Louisiana as a Territory
Chapter II
W. C. C. Claiborne, First Territorial
Governor
1812, Admitted Into The Union
The United States having assumed
possession of this lately purchased territory. Congress, in
1804, in order to insure the people a stable government and as
soon as possible reconcile the different races to the new order
of affairs divided the country into two divisions; designating
the southern division as the Territory of Orleans and the
northern and western as the District of Orleans. Mr. Jefferson,
then President of the United States and during whose
administration and by whose advice the purchase was made,
appointed W. C. C. Claiborne, Governor of the Territory of
Orleans-which position he held until 1812, administering the
government so firmly and wisely that, in a great measure, the
conflicting interests and prejudices of the several
nationalities became reconciled and quieted. The result of this
wise administration of public affairs by Gov. Claiborne was to
so rapidly induce emigration to the territory that in 1812
admission into the union was claimed, and in that year, by
formal act of Congress, the territory of Orleans was admitted as
the State of Louisiana, and W. C. C. Claiborne was duly elected
her first governor.
It soon became apparent that the welfare
of the people at the distant post of Natchitoches, on Red River,
and of the scattering settlements that were gradually forming
further up the river and in the adjoining country, required
attention; consequently, the territorial legislature, by act in
1804, incorporated the Parish of Natchitoches, embracing all
that part of north Louisiana west of the parish of Ouachita to
the Sabine river, then the dividing line between the United
States and Mexico.
North Louisiana at this time was covered
with a dense mass of brushwood and interlacing vines the home of
the wolf, the bear, and the panther. Numbers of horses and
cattle, the progenitors of which had wandered from the inhabited
sections of the territory to this wilderness, ran free and wild.
Several tribes of Indians were living here and there, now and
then visited by tradesmen in search of peltry, and the country
by hunters in search of game. The few earlier settlers that
ventured into these wild regions had to fairly hew their way,
for only a few devious trails and paths were to be found. Roads,
there were none, save the read that connected Monroe and
Natchitoches. Subsequently the United States having established
a garrison several hundred miles above, on Red River, at Fort
Towson, opened what was known as the Military Road, connecting
this post with Natchitoches and Alexandria, for the purpose of
transporting supplies to that far-off post.
The settlements in those early days
being so wide apart, and hunting and traffic with the Indians
being the chief occupations, direct roads were impossible. But
gradually, settlement followed settlement, clearings increased,
and from these clearings and the camps of the hunters, fires
broke out sweeping over all the land, killing the tangled
undergrowth or brushwood, even destroying the foliage of lofty
trees. In the following years fires again raged, consuming all
the dead and fallen rubbish that then encumbered the ground.
Being thus relieved of its heavy undergrowth or brushwood, in
its place forest grass and switch cane sprang up, and in one
season a mantle of green covered the nakedness of the earth.
Then all north Louisiana appeared as an immense park,
diversified with vast openings and vistas most enchanting.
Game of every kind, peculiar to this region, increased rapidly,
particularly the deer and the turkey.
The buffalo came up from the wide
prairies of the Attakapas, and in a few years North Louisiana
became known as the Hunters' Paradise. The surveyor's chain was
stretched across the land, and both surveyor and hunter carried
back to the older settlements, and to the States east of the
Mississippi River, such glowing descriptions of the beauty of
the country, the fertility of its soil, its health, its
abundance of game, the streams abounding in fish, and in winter
every pond and lake crowded with all manner of water fowl, that
a regularly increasing tide of emigration set in to this
promised land. So rapid was this emigration that it became
necessary to divide this immense parish of Natchitoches, for the
seat of justice was too far to be reached by distant
settlements, consequently, in 1828, the Legislature passed the
following act incorporating the parish of Claiborne, naming it
for Louisiana's first governor.
No. 42. An Act To Create a new Parish in the Parish of
Nachitoches to be called Claiborne
Section I. Be it enacted by the Senate
and House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, in
General Assembly convened: That all that portion of territory
within the following boundaries, to wit: Beginning on the
eastern bank of Red River, about fifty miles northwest of the
town of Natchitoches, at the northern boundary line of Township
thirteen; thence east, in the direction of said line, to the
dividing line between Ranges three and four west; thence along
said line, which shall form the western boundary of the parish
of Ouachita, north to the Arkansas Territory, thence west to the
main branch of Red River, and descending the same to the
beginning, be and the same is erected into a new parish, to be
called the parish of Claiborne.
Oct. La Branche, Speaker of the House of
Representatives
Ad. Beauvis, President of the Senate, Approved March 13, 1828
H. Johnson, Governor of the State of Louisiana
Claiborne Parish History
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