North Acadia Cemetery is a tour through history
EUNICE - Once perhaps framed by long-gone oaks, the last earthly resting place of early members of a number of area families now lies between a cell phone tower and a building housing machinery that would dazzle the early homesteaders whose names are among the headstones.
The Carron Cemetery located a few miles east of Eunice just inside the Acadia Parish line has been in use for at least 150 years.
The oldest grave visible is that of a man who died in 1860, though many of the oldest graves are now subterranean due to a century and a half of recurring flooding.
The roll call there reminds a visitor of Thomas Grey’s lines:
“For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
“Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
“No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
“Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,
“Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
“Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
“How jocund did they drive their team afield!
“How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!”
Carron, like similar small family cemeteries scattered across Acadiana, has suffered from a lack of family participation in its perpetual maintenance.
For many years, the Hubert Martel family tended to the cemetery.
Hubert niece, Diane Martel Bihm has been the primary coordinator/caretaker of the cemetery for nearly 20 years.
The Carron Cemetery Family Alliance formed in April.
Its goals include creating an interested in genealogical research.
Margrett McGee Fels, formerly of Eunice and now of Baton Rouge, noted that ancestors of more than three dozen area families are buried in Carron. (See accompanying list)
“The CCFA has been blessed to have the assistance of the Pointe de l’Eglise, Acadia Genealogical and Historical Society, Inc. in everything from updating the cemetery roster, to mapping the graves and creating a Carron Cemetery book. With the assistance of their volunteer, Thelma Fruge Richard, a Eunice native, the CCFA has been able to document the history of Carron Cemetery through a hands-on approach,” Fels said.
“Carron is still being used as a family cemetery. We are hoping to increase public awareness of its existence as well as encourage family participation in its maintenance,” she said.
Fels’ interest in the cemetery evolved from her father Percy McGee’s search for the grave site of his ancestor John Hughes McGee (1807-1860). The search led to Carron Cemetery.
The 2.4-acre cemetery began as part of a Spanish Land grant to Frederic Miller, a German immigrant descendent who lived in the area in the mid-to-late 1770’s.
Formerly part of St. Landry Parish, it became part of Acadia in 1887.
Fourteen years later, Martin Carron, owner of a 350-acre plantation and married to Elizabeth Chachere, donated an acre to Dr. T.C. Chachere to adjoin the existing 1.4-acre Moore graveyard, perhaps named for George Thomas Moore, who was married to Marie Anaise Chachere.
Over the years the cemetery came to be known as Carron Cemetery, Fels notes, named after Martin, a Confederate veteran of the War Between the States.
He is one of four CSA vets buried in the cemetery.
A June 19 ceremony will commemorate their war service. It will be held at 10:30 a.m. at Carron.
The other soldiers are George Richard, Rosamond LeJuene and Victor J.F. Sittig.
That memorial is chaired by Lafayette author John Francois, a descendent of Victor Sittig.
He is coordinating it through the Sons of Confeeaderate Veterans
Fels said the cemetery alliance has a number of goals, including “historical preservation, re-establishing the family bonds that connect us all, as well as providing for on-going cemetery landscape maintenance.”
The CCFA is a volunteer organization made up of descendants of family members buried at Carron.
Donations for cemetery upkeep may be made to: Carron Cemetery Fund, St. Landry Bank & Trust Co., 101 North Second Street, Eunice, LA. 70535.
Membership, Fels said, is open to anyone with an interest in cemetery preservation, with family ties to those buried at Carron, or wanting to donate their time and resources to its efforts.
The alliance’s next organizational meeting is planned for mid-July. Meanwhile, Fels will be at the SCV memorial with alliance information for interested parties.
She can also be contacted at mfels12@cox.net.
Surnames of persons buried in Carron Cemetery:
Aguillard, Amy, Arabie, Bergeron, Brown. Carron, Chachere, Corken, Courville, Duval, East, Fontenot, Francois, Jarrot, Johnson, Lavergne, LeBouef, Ledoux, LeJeune, Martel, Martinez, McGee, Miller, Moore, Picard, Pierrottie, Richard, Rider, Rougeou, Savoy, Sittig, Thibodeaux, and Young.