In this final installment of my Archives Month series, I want to continue by highlighting another small repository. The Special Collections and Genealogy Departments at the Ouachita Parish Public Library in Monroe, Louisiana provided me with outstanding resources. Not only was their staff extraordinarily helpful and patient, but some of the sources I found there became essential in several of my chapters.  I’ll concentrate on just two of the sources in this post.

The first source – and the one that was my absolute priority when I visited there – were the minutes of the parish police jury. Similar to county court records in other states, these records documented laws and resolutions passed by the police jury. Most interesting to me were the early records from 1860 to 1861, when, among other actions, a Committee of Police and Vigilance was established to maintain order, keep an eye out for any suspicious characters, and detect and put down any slave insurrections.  Little else is known about this committee, as they are never mentioned again in the  minutes – but their initial organization shows how on-edge the citizens were, even before war broke out.

The second source I want to highlight is a supreme reference resource, composed of a wealth of extraordinary detail about various people, families and events in the parish. Entitled Encyclopedia of Founding Families of the Ouachita Valley of Louisiana, 1785-1850, E. Russ Williams Jr. has compiled into two enormous volumes (with a third apparently still unwritten) a vast quantity of information compiled from parish records, private manuscripts, genealogies, newspapers, and any other resource to come into his sweeping grasp. Though the title ends at 1850, he nevertheless provides topical sections relating to the Civil War and Reconstruction and biographical information about many of the prominent players in local politics before, during, and after the war. This work helped me gain a much richer sense of parish history, as well as understanding the nature, personalities and ambitions of the men that served on the Committee of Police and Vigilance, Confederate officers, and others. It was distressing, however, to learn that the second volume covered the letters “L” through “O” – and that the work as a whole was therefore incomplete. Volume 1 was published in 1996; the second in 1997. The librarians told me that as far as they knew, there was no volume three – and might never be. This was in 2006.  Still, even with the third volume still unwritten, the two that do exist are outstanding. If I were stranded on a desert island and needed just one work on Ouachita Parish history – this would definitely be it!

Beaucoup thanks to the staff and collections at Ouachita Parish Public Library (Special Collections). I couldn’t have done it without you!