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ancock
History
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Saloon in Kiln, Mississippi in the tion. I Courtesy of Birdie Mae Ladner)
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t Favre Mill at the Gin in Pearl-
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THE FRENCH explorers in 1699, during their initial venture along the Coast, discovered a small tribe of Choctaws living in the Bay St. Louis area in a village they called “Chicapoula” (or bad grass). As one of the ship’s historians wrote: “On the twelfth of April, 1699, d’lberville set out to visit a bay about nine leagues from Ship Island, to which he gave the name of St. Louis. But finding the water very shallow there, he concluded to fix his settlement at Biloxi.” Thus it was that the shallow waters of the Bay of St. Louis kept it from becoming the first French capital of the Mississippi Valley.
Although d’lberville kept going toward a different destiny, his brother Bienville did return to the bay shortly after that first brief visit. Penicault, the journalist from the frigate Le Marin, wrote: “We shortly afterwards found a beautiful bay, about one league in width by four in circumference, which was named Bay St. Louis, because it was on the day of St. Louis (feast day) we arrived there. We hunted there three days and killed fifty deer.”
Following an account of a trip up the Mississippi River and return to the bay, the writer continued: “Next day we camped at the entrance of Bay St. Louis near a fountain of water that flows down from the hills, which Bienville named Belle Fontaine (Pine Hills). We hunted several days around this bay and filled our boats with venison, buffalo and other game.”
Apparently, Bienville and his brother felt the Indians at the bay were friendly, because a few families were placed there along with a sergeant and fifteen soldiers. Over twenty years later, the neglected little colony was joined by thirty people holding royal concessions sent over by King Louis XIV.
Most of present-day Hancock County was given by the French throne to a certain Madame de Mezieres around 1700, at the same time that a great portion of Jackson County was given to Madame de Chaumont, both members of the French Court. While Madame de Chaumont took advantage of her royal gift-, Madame de Mezieres did not pay much attention to her concession, and the area was allowed to drift. However, one of the more interesting immigrants into the county in the early days w'as Jean Cadet de La Fontaine, who made his way down the Mississippi River from Canada and finally settled a large section of land in Ansley, southwest of Lakeshore.
According to geneaological research conducted by Jerry Heitzman of Gulfport, La Fontaine was born in 1790, and he and a brother migrated into the Biloxi area around 1810. How'ever, fox some reason, Jean Cadet left his brother and made his way westward to settle his land claim in Ansley. Bayou Caddy (Cadet) carries his name to this day, although much of the original property, with the exception of the Bayou Cadet Cemetery and other sections retained by heirs, has been sold off. However, at Jean Cadet’s death in 1852, his property holdings w;ere huge and included the Ansley tracts from the “Claiborne Section” to near Clermont Harbor and other parcels.
Philip Saucier is regarded as a pioneer in Bay St. Louis and Hancock County, holding a land grant dating back to 1781. Later, Marshall and Joseph Necaise obtained the land. Other very early settlers included a Madame Chorlo, John Saucier, Amos Burnett, Joseph Chalone and
Simon Favre. Alsc around the lovely Not much wa liam Flood made J 1812. Flood left Simon Favre on t Favre a commissi< area between the presented Favre w Civil Code and t coming to Hana continuing to Pa commission. Floe St. Louis to Bile pleased to be un J. F. H. Cla County, describe standing”. He ss River since 177’ Bartram, and Cl and Choctaws w put it: “He che tomahawk then first arrest in tb
The Bayou Caddy C
(Courtesy Daily Herald I
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