Claitor’s continues to publish quality references

• By DAMON VEACH
• special to magazine
• Published: Jan 4, 2009 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Claitor’s Publishing Division has done it again. With the release of Antoine Blanc, 1792-1860, Fourth Bishop and First Archbishop of New Orleans, they seem to have become a dominant force in the preservation of genealogical, historical and law materials relating to Louisiana. This is William L. Greene’s excellent contribution to this continuing effort and of recording materials about prominent figures in the state’s history.

Antoine Blanc was a native of Sury-le-Comtal, France, and born in 1792, right at the end of the French Revolution. He was ordained a priest in 1817 and answered the appeal of the newly ordained bishop of New Orleans, William DuBourg, the second bishop of the See, who was rounding up recruits in Europe for his diocese.

Blanc came to America and was first sent to Pointe Coupee and Baton Rouge where he also covered the missions of Feliciana. He was appointed Vicar General and Administrator of New Orleans, and he became the fourth bishop of New Orleans in 1835. In 1850, New Orleans became an archdiocese, and Antoine Blanc became the first Archbishop of the See.

He served as Bishop and Archbishop just short of 25 years. From 1835 until his death in 1860, the number of chapels and churches in Louisiana increased from 26 to 73, including 47 new parishes in New Orleans, along the Mississippi and bayous, and in towns. As the population and number of Catholics increased, especially in south and west Louisiana, the need for parishes increased.

A new era had begun. He established the first seminary in Louisiana, at Plattenville, from which many priests were ordained, among them was Father Menard, who was the outstanding missionary of the Lafourche area, and many others. Two colleges were established, eight academies for young women, nine free schools, 13 orphanages, two hospitals, and two homes for the elderly.
Parish organizations grew, two diocesan synods and two provincial councils were held. The power of the trustee system at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans was all but eliminated, and many parishes’ regulations were strictly enforced. All these came about because of the new era that Antoine Blanc promoted at the beginning of his episcopacy.

Church historian Roger Baudier in the Catholic Church in Louisiana credits this humble carpenter’s son in a single sentence: “Unquestionably, Archbishop Blanc was the chosen instrument of Divine Providence for the revivification of the Church in Louisiana.”

This book contains 170 pages, covering the early family life, seminary learning, his missionary life, and a chronology, illustrations, an extensive bibliography, and index. It is available by mail for $40, postage and handling included. Order from Claitor’s Publishing Division, 3165 S. Acadian Thruway, P.O. Box 261333, Baton Rouge, LA 70826-1333, or pick up a copy at their location at the corner of Acadian Thruway and Perkins Road. Their Web site is http://www.claitors.com.

Cable’s census
A recently published book from LSU Press may also be of interest to researchers. The New Orleans of George Washington Cable, the 1887 Census Office Report is edited with an introduction by Lawrence N. Powell. A pioneering local-color writer about Creole New Orleans and a public advocate for black equality in his native South during and after Reconstruction, Cable (1844-1925) depicted in his writing the clash between American newcomers and a quaint but proud French-speaking population in post-Louisiana Purchase New Orleans.

His work received widespread critical acclaim and was serialized in the country’s best highbrow magazines. In 1880, Cable was commissioned to write a historical sketch of pre-Civil War New Orleans for a special section of the Tenth U.S. Census. This is what Powell presents in this soft-cover book from LSU Press.

The price is $23.95 by mail or you can request it at any of the larger bookstores where the base price is $18.95 plus tax. It contains 224 pages and is indexed for easy perusal. The temporary address is LSU Press, Building 3005, 8000 GSRI Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70820. Their Web site is http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress.

Smith researcher
Thomas Rutland Smith III (trsmith.3@netzero.net) is researching his family ties and welcomes any additional information that other researchers might have on his kin. On his maternal side, Leger was somewhat easy since she was of Acadian descent and also a Catholic. The records are plentiful, and thanks to the Spanish missionaries and their record keeping, the trail never went dead.

Smith started his project to find out if he, like so many Louisianians, was a descendant of the Acadians who were driven out of Nova Scotia. He proved that he was one of the descendants and is pleased with this part of his heritage. He made contact with someone online who turned out to be a cousin, many times removed, and this contact helped him advance his research not only to Nova Scotia but back to France as well. He missed the Leger/Trahan “Ensemble Encore” in Crowley in 1999, and this was an oversight. He wished he had known about it in advance. As he found out later, it took place right across the street from his grandmother’s house on Third Street.

His efforts to trace the Smith side of the family have come to a screeching halt. He has gotten as far back as his great-grandfather, one Randolph Gillings Smith. He was born in Savannah, Ga., in 1821, at the winter home of his parents, who were from New York. At least, that is the information he has found so far, but that’s where it ends. His father was in the shipping business, with a line of ships going from New York to Savannah, but that is where the trail goes cold. Smith has contacted everyone he can think of from Savannah to New York, so far to no avail. He knows that Randolph Smith was orphaned at an early age and was taken to New Orleans by a “guardian,” where he was raised and schooled, and from there, he attended Centenary College when it was in Jackson, where he later became a lawyer. He moved to Catahoula Parish, where he practiced law, became a district judge, had a cotton plantation, married Mary Jane Rutland from Caldwell Parish, had four children, and after Mary Jane died, he married her sister Lucetta. Randolph died in 1902.