroll Parish was fifth. It was estimated that 44 percent of the county's residents lived in poverty.[12]
source: Wikipedia, 8/10/14
Notable People
- Fuaed Abdo Ahmed, 20-year-old man who in August 2013 killed two hostages at Tensas State Bank in St. Joseph in Tensas Parish, had previously lived in East Carroll Parish and attended Briarfield Academy, where he played football[13]
- Buddy Caldwell, District Attorney in East Carroll, elected in 2007 as the attorney general of Louisiana
- Vail M. Delony, state representative, 1950–1967; Speaker of the Louisiana House, 1964–1967
- John Martin Hamley, state representative, 1912-1924; clerk of the state House, 1924-1931; elected parish tax assessor, 1933`
- Mose Jefferson, convicted felon, older brother of William J. Jefferson, was born in Lake Providence.
- William J. Jefferson, convicted felon, former U.S. representative from Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District, was born in Lake Providence.
- Don Johnson, a Transylvania farmer who has run unsuccessfully as a Republican for state agriculture commissioner in 1987, 1991, 1995, 2003, and 2007.
- James E. Paxton, district attorney for Louisiana 6th Judicial District (East Carroll, Madison, and Tensas parishes) since 2008[14]
- Francis Xavier Ransdell, state 6th Judicial District judge from 1900 to 1936
- Joseph Ransdell, a Democrat who served in Congress from 1913 to 1931. Ransdell was born in Alexandria but resided for many years in Lake Providence.
- David Voelker, entrepreneur and philanthropist in New Orleans; born in Lake Providence
- Frank Voelker, Jr., attorney in Lake Providence and New Orleans; former chairman of the Louisiana Sovereignty Commission; candidate for governor of Louisiana in 1963
- Frank Voelker, Sr., judge of the 6th Judicial District, 1937-1963; son-in-law of Judge Francis Ransdell
- Charles L. Vining, Jr., state representative from East and West Carroll parishes, 1968–1972
- Norris C. Williamson, state senator from 1916 to 1932; advocate of cotton planter interest and worked to gain state funding to eradicate the cattle tick
- John D. Winters, historian at Louisiana Tech University, author of The Civil War in Louisiana (1963), was born in Mississippi but reared in Lake Providence.
- Captan Jack Wyly, Democratic political activist