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BLACK FAMILIES OF HICKORY FLAT--A SHORT HISTORY

By Harold Winfrey

The area of land between the towns of Oberlin and Kinder, Louisiana, because of the many hickory nut trees and its low flat topography, was known for a long time as Hickory Flat. It is still known by that name even today by some

During the 1700s and early 1800s this land was inhabited by Indians, the Coushattas. Descendants of these Indians are still in the Elton area. Elton is about ten miles east of Kinder.

The first settlers in the flats were the white Cole families. They came from South Carolina during the 1840s. They were farmer and woodcutters, and the land was available and fertile. These families settled mostly on the western edge of the flats around what are now the little communities of LeBlanc and Reeves. Along with the Coles, the Reeves came in and built many sawmills along the Calcasieu River.

Like a lot of the families of that day, the Coles and Reeves had slaves. One of the slaves that came in with the Coles was a man named Franklin. He was born in 1836 in South Carolina. His mother, Malinda (born in 1818), was also in this group. After he gained his freedom, Franklin kept the name of his former owners, and moved east into Hickory Flat along with his wife Elizabeth (Rideaux).

In 1856 Jacob Harmon was born. He was the son of a white overseer and a slave woman on the farm of Charlotte Cole, a widow. The Harmons that now live in the area between Oberlin and Kinder are his descendants.

In the late 1860s Andrew Botley came in from St. Landry Parish to find work in the lumber mills. He came with his wife Ellen and their five children. Five more children were born in Hickory Flat.

During the time after the Civil War, other black families began moving in from St. Landry Parish. Jefferson Morehead and some members of the Morrow family moved in the Elton area. Jefferson's wife, Nancy, was a Morrow. Nancy's brother, Lawrence, came also. He married one of Andrew Botley's daughters, Carolina. They had seven children. All of the black Morrows in the area descended from this couple.

Early in 1869, a lone rider came into Hickory Flat from the little community of Grand Prairie, over in St. Landry Parish. He was sent by his older brother to map out a way to Oklahoma. He was John Captain, Jr., a single man and an adventurer. Old stories tell that he carried a long bullwhip, and was an expert with it. What caused him to stop in Hickory Flat and to decide that it would be a suitable place to settle, I can only speculate. It may have been the good available farm land, coupled with the short distance the families would have to travel.

During the 1850s Hickory Flat was a part of northern Imperial Calcasieu Parish. The parish seat was in what is now Lake Charles. When the Captain men came to acquire land and build homes, they had to go to Lake Charles to record the deed. It is possible that this was where men like George Singleton and Steve Aleck heard about Hickory Flat and decided to more there from the Lake Charles area.

The Captain family, led by Julian Captain [ca1844-1914], wanted their children to have a good basic education. This could not be had for families of freed slaves in St. Landry Parish during the early years after emancipation. Late in 1869 or early in 1870, the Captains left Grand Prairie and moved into Hickory Flat. This group consisted of Julian, his wife, Modeste Jacques [ca1844-1921], their daughter Emma [ca1867-?] (Modeste was pregnant with their second child, Mary Louise [ca1870-?], at the time), three of Julian's brothers, John [ca1849-1914], Eli [ca1851-?] and August [ca1854-?], and three of his sisters, Sarah [ca1856-?], Clarise, [ca 1863-?] and Alice [ca1857-?] (Alice was a half sister). They had the same father but a different mother. Their father, John, Sr.[1817-?] also came with them. Their mother Marie Ann Julian [1810-?], did not accompany them. In the 1870 Census, Mary Ann Captain was listed in St. Landry Parish living with her brother, Marcellius and his wife, Pauline.

Being a devout Christian and one who wanted his children to have an education, Julian wasted little time in getting a church/school house built. He set aside two acres of his own land for the building. The building was built across the road from where the St. Paul Church now stands. He sent for and got a school teacher from Oklahoma. The teacher, Lawrence Shaw, taught both school and the Bible.

The little community continued growing well into the 1900s, and even today, descendants of the Captains, Botleys, Moreheads, and Coles can still be found in Hickory Flat.©