Middle Name or Clerical Error?: Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil and "Gaurhept"

I've noticed that many Acadian- and Cajun-related websites refer to Acadian frontiersman, guerrilla leader, and exile Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil as bearing the middle name "Gaurhept."  Even the self-policing online reference Wikipedia.org refers to Broussard as "Joseph Gaurhept Broussard" [accessed 3 April 2012].

No one knows what Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil looked like,
but I often imagine him looking somewhat like militant
abolitionist John Brown in this famous painting.
(Source: Wikimedia.org)

In my opinion, however, it's doubtful that Broussard actually used this name; in fact, as far as I know the name was used only once in reference to him and apparently in error.

The sole contemporary historical manuscript that refers to Broussard as "Gaurhept" is an official Louisiana colonial document dated April 8, 1765. In that document, acting provincial commandant Charles Philippe Aubry appointed Broussard "Capitaine de Milice et Commandant des Acadiens." (That is, captain of the militia and commandant of the some two-hundred Acadian exiles who settled with Broussard along the Teche.)

It is in this document that Broussard is referred to (and more than once) as "Gaurhept Broussard dit Beau Soleil."

Or maybe he looked like this?
(Source: Frederic Remington, 1880 [public domain])

But, rather than "Gaurhept" being an alternate or middle name for Joseph, the word appears to be a clerical error — a common enough occurrence in historical documents.

Evidence for this assertion is the absence of any other contemporary historical documents referring to Broussard as "Gaurhept."

Furthermore, the document in question does not even refer to Broussard as "Joseph." It calls him only "Gaurhept." The omission of Broussard's actual first name in itself suggests an error, and it is only through historical context that we know the document concerns Joseph at all and not, say, his brother Alexandre or some other, previously unknown Broussard.

I am not the only historian who regards "Gaurhept" as a mistake.

In his book Acadian Redemption: From Beausoleil Broussard to the Queen's Royal Proclamation (2004), Warren A. Perrin observes that "Beausoleil's first name was incorrectly listed [in the document] as 'Gaurhept.'" Elsewhere in the same book Perrin repeats, "In this document, Beausoleil's first name, Joseph, was improperly listed as 'Gaurhept'" (pp. 41, 147 n. 58).

Cover of Warren A. Perrin's Acadian Redemption,
showing Cajun artist Lucius Fontenot's
depiction of Broussard.

Likewise, historian Carl A. Brasseaux, author of The Founding of New Acadia, Acadian to Cajun, and "Scattered to the Wind" (among many other books), has referred to "Gaurhept" as "A clerical error — evidently an error in transcription." [Source: Carl A. Brasseaux, e-mail to the author, 2 April 2012.]

Pending any contemporary primary-source discoveries to the contrary, genealogists and others might do well to disassociate "Gaurhept" from the memory of Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil.

Addendum of 4 April 2012

Carl A. Brasseaux and genealogist Winston De Ville have both recently suggested to me that perhaps an error in transcription did not occur in 1765 (when Aubry appointed Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil a captain and commandant), but more recently.

This now seems a more likely explanation.

The original 1765 document is missing, so the next earliest known reference we have to this document is in the 1891 book Southwest Louisiana Biographical and Historical by historian William Henry Perrin (no relation to present-day historian Warren A. Perrin). In that book Perrin states that "The Broussard family traces its origin to Gaurhept Broussard dit Beausoleil." He explains the origin of the Broussard nickname "Beausoleil" ("This name was given [to] him . . . because of [his] cheerfulness. . . ."), but he does not discuss "Gaurhept" (despite the fact that it is an unusual name for an Acadian, or anyone else for that matter). Nor does Perrin associate the name "Joseph" with this "Gaurhept Broussard dit Beausoleil."

An excerpt from William Henry Perrin's
Southwest Louisiana Biographical and Historical,
with highlighted references to Gaurhept Broussard dit Beausoleil.
(Click to enlarge)

Nevertheless, Gaurhept Broussard dit Beausoleil clearly is Joseph dit Broussard dit Beausoleil, given Perrin's description of the former as a military officer, commandant, landowner, livestock breeder, and "the great ancestor from whom the whole Broussard family in Louisiana is descended."

Perrin himself, however, did not personally transcribe the source material on which he based his research and writing. Rather, it was J. O. Broussard, a Lafayette-area descendant of the original Broussard, who copied the document for Perrin, as Perrin himself notes.

Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil
as imagined by artist
Herb Roe (www.chromesun.com).
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

If a transcription error occurred, resulting in "Joseph" becoming "Gaurhept" (a real possibility given the sometimes bizarre calligraphy of the French and Spanish colonial era), it therefore was J. O. Broussard who likely made the error. And if it was an error, it nonetheless inspired him to name his own son "Gaurhept" — an amazing irony if such a name never previously existed.

Indeed, another piece of evidence in this matter is the fact that "Gaurhept" does not appear to have existed as a name for anyone until J. O. Broussard gave it to his son in the late nineteenth century.

I say this because if one enters the word "Gaurhept" into Google.com and searches the entire Internet, one receives about 2,250 positive responses. But if one again enters "Gaurhept" and this time instructs Google to omit all websites that also refer to the words "Broussard," "Beausoleil," "Beau Soleil," and the misspellings "Beausoliel" and "Beau Soliel," one is left with only four positive responses — and all four of these websites contain nothing but alphanumerical gobbledygook. (A similar result happens if one uses the more discriminating Bing.com search engine: it returns zero positive responses.)

Another excerpt from William Henry Perrin's
Southwest Louisiana Biographical and Historical,
with highlighted references to Gaurhept Broussard dit Beausoleil.
(Click to enlarge)

In other words, in all of cyberspace (including, by the way, the massive scanned digital library known as Google Books) the word "Gaurhept" exists in a meaningful sense only in reference to the Broussard family.  Or to put it more succinctly, outside the Broussard family "Gaurhept" is not a real name; and it only became a real name inside the Broussard family when J. O. Broussard gave it to his son, based on his apparent misreading of "Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil."

Unfortunately, this theory (and that is what it is) cannot be tested at present because, as noted, the original 1765 document is missing. Unless that document — or a facsimile of it in French or Spanish colonial records — is found we may never know for certain if J. O. Broussard correctly transcribed it or mistook "Joseph" for "Gaurhept." Yet I believe we can say it's likely that the word in question was not "Gaurhept," but "Joseph," and that someone — either an eighteenth-century scribe or J. O. Broussard — made an error in writing or transcribing it.

More on That Word "Coonass": A Labor Dispute Trial Documents Its Use in 1940

New research has confirmed the use of the word "coonass" as early as 1940. In addition, the word was clearly used at the time as an ethnic slur (unlike in the "Cajun Coonass" airplane images from 1943, when the word was apparently used as a badge of ethnic pride).

"Coonass" continues to be a
controversial word in Cajun country.
Its origin remains a mystery.

My source for this documented 1940 use of the word "coonass" is "In the Matter of Shell Oil Company, Incorporated[,] and Oil Workers International Union, Local 367," Case No. C-1858, Decided 23 August 1941," in Decisions of the National Labor Relations Board, Volume 34 (1942), pages 866-[892].

This labor dispute centered around a verbal altercation between one W. O. Ventura, a union member, and one Alec Vincent, a former union member, both employed at a Shell Oil facility located in Texas, evidently in or very near Houston. (Local 367 was active in the Houston area; in addition, the National Labor Board report on this dispute refers more than once to Harris County, Texas, where Houston is located; and, finally, the report gives Shell Oil's location as Houston, next to which the company did operate at least one petroleum plant in 1940, namely, at Deer Park.) [Note of 28 March 2012: I have now confirmed that the incident in question occurred at the Deer Park refinery near Houston.]

Angered that Vincent had dropped out of the union, Ventura approached Vincent during their lunch break on January 10, 1940, and berated him for refusing to pay his union dues. When Vincent asked to be left alone, Ventura — according to Vincent's written statement to Shell Oil of five days later — barked:

"I'm through with you, you coon-ass son-of-a-bitch, I'll meet you at the gate at 4:30. I want to whip your God-damned ass."

An excerpt of Vincent's statement from the original document. 

Ventura himself recalled the phraseology this way:

"Why don't you just admit that you are just a damn coon-ass and too tight to pay the two dollars . . . Vincent, it is 12:30 now. Either now or at 4:30 you can come out to the gate and you can either whip my God-damn ass or I'll whip yours or we can go out and talk it over or settle it any way you want to . . . [sic]"

An excerpt of Ventura's statement from the original document.

Eight days after this incident, Shell Oil asked an eyewitness, employee and union member Leo L. Fullerton, to record his recollection of the incident. Fullerton stated:

"Bill [Ventura] said, 'Well, if that is the way you feel about it, Coon ass [sic], just wait until 4:00 and we will argue about it on the outside of the gate."

Fired for his verbal assault on Vincent, Ventura appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, asserting that Shell Oil had terminated him not because of his disparaging language, but because he was an active union member. In his defense, Ventura demonstrated that Shell Oil had not fired other, non-union coworkers for similar offenses.

The Trial Examiner of the National Review Board ruled that although Ventura had called Vincent a "coon ass son-of-a-bitch," Shell Oil had terminated him unjustly. In fact, the National Review Board observed, "We also find . . . that the language used by Ventura on this occasion was used frequently among the respondent's employees. [Shell Oil coworkers] Benson, Nelson, Ventura, Vincent, and Robison, all testified that employees at the plant often cursed and called each other 'coon ass' and 'son-of-a-bitch' when arguing over various matters." The Trial Examiner then ordered Shell Oil to reinstate Ventura as an employee and to pay his lost wages.

What is important about this incident to Cajun history, however, is not the labor dispute itself, but its documentation of the word "coonass" — now the earliest known use of this word by a little over three years.

Moreover, the word was used in this 1940 incident as a derogatory term for "Cajun," because it's reasonably clear that Vincent was indeed a Cajun.

I say this for several reasons.

First, the incident appears to have taken place in or near Houston, a city to which many Cajuns have emigrated since the first half of the twentieth century, primarily to work in its petroleum facilities. Second, "Vincent" is a Cajun surname, sometimes pronounced in the Anglo-American way (VIN-SENT), but even today said by some in the Cajun French manner (VAH[N]-SOH[N]).  Third, and most importantly, one of Vincent's coworkers, M. L. Roller, noted in his statement about the incident that Vincent's nickname was — "Frenchy."

A "coonass" sticker on a hard hat.
(Photo by the author.)

Addendum of 28 March 2012:  

I returned to the history of the word "coonass" a couple of weeks ago or so because state media outlets have been covering south Louisiana attorney Warren Perrin's outcry over local radio stations playing "RCA (Registered Coonass)," a song by Cajun musician Jamie Bergeron.  See, for example, "KBON Radio Could Face FCC Complaint over 'Coonass' Lyrics" and "'Coonass' in Lyrics Draws Ire of Perrin".

Oddly enough, "coonass" is now in the national media and political spotlight (if only tangentially) because it has been invoked in reference to the Trayvon Martin shooting — most notably on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews."  See, for instance, "Zimmerman Friend Defends Racial Slur: ‘Coon Asses’ Used Proudly In Parts Of This Country" and "Zimmerman Friend Joe Oliver Claims 'Coon A**' Isn't a Racial Slur".  (Note the interesting comments about "coonass" that readers have left under these articles on their respective websites.)

"To Err Is Human": Errata and Updates from My Books

One of my favorite quotes is "No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar."*

In the spirit of this quote, I post the below errata (including typographical errors) from my books and other publications. Some of the below, however, are not corrections of errors, but rather updates based on more recent findings.

From Swamp Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and Blues (1996):

~ Page 10, photo caption, "Van Broussard performing at Dutch Town High School, Dutch Town (Ascension Parrish), La., 1957."

Correction: "Parish" is misspelled.

~ Page 65, "During the late 1960s Fender teamed up with Joe Barry and went on in the mid-'70s to record such enduring swamp pop classics as ‘Before the Next Teardrop Falls’ and ‘Wasted Days and Wasted Nights’ (the latter covered by Johnnie Allan in alternating English and Cajun French lyrics).”

Correction: "Latter" should be "former".

~ Page 115, "Cookie — renowned vocalist on swamp pop classics like 'Mathilda,' 'Belinda,' 'I'm Twisted,' 'Got You on My Mind,' and 'Betty and Dupree.' . . ."

Correction: Cookie did not sing vocals on "Betty and Dupree"; rather, his bandmate Shelton Dunaway handled the vocals.

~ Page 254, the index entry for "Creole" says "See also Black Creole; Creole of Color; French Creole" — but there is no index entry for "French Creole."

From "Floyd Soileau and J. D. Miller: A Comparison of Two Small-town Recordmen of Acadiana," Louisiana Folklife 15 (December 1991):

~ N.p., regarding the passage:

"He [J. D. Miller] played his first dance with Joseph Falcon and his Silver Bell Band which was playing at the Cow Island nightclub that lacked an electrified sound system. Although the group was billed as 'string' band, Miller recalls that it featured the Breaux Brothers, traditional Cajun musicians."

Update: I cannot locate the source of my statement that Miller played with Joseph Falcon and his Silver Bell Band. As such, I believe the passage in question should read:

"He played his first dance at a Cow Island nightclub that lacked an electrified sound system. Although the group was billed as 'string' band, Miller recalls that it featured the Breaux Brothers, traditional Cajun musicians."

From The Cajuns: Americanization of a People (2003):

~ Page xi, "Regardless, when I visited my Cajun grandparents on Crochet Street in Opelousas, I heard Cajun French."

Correction: "Crochet" should be "Crouchet."

~ Page xvii, I state that Cajuns were known to be reviled by local blacks as "Acadian n*****s". On closer examination, however, I see that the original 19th-century quote states, "the n******, when they want to express contempt for one of their own race, call him [a fellow black person] an Acadian n*****." In other words, blacks used this pejorative as a black-on-black insult, not as an anti-Cajun insult or expression of perceived Cajun non-whiteness. See A.R.W. [Alfred Rudolph Waud], "Acadians of Louisiana," Harper's Weekly, 20 October 1866, p. 670.

~ Page 18, "in 1916 the state’s Board of Education banned French from classrooms, a move sanctioned by lawmakers in the state constitution of 1921."

Correction: According to my own research conducted in 2024, the Louisiana state Board of Education did not ban French in public-school classrooms in 1916. Rather, that year the state legislature (not the Board of Education) approved an anti-truancy law that no doubt led to many French-speaking students, among many other students, attending school for the first time. 

Historians, journalists, and other researchers later misinterpreted this anti-truancy law as an English-only decree, when in fact the act in question made no mention of language — only compulsory education for the state's children. For more on this topic, see my blog article "Banned in the Classroom: Notes on the Outlawing of French in Louisiana's Public Schools."

~ Page 121, "And in the 1956 film Bayou . . . Peter Graves battles a villainous south Louisiana rival for a Cajun belle played by scantily clad Italian starlet Lita Milan."

Correction: Despite her ethnic-sounding name (a pseudonym, it turns out), Lita Milan was not "Italian" but rather a Brooklyn-born American actress of Hungarian-Polish descent — real name Iris Menshell.

~ Passim, update: Because of changing views about race and racism I have as of spring 2021 asked my publisher, University Press of Mississippi, to obscure all instances of "the N word" in this book by using asterisks, dashes, or blank spaces. The word in question appears in pre-spring 2021 editions solely when the book quoted or cited racially offensive historical and archival material. Although printed in an academic context — that is, in a book based closely on my Ph.D. dissertation in History and published by a peer-reviewed academic press — future editions of the book will obscure the offensive word.

From Tabasco: An Illustrated History (2007):

The below revisions will appear in the 2nd edition of this book, tentatively to be published in 2019:

~ Page 34, "The plan called for lopping off the brick tower's third-floor lookout (an alteration that was never carried out)."

Update: The discovery of a previously unknown 1885 photograph of the structure in question — the original Tabasco Sauce factory — reveals that it began as a small one-story building and only later (probably after E. McIlhenny's death in 1890) became a much larger building with a tower. As such, the "plan" in question was apparently not to lop off the third floor of the brick tower, but to build a brick tower in the first place — a tower that in execution grew from two stories to three.

~ Page 37, "Edmund originally called his condiment 'Petite Anse Sauce,' but he changed the trademark after Judge Avery objected to this use of his plantation’s name. As a result, Edmund rechristened his product with the trademark 'Tabasco.'" . . .

Update: The discovery of a previously unknown letter abstract book belonging to E. McIlhenny not only confirmed that McIlhenny at one time called Tabasco Sauce by the name "Petite Anse Sauce," but clarified the chronology surrounding the early name change. In short, the book, in which McIlhenny wrote synopses of his outgoing mail, revealed that McIlhenny first used the brand name Tabasco Sauce, then changed it to Petite Anse Sauce, then returned to calling it Tabasco Sauce — the name that has been used ever since. All this occurred over a short period in 1868, the sauce's inaugural year as a commercial product.

~ Page 37, "From there steamboats carried it down Bayou Teche, across several coastal bays, against the current up Bayou Plaquemines, and down the Mississippi to New Orleans."

Update: New research indicates this is not the route that these steamboats would have followed. Rather, they would have taken a solely inland river route: down Bayou Teche and the Lower Atchafalaya River; up the Atchafalaya River proper; over the massive Atchafalaya Swamp through Old River; and finally down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

~ Pages 70 and 72: "John in his Rough Riders uniform playing cards with family friends and fellow veterans Bert Fish and (in Civil War Zouave uniform) Latham Fish, Greenport, Connecticut, circa 1898. . . . John in a formal studio pose with family friends and fellow veterans Ed Fish, Latham Fish, unknown, and Bert Fish, circa 1898."

Correction: It is more correct to refer to the Fishes as "northern relatives" of the Averys and McIlhennys, rather than "family friends."

~ Page 79, "or take tea with Mr. and Mrs. Winston Churchill."

Update: It is now known this not a reference to Winston Churchill the future British prime minister, but to the American novelist of the same name.

~ Page 98, image identified as that of Edward Avery McIlhenny "around age 5, circa 1877."

Update: I later found the child in this image to be Edward's younger brother, Rufus Avery McIlhenny. (An original print of the image bears the true identification; the annotation is by Mary Eliza Avery McIlhenny, Edward and Rufus' mother.)

~ Page 136, "the 1901 silent short [film] Aunt Jane's Experience with Tabasco Sauce. . . ."

Correction: This film was actually released a year earlier, in 1900.

~ Page 219, "He developed his 250-acre personal estate, Jungle Gardens, into a wholesale plant nursery. . . ."

Correction: Jungle Gardens is actually 170 acres in area.

From Cajuns and Their Acadian Ancestors: A Young Reader's History (2008):

~ Page 29, "The next year, a group of about three hundred exiles arrived in Louisiana under the guidance of a daring Acadian leader named Joseph Broussard did Beausoleil."

Correction: "About three hundred" should be "about two hundred". (The correct number does appear in the book's French edition.)

From Teche: A History of Louisiana's Most Famous Bayou (2016):

~ Unnumbered page at beginning of book, on map of middle Teche region ("from Parks downstream to Franklin"), "Île Piquant".

Correction: The placename "Île Piquant" should be spelled "Île Piquante" (with an -e on the end of the second word) because "Île" is feminine in French and thus its adjective should correspond in gender. The placename does, however, sometimes appear in historical records as "Île Piquant."

~ Page 7, "songsmith Alfred Dieudonne. . . ."

Correction: "Alfred" should be "Albert". The same goes for his index entry (page 245). Also, to convey proper pronunciation Dieudonne should be rendered "Dieudonné" (with an accent over the final letter).

~ Page 18, "About a mile south of the Levant-St. John refinery lies St. Martinville."

Correction: "Levant-St. John" should be "Levert-St. John".

~ Page 28, "apparently unaware of Masse's death around 1785. . . ."

Update: Masse's succession is mentioned in Spanish judicial records of January 1785, thus explaining my assertion that Masse died "around 1785." I observed in my end notes, however, that "Donald J. Arceneaux has determined that Masse died after February 1772 but before January 1773" (see page 210, note 15). While I chose to defer to the judicial records, Donald has since pointed out that genealogist Winston De Ville found reference to Masse's succession in a document from 2 December 1772 — indicating that Masse died sometime before that date. So the phrase in question should read "apparently unaware of Masse's death around 1772. . . ." Source: Winston De Ville, Mississippi Valley Mélange, Volume 2 (Ville Platte, La.: Winston De Ville, 1996), page 39.

~ Page 53, "Drawing on his navigational skills, Gonsoulin stood in Nueva Iberia’s 'place d’armes' on the expedition’s first day, June 18, 1799, and confirmed the village’s latitude."

Correction: "1799" should be "1779".

~ Page 55, "The fifth major salt dome in the region, Jefferson Island, lay farther island. . . ."

Correction: The word "island" should be "inland".

~ Page 86, "Union map of the site of the Battle of Ft. Bisland, 1863, fought on both sites of the Teche near present-day Calumet."

Correction: "both sites" should be "both sides".

~ Page 116, "[But a]s the curtail fell, a happy bedlam broke loose in the audience."

Correction: "curtail" should be "curtain".

~ Page 223, regarding the source of "The Passing of Harry Mahoney, Negro Politician of Radical Days":

Update: In Endnote 18 of Chapter 4 I note that one of my sources, “The Passing of Harry Mahoney, Negro Politician of Radical Days,” is from a "typewritten transcript . . . of [an] article from [an] unidentified New Orleans newspaper." Researcher Judy Riffel has found, however, that the article originally appeared in the (New Orleans, La.) Times-Democrat, 28 September 1913, page 20. Despite the article's title, it is not an obituary, but a reference to Mahoney's ousting from office. (Mahoney died three years later, in 1916.)

*Source: Donald Foster, Professor of English, Vassar College, as quoted in William S. Niederkorn, "A Scholar Recants on His 'Shakespeare' Discovery," New York Times, 20 June 2002.

An Old Bull Durham Tobacco Ad in New Iberia, or Palimpsests on the Teche

In June 2011 fire destroyed a three-story Masonic lodge in downtown New Iberia, leaving a vacant lot along Main Street.  Although I drove past this site for years, it wasn’t until the lodge’s destruction that I noticed an old advertisement painted on the neighboring brick building — an advertisement whose existence had been hidden by the former lodge building.

The faded advertisement read: Bull Durham.

The remains of a Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco ad
on a New Iberia building, 2012.  Parts of the words "Genuine"
and "Smoking" are still visible above and below the brand name.
(Photo by the author)

No, not the 1988 movie featuring Kevin Costner, but a tobacco company and brand based in Durham, North Carolina.  The National Park Service, which has recognized the Bull Durham tobacco factory (also called the W. T. Blackwell and Company tobacco factory) for its historical importance, has referred to Bull Durham tobacco as “the first truly national tobacco brand” and “a part of American industrial history and folklore.” 

In a larger context, the barely visible advertisement is an example of what historians, architects, and others refer to as a palimpsest.

A Bull Durham advertising poster, 1910
(Source: Duke University per UNC-Chapel Hill)

The word palimpsest descends from the Latin palimpsestus, which in turn comes from the Greek palimpsēstos, meaning “scraped again.”  This refers to the ancient practice of scraping the writing off a piece of parchment or vellum so that it might be reused.

Likewise, the remains of old painted advertisements are referred to as palimpsests because of their resemblance to old, scraped manuscripts that here and there, beneath their surfaces, reveal traces of earlier words.

Palimpsests for N. J. Breaux's furniture
and appliance store, New Iberia, La., 2012.
(Photo by the author)

A look around New Iberia revealed other palimpsests, such as that for N. J. Breaux’s furniture and appliance store.  Despite its timeworn appearance, the Breaux advertisement cannot be that old because it refers to “Television,” which only became a common appliance after World War II and particularly after 1950.  Indeed, as I point out in my book The Cajuns: Americanization of a People, in 1950 less than 1 percent of households in rural and small-town south Louisiana had television; but by 1960 the percentage had jumped to about 80 percent — an amazing increase in only a decade.

More palimpsests in New Iberia, 2012.
(Photo by author)

Addendum of 22 February 2012:

The below images are unrelated to the subject of palimpsests, but I post them here because they nonetheless relate to the history of downtown New Iberia.

These are two sets of "Then and Now" photographs, showing the New Iberia railroad station (taken ca. 1905) and the early twentieth-century site of Taylor's Drug Store (also taken ca. 1905).

The New Iberia railroad station, ca. 1905 and 2012.
(B&W photo courtesy of the Avery Island, Inc., Archives;
color photo by the author.)

Taylor's drug store in New Iberia, ca. 1905 and 2012.
(B&W photo courtesy of the Avery Island, Inc., Archives;
color photo by the author.)

The original railroad station image was taken on July 4th (thus the large crowd with an American flag).

Note the upstairs windows in the original drugstore image; the words painted on them read "Dr. Fulton" and "X-Ray."

Addendum of 20 July 2012:

Here's a neat palimpsest from farther up the Teche at St. Martinville:

Old Coca-Cola advertisement
on brick wall in St. Martinville, La.
(Photo by the author)

Remembering Polycarp: A Cajun TV Show Host for Children

[I originally wrote this article for Wikipedia. Since the writing is my own, I repost it here on my blog. I include extra images below and I'll add more information as I find it.]

Polycarp (pronounced POE-LEE-CARP) was a fictional character who served as a local children's television show host. His program, "Polycarp and Pals," aired from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s on KATC Channel 3 in Lafayette, Louisiana.[1]

Rough print of
Polycarp promotional photo.
(Source: KATC-TV 3)

Background

Polycarp was portrayed by KATC employee John Plauché (27 July 1932 - June 1978),[2] whom KATC hired in May 1963 and whom it credited for the show's originality. "It is a land created through the wonderful imagination of John Plauché, who as Polycarp Phillipe Pecot Number 2, makes our lives a little happier, the world a brighter place [in which] to live."[3] (Polycarp would often jokingly warn viewers in his Cajun-accented English "Don’t ask for Number One ‘cuz dat’s my daddy and dey don’t like him anyway.")[4]

Polycarp on the studio set.
(Source: KATC-TV 3)

An avuncular Cajun dressed in a plaid shirt, waistcoat, and crumpled straw hat, Polycarp lived on a houseboat, the Narcisse Number 3, "somewhere way back in the Anse La Butte Swamp midway between the Parishes of Fantaisie and Réalité," as a KATC newsletter put it in 1967.[5] (In later programs Polycarp traded his houseboat for a general store.) KATC described Polycarp's imaginary world as "A modern-day 'fairytale' land of happiness and laughter for girls and boys and tall people . . . undoubtedly the happiest place in Acadiana." The station likened his program to "a cruise . . . [through] his small but laughing world of Cajun friends and swamp critters . . . [such as] Maurice Mostique, the giant mosquito with a wingspan of 13 ¾ feet, [who] sings a pesky song while Ole Blue, the 738 ½ pound junk-collecting catfish, thumps against the boat as we float along the bayou."[6]

Polycarp at the mic.
(Source: KATC-TV 3)

In addition to showing classic Warner Bros. cartoons, the program featured original skits and recurring characters. Those characters included T'Toot, a retired Indian fighter; the Crazy Professor, an inventor and graduate emeritus of UPI (University of Pecan Island); Tante Baseline, owner of the Anse La Butte Swamp Gumbo Factory; Joycie, a female filling station attendant "who's the world's champion dual-wheel semi-trailer flat-tire fixer"; The Headless Man, who "sent his head out to be cleaned and it was accidentally sent to the Avery Island Pickle Factory instead" and lived in the locked cabin of Polycarp's boat; Doctor Rollingstone, "the hipster swamp doctor who has a transistor radio stuck in his stethoscope"; and King Simon, "the duly elected boss of the swamp."[7]

Polycarp swamped by fan mail, 1967.
(Source: Acadiana [KATC-TV 3 newsletter])

Popularity

KATC noted that, "Polycarp's much loved pals . . . [are] as familiar to the children of Acadiana as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck" and claimed that Polycarp was "ranked as the top children's TV personality in the state."[8] As evidence of this popularity, Polycarp received over 3,000 letters and postcards from local children over a seven-day period during a fall 1967 Halloween costume giveaway promotion.[9] In October that year, the University of Southwestern Louisiana's Alumni Association, Athletic Association, and its band named Polycarp the first "Mr. Acadiana," an honor it bestowed annually during the school's homecoming football game to the USL alumnus who best "fosters the tradition and the ideals of the school and of the area. . . ." (Plauché had graduated from the university in 1957.)[10] By 1967 Polycarp appeared in Lafayette-area parades driving a restored 1935 International Harvester vegetable truck, dubbed by KATC the "Poly-Car."[11]

John Plauché on-set as Polycarp, being interviewed in 1967
for the forthcoming ABC children's morning program Discovery '68.
Source: State Library of Louisiana Historic Photograph Collection

In 1976, producer J. D. "Jay" Miller of Crowley, Louisiana, issued a 45 RPM record on his Yule Time record label featuring Polycarp reading “The Night Before Christmas.”[12]

Polycarp 45 RPM record, 1976.
Note that although his name is misspelled,
John Plauché is credited as the recording's writer.
(Source: Author's collection)

Theme song

Polycarp's eponymous theme song (rendered "Polycarp Phillip Pecot #II" on the 45 RPM record label) was recorded in 1966 by local swamp pop musician Johnnie Allan to the tune of The McCoys' 1965 Number 1 hit song "Hang On Sloopy".[13]

A 45 RPM record of Johnnie Allan's
Polycarp theme song, [1966].
Source:eBay.com

Broadcast schedule

In spring 1969, "Polycarp and Pals" aired for one hour each weekday and Saturday beginning at 7 a.m. CST (although on some weekdays it ran for an hour and a half, ending at 8:30 a.m.).[14] There is some evidence that a short-lived spinoff program, "The Polycarp Palace," aired on Tuesdays from 3:30 p.m. to 5:50 p.m. beginning in October 1967.[15]

TV Guide listing for "Polycarp & Pals"
from Wednesday, April 30, 1969.
(Source: Author's collection)

Demise

Plauché died prematurely in summer 1978 at age 45 "after an extended illness," according to his obituary in the Lafayette Advertiser. The newspaper noted, "a native of Plaucheville [in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana], [Plauché] was the son of the late Sumpter Plauché and Ann Moreau. He had resided in Lafayette for the past 20 years. For over 15 years he entertained the children of Acadiana on Television Channel 3 as Polycarp, a character he invented himself."

John Plauché's obituary, 6 June 1978.
(Click to enlarge)

Notes

1. Shane K. Bernard, The Cajuns: Americanization of a People (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), p. 104.
2. Social Security Death Index, http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/
3. Patti Taylor, "Camera Angles," Acadiana, July 1967, p. 3
4. Debrah Royer Richardson, "Performing Louisiana: The History of Cajun Dialect Humor and Its Impact on the Cajun Cultural Identity," Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Theatre, Louisiana State University, August 2007, p. 197.
5. Patti Taylor, "Camera Angles," Acadiana, July 1967, p. 3.
6. Richardson, "Performing Louisiana, p. 197.
7. Patti Taylor, "Camera Angles," Acadiana, July 1967, p. 3.
8. Ibid.; "Polycarp 'Mr. Acadiana,'" Acadiana, November 1967, p. 1.
9. "Polycarp's Pals Keep Postman Busy," Acadiana , November 1967, p. 3.
10. "Polycarp 'Mr. Acadiana,'" Acadiana , November 1967, p. 1.
11. "This Is It . . . The Poly-Car," Acadiana , November 1967, p. 1.
12. Polycarp, “The Night Before Christmas,” Yule Time 45 RPM record 45-1000, 1976.
13. Johnnie Allan, "Polycarp Phillip Pecot #II (Hang On Sloopy)," Jin label (Ville Platte, Louisiana) #198, 1966. See Johnnie Allan Singles.
14. TV Guide, 26 April-2 May 1969 (Louisiana edition).
15. Patti Taylor, "Camera Angles," Acadiana , November 1967, p. 3.

The "Poly-Car," a vehicle in which Polycarp
appeared in parades around the Lafayette area.
(Source: Acadiana [KATC-TV 3 newsletter])

Addendum of 4 February 2012

One day around 1972 when I was about five years old my family and I were boating on Lake Henderson in the Atchafalya Basin. It was towards the end of the day and we were heading back to the landing.

As we crossed the stump-strewn lake Dad spotted a man in a small motor boat trying without success to start his outboard.

When the man saw us he waved for assistance, so Dad steered over to throw him a line. As we drew near I recognized the luckless boater. And I can imagine myself thinking with astonishment, "It's Polycarp!"

Of course, it was really John Plauché, but for me, as for many kids in Acadiana, Polycarp was not a character played by a local actor, but a real person.

To me the man I saw was Polycarp . . . in a boat . . . in the Atchafalaya Basin . . . and everyone knew from TV that Polycarp lived on a boat in the Atchafalaya Basin!

That was the day my family rescued Polycarp Phillip Pecot #II.

In Memoriam placed in the Lafayette newspaper
by Plauché's widow, summer 1978.

Addendum of 15 September 2014

I distinctly remember the pronunciation of the name "Polycarp" as POE-LEE-CAR in the Cajun French manner (with a silent final consonant). I have been told by a few people, however — including Johnnie Allan, singer of the Polycarp theme song — that the correct pronunciation, as used in the show, was POE-LEE-CARP. If you remember the pronunciation one way or another, please leave a note below describing how you said "Polycarp."

From Fighter Jets to Football: Origin of the Phrase "Ragin' Cajun"

As I've mentioned previously, I enjoy debunking myths.  One myth that came up recently is the claim that "UL Lafayette [the University of Louisiana at Lafayette] was the first [entity] to adopt the nickname Ragin’ Cajuns" (The [Lafayette] Independent, 17 January 2012).

Actually, according to archival documents U.S. Marine Corps Reserve fighter squadron VMF-143 adopted the nickname "Ragin' Cajun" as early as 1950. (Louisiana historian Carl A. Brasseaux made the discovery; I merely located a couple more documents that confirmed the finding.) Note that the squadron technically used the term in the singular tense; still, one sometimes finds the term applied to the squadron in the plural.

I found this Ragin' Cajun squadron logo in the National Archives;
note the date 1 December 1950 in the lower right corner.
(Source: National Archives and Records Administration,
Washington, D.C.)

In short, the U.S. Marines fighter squadron used the term over a decade before UL-Lafayette (known at the time as the University of Southwestern Louisiana, or USL, formerly Southwestern Louisiana Institute, SLI) informally adopted the nickname and about a quarter-century before the university formally adopted it.

Details from the back of the National Archives copy
of the Ragin' Cajun squadron logo, dated here 3 August 1956.
(Source: National Archives and Records Administration,
Washington, D.C.)

As I wrote in my book The Cajuns: Americanization of a People (2003):

South Louisianans who comprised Marine reserve squadron VMF-143 expressed ethnic pride by nicknaming themselves the Ragin' Cajuns, the earliest known use of this now familiar phrase. The squadron's emblem was a charging cartoon pelican (the Louisiana state bird) bedecked in boxing gloves and carrying a lighted bomb in its mouth. According to former squadron commander Carol Bernard, the Marine Corps activated several Ragin' Cajun pilots during wartime, transferred them to other squadrons, and sent them on combat missions over Korea in new jet fighters.

VMF-143, the Ragin' Cajun squadron, evidently posing somewhere
outside south Louisiana, given the hill in the background.  (Source: Carol Bernard, New Iberia, La.)

As for when UL-Lafayette began to use the "Ragin' Cajuns" nickname, I noted in The Cajuns:

During this same period [1974], USL officially renamed its football team the Ragin' Cajuns, a name it had informally adopted in 1963, when the school's student newspaper noted, "USL football fans are coining another nickname. . . . Instead of the official Battling Bulldogs, Southwestern boosters have started referring to Coach Russ Faulkinberry's squad as the Raging [sic] Cajuns" because nearly all the players were south Louisianians.  The school's other athletic teams soon were donning the name on their traditional red and white uniforms.

I date the official change of the team's name to 1974 because of the headline "Augie's Doggies Turn Cajun" appearing in the 1975 USL L'Acadien student yearbook.  The article featured the previous year's football season;  "Augie"  referred to then coach Augie Tammariello.

Although UL trademarked "Ragin' Cajuns," the Discovery Channel is now using the term as the title of a new "reality" program about Louisiana shrimpers.

A clearer version of the Ragin' Cajun fighter squadron logo (no date).
(Source: Carl A. Brasseaux Collection,
Southwestern Archives and Manuscripts Collection,
UL-Lafayette, Lafayette, La.)

Addendum of 11 April 2012:

I recently received an e-mail from John Hornung, a former member of the Ragin' Cajun squadron.  Mr. Hornung has written a memoir of his time in the Marine Corps, called Private 1543868 (available for purchase from Barnesandnoble.com by clicking here).  Below is an excerpt about the squadron from Mr. Hornung's book:

[O]n May 6, 1956, I enlisted in the US Marine Corps Reserve and joined VMF 143, the Ragin Cajuns. VMF 143 was a Marine Fighter Squadron stationed at Naval Air Station New Orleans on Lake Pontchartrain. As you entered the front gate of the Naval Air Station you passed under a large sign proclaiming, The Home of the Ragin Cajuns. The air base was located one and a half miles from my home.

An F4U Corsair, the original fighter plane
of the Ragin' Cajun squadron.
(Source: NASA.gov)

Since I would be going off to boot camp in a few weeks, I was assigned jobs requiring short learning curves. One of those jobs was conducting aircraft preflight checks and engine tests while our pilots attended briefings in the ready room. The aircraft of VMF 143 was the famous F4U Corsair of WWII in the Pacific. It also served with distinction in Korea. The fun part for us mechanics was strapping into the pilot seat and starting up the massive engine. Once warmed up we put the engine through its paces and conducted tests to check the engine’s condition. We checked oil and hydraulic pressures, instrument readings, and placed a load on the engine by increasing the pitch of the prop under increasing levels of RPMs. Once we completed our check out and shut down, the Corsair was ready for its pilot. I’m sure we had a swagger in our walk as we returned to the flight shack. . . . 

An AD4 Skyraider, which the
Ragin' Cajun squadron flew beginning in late 1956.
(Source: NASA.gov)

After returning from boot camp in December 1956, VMF 143 was relieved of its F4U Corsairs and given AD4 Skyraiders. AD4s were the largest single prop driven aircraft ever built. They carried the largest load of arms of any single engine aircraft. They served in the Korean War and in the Vietnam War. One shot down two Russian MiG jets in Vietnam. These were wonderful birds. We mechanics enjoyed working on them and checking them out for our pilots before takeoff. In 1957, while stationed for two weeks training at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Base North Carolina, VMF 143 set a unit record for total flying time. In January 1958 VMF 143 became VMA 143 and we received our first jet aircraft, F9F Cougars. The fun in the pilot seat ended. The F9Fs didn’t require any warm up and cockpit check out. We strapped our pilots in their seats and they taxied off with us covering our ears from the loud wine of the engine.

An F9F Cougar, the jet fighter to which the
Ragin' Cajun squadron would graduate in 1958.
(Source: NASA.gov)

Source: John Hornung, Private 1543868 (Williamsburg, Va.: Jack be Nimble Publishing, 2010).  Thanks to Mr. Hornung for permission to publish this excerpt.