NAP Assistants and Volunteers Clear Brush at an Abandoned Graveyard Near the Bayou Teche

New Acadia Project student assistants and volunteers spent the day clearing brush at an abandoned family graveyard near Bayou Teche in preparation for remote sensing. At least four or five burials are present in the graveyard, as indicated by two large above-ground vaults, a headstone and footstone (or small headstone), and a small slab. Five or more large oaks surround this small family cemetery on the Teche ridge.

Two (unmarked?) tombs  in a wooded lot as they appeared in

October of 2013.

The graveyard was overgrown when previously visited in
October of 2013 and the Summer of 2014.

The same tombs and small slab (on the left) on December 18, 2014,
after the clearing of brush, view to the northwest.

Small unmarked slab in the foreground and two tombs in
the background (view to the northeast).

Once the grounds were cleared, the students laid out a
12-by-18 meter grid for remote sensing (view to the east).

The graveyard includes two chipped and broken headstones, or perhaps
one broken headstone (right) and a small accompanying footstone (left)
that may have been rearranged.

The headstone bears the inscription:
"JULES BERARD
Ne Avril 12, 1856
Decede Novembre 6, 1888"

Another small stone inscribed with the initials "J.B." was initially
thought to be the headstone for a child's grave, but may be a
footstone for the burial of Jules Berard. Footstones bearing the
 initials of the deceased were common during the 19th century.
If this is a footstone for the burial of Jules Berard, it may have
been dislodged and re-positioned.

The graveyard after brush was cleared and a grid was established for
remote sensing (view to the southwest).

Are there additional, unmarked burials in this abandoned graveyard near the Bayou Teche?

New Acadia Project Winter 2014 - 2015 Field Expedition Begins

The New Acadia Project has begun fieldwork for the winter. We will be remote sensing at an abandoned historic cemetery near Bayou Teche. Updates to follow.

Headstone in an abandoned cemetery near Bayou Teche in Iberia Parish.

New Acadia Project

Receives $52,000 Grant

The Advertiser, by Megan Wyatt (October 17, 2014)
The New Acadia Project, or Projet Nouvelle-Acadie, received a $52,000 grant this week from the Coypu Foundation, founded by the estate of the late John S. McIlhenny.

http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/2014/10/17/new-acadia-project-receives-grant/17459451/

The Daily Iberian, June 30, 2014

Anthropology group looking for Cajun settlers' gravesite

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Donald J. Arceneaux's recent article on New Acadia

THE INITIAL ACADIAN SETTLEMENT: A New Look at the Initial Acadian Settlement Location in the Attakapas

by Donald J. Arceneaux

A fascinating article on the 1765 settlement of New Acadia has just been published online in the Attakapas Gazette by the The Attakapas Historical Association.

 

Among the information presented by Arceneaux is the following excerpt from a letter written in April of 1766 by Jean-Baptiste Semer, who arrived in New Acadia in 1765 with Joseph Beausoleil Broussard.

 I arrived here [New Orleans] in the month of February 1765 with 202 Acadian persons…Beausoleil led [the group]…seven or eight men [as scouts] have [had] been sent to look over the land and locations in order to find a suitable site, and we were told that at Attakapas there were magnificent grasslands with the finest soil in the world…. We [the Beausoleil group] went to Attakapas with guns, powder, and shot, but as it was already the month of May, the heat being so intense, we started to work in too harsh conditions.  There were six plows that worked; we had to break in the oxen [and] travel fifteen leagues [to the Opelousas post area] to get horses.  Finally, we had the finest harvest, and everybody contracted fevers at the same time and nobody being in a state to help anyone else, thirty-three or thirty-four died, including the children. 

 

Jean-François Mouhot, ed., and Bey Grieve, trans., “Letter by Jean-Baptiste Semer, an Acadian in New Orleans, to his Father in Le Havre, April 20, 1766,” Louisiana History XLVIII (2007), 216-22.

The New Acadia Project Searches for Acadiana's Origins

The New Acadia Project Searches for Acadiana's Origins

http://www.katc.com/news/the-new-acadia-project-searches-for-acadiana-s-origins/

Hunt for Acadian ancestors resumes near Loreauville

Hunt for Acadian ancestors resumes near Loreauville

http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/acadiana/2014/06/11/hunt-acadian-ancestors-resumes-near-loreauville/10353297/