Jim Bradshaw
It appears that the “Green House,” said to be one of the oldest houses west of the Atchafalaya Basin, has weathered another storm. Laura is the most recent of dozens of blows that have tested it since it was built about 1836.
According to documents filed with the National Register of Historic Places, the house was built on the Mermentau River near the Lowry community for Alexander Hebert and his wife, Clarisse Broussard Hebert. He was apparently a man of some means, owning about 6,000 acres around the home and grazing a substantial herd of cattle on prairies across southwest Louisiana.
Because of its remote location, the Heberts apparently made it through the Civil War largely unscathed. His herds of horses and cattle, and a substantial string of oxen, seem to have escaped the wholesale confiscation made by both Confederate and Federal troops during 1863 and 1864. But Alexander barely survived the war, dying on August 25, 1865.
His son, Desire, then took over the land and added another 2,000 acres to it before selling in 1891 to 43-year-old Captain Charles A. Lowry of Indiana.
Lowry probably heard about the place from J.B. Watkins, one of the biggest promoters of southwest Louisiana during that era. In one of his brochures, Watkins called it “one of the many beautiful and prolific plantations to be found in southwest Louisiana.”
Lowry, his wife Emma and their four children moved into a new home in an oak grove just above the Green House. Over the next five years, he converted some 7,000 acres of prairie into rice fields and was soon considered one of the largest rice growers in the state. He dug two irrigation canals, including one that could lift 1,500,000 gallons of water per hour from the Mermentau.
But several years of drought in the early 1900s played havoc with Lowry Plantation and rice farming in general. The Mermentau dropped so low that it could not provide the irrigation water needed and, close to the Gulf, salt water crept in to make the river unusable for crops.
Lowry was forced to sell to a company that eventually became the Lacassane Company, which has owned the property for some time. (The Jeff Davis Parish town is spelled Lacassine, the company is Lacassane.)
After that, the Green House was used for a while as a residence for Franciscan monks. In the 1920s its isolation made it a perfect drop-off point for bootleggers.
Meanwhile, Desire Hebert, who sold the land to Captain Lowry, was doing just fine, drought or no drought. He’d gone into banking.
Even before he sold it, the property was on the route cattlemen used to drive their herds to market. The cattlemen were often short of cash when they were heading to market, but had full pockets heading home after selling their herds.
According to family stories, Desire kept a footlocker full of money at the end of his bed and made loans to the cattlemen who repaid him with interest on the way home.
Local lore has it that he was cheated only once.
When one of the herders did not stop to repay his debt, Desire saddled up and headed for Texas. Details are unclear of just what happened next, except that the culprit was found one day shot “stone cold dead.”
After he sold the Lowry land, Desire moved to Lake Arthur, where he built a big house on the lakefront with a distinctive bay window on the end of the house.
That may have been the first drive-up bank window ever.
Without leaving his front room, Desire became one of the wealthiest men in southwest Louisiana.
It probably hurt nothing that it was well known that he always collected on his loans.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.