MT.� AIRY TOWN HISTORY
The small community of Mt. Airy, upriver from Garyville, was named for the Mt. Airy Plantation, originally owned by Henry Fontenot, and later by Joseph LeBourgeois, who once attended college in Mt. Airy, N.C.����
�The town of Mt. Airy owes most of its existence to the upriver side, toward St. James Parish, than any links to downriver Garyville.���
Golden Grove Plantation's site, where Colonial Sugar is now, once was a Colapissa Indian village until the site was purchase by Pierre Delille Dupard in 1793.� After his death in 1776, the plantation was divided and regrouped by brothers Rezin Davis and James Harvey Shepherd, beginning in 1817.� Golden Grove finally went on the auction block in January 1880 and bought by August Servel. ���In 1886, Felecian Waguespack bought Sport Plantation on the site of the present Laroche Industries.� In 1895, Waguespack bought the Golden Grove Plantation house itself.� In 1902, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers predicted Golden Grove's destruction by Waguespack's weak levee.� This indeed, soon happened that same year but not before Waguespack had already removed most of its furnishings and placed them in storage.� In 1906, he occupied Mt. Airy Plantation House with the furnishings of Golden grove.� Mt. Airy House was destroyed in a 1944 fire.� Sport Plantation House burned in January 1946.�
�The Mt. Airy Post Office was established in 1884, with LeBourgeois the first postmaster.� Postal records call the area 'Mountairy' from 1895 to 1905, which may have left some to believe the town's name was just a version of 'Monterrey.'� It also served the small town of Wallace located directly across the river at Wallace.� From July 1910 until about 1916, postal service came out of St. James Parish.���
Angelina Plantation, was built in 1852 by Godfrey Boudousquie, and later named by James William Godberry, who was a later owner, after his wife, Angelina Roussel, Godberry and Roussel had married in 1848, but he died in 1870 and she died in 1885.���� Shortly after their deaths, Edward L. LeBourgeois acquired Angelina and William Bloomfield later acquired it in a sheriff's sale in 1890, growing rice and sugar cane.��
�Now, taking a side trip into colonial history, Jean Nicholas Troxclair (the first son of Johann George Droezier), was buried at St. James Catholic Church in 1764.� His son, Nicholas I, settled in St. James Parish with his wife, Catherine Matherne, in the Vacherie area.� In time, Noel Troxclair and his siblings (Armaise, Arnold, Noe, Joseph, Alonzo, Arthemise, Felicie, Benoit, and Nathalie) and their mother, Mirtille, decided to leave St. James Parish and moved to Pecan Grove Plantation near present day St. Rose in 1888.��� After a four-year stay, tragedy struck when 14-year-old Nathalie died from malaria.� In January 1892, the family moved to Live Oak Plantation in present day Waggaman, staying there 17 years.����
�Angelina Plantation hit its glory days with its purchase by the six Troxclair brothers, who formed the Angelina Plantation and Manufacturing Company with Arnold Troxclair the first company president.� The former owner bragged that the family could not possibly pay him off and expected to foreclose before long.���� With successful rice and cane crops and lots of hard work, the plantation was completely paid off in two years.��
Angelina Plantation at that time was a two-story structure with four large rooms downstairs and four upstairs, separated by a wide hallway.� The porches in front had wooden railings, while the rear porches had glass windows.� When the Troxclairs first moved to Angelina, the families of Noel, Arnold, Noe , and Joseph all lived in the big house, while the families of Alonzo, Benoit, their sister, Armaise, and her husband Dephares Waguespack, lived in smaller houses to the rear.���
The family soon opened a store on the plantation, which brother Joseph operated.� A shoulder of salted pork sold for 60 cents, a loaf of bread cost five cents and a number two galvanized tub cost 75 cents.����
�In 1909, the children attended school in Garyville, with the older children going to high school in Reserve.� In 1910, the school board built four new schools - Evergreen, Frisco, Berthelot, and Angelina.��
�Each school was a two-story structure, each with two classrooms down stairs and a large auditorium upstairs.� The Angelina School was taken down in the 1926 levee setback, with a second single story school replacing it , which remained open until 1937 when it consolidated with Garyville.� Among the teachers of the new Angelina School were Mr. Evans, Mr. Normand, W.S. Franzee, Mr. Beaux, L.F. Laurent, J.B. Aycock, L.J. Vercher, George Reine, Joseph Menie, M.C. baudry, B.L. Mestayer, Jeanne Judice, Haydee Laiche, and Elmire Vicknair.����
�Arnold Troxclair was born in 1862 and married his cousin, Amelie Marie Troxclair, in 1883, and raised eight children.��� The Troxclair family, on October 27, 1996 , convened for a family reunion and compiled a book of genealogy and family history.� Much information from this article comes from that volume.�� In one reminisce from the book, it's noted: 'Grandpa Arnold would wake up before dawn and make a pot of coffee in the fireplace. He then brought a cup of coffee to Grandma.� Then he went outside to begin his day's work.� Grandma would get up and go downstairs and out the front door so as not to disturb the others that were still asleep.� Her kitchen was located in the back away from the house.� She had to fix breakfast for Arnold, Edwin, and my Uncle Amedee.� She would cook grits or oatmeal, biscuits or fried biscuits, and caf� au lait.� A young black boy delivered the breakfast to the men in the field in a special cart made for carrying food and water.'���
�The article recalls Grandma's babysitting technique, by tying each child to her sewing machine by a long, single strand of thread and instructed� them not to break the thread as she sewed.����
Arnold Troxclair also was innovative, in that he owned the first tractor and the first automobile in town, and (his granddaughter Geraldine Berthelot recalled) people would line up along River Road to watch the family go to church at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Reserve, every Sunday.����
One of Arnold's children was Helene Alice Troxclair, who was born in 1893 and married Andre Champagne Jr. in 1915, living at Angelina Plantation.� Her husband worked for 20 years at Lyon Cypress Lumber Co. in Garyville as a lumber checker.�
�They had six children, including Henry Sr., Lawrence, Clarence, Irving, Geraldine, and Lloyd.� Lawrence died at age seven from blood poisoning.� Henry, Clarence and Irving served in World War II and Lloyd served in Korea.� Henry Sr., who died on September 29, 1999 'could have told you anything about Angelina and Mt. Airy,' recalled his son, Ronnie , a painter who still resides at the Angelina site, though the plantation itself was razed in 1930.� 'My dad used to play underneath the plantation,' he said.���
�Henry married Ethel Sutton from Reserve, the daughter of Oliver and Lolita Weber Sutton, and one of 13� children.� They had met at one of the many dances at Godchaux Sugar Refinery and her eyes still sparkle at the memory.��
�'I didn't want to move from Reserve, but my husband was hard headed!' she smiled, 'We had more things for kids to do then than they do now!'� When they first came to Angelina, they lived at the house at the front of the property with his mother.� Now, Henry's sister, Geraldine Berthelot, occupies the house and her husband, Dudley, Geraldine, who grew up in the neighborhood of the Mt. Airy Post Office moved to Angelina in 1945.� She had attended Angelina School for first grade the year before it was torn down.� With a levee setback, the house she lived in was rolled to its present site at Angelina, facing River Road.����
�'When I first moved here I didn't like the idea but I got used to it,'� she smiled.� Each day, she looks out at the massive live oak trees, which dominate the shady site.���
�Nowadays , the families of Angelina still maintain close ties to Mt. Airy community and each other.