Family hit hard by tornado

We are as likely to see snow as tornadoes in February in south Louisiana and there were no weather warnings just over 150 years ago, so it must have been a complete surprise when, on February 26, 1863, a savage tornado carved a trail of death and destruction through a wide area in St. Landry Parish.

The Deshotels and Dejeans, already  established and respected families in St. Landry, were hit the hardest.  

According to a newspaper report, probably written by the editor of the Opelousas Patriot: "The tornado ... struck the Bayou Teche about three-quarters of a mile above its junction with the Courtableau ... [and] ran down the course of this stream about a quarter of a mile, rooting up and tearing off the largest trees on the banks, and ... prostrating and destroying everything in its course."

He said the tornado "was about two hundred yards in breadth, and in velocity it could be compared to nothing but the forked lightning."

The storm roared across the Raymond Deshotel plantation, "leveling fences, unroofing his cotton house and scattering the cotton in every direction." It destroyed the Deshotel cotton press and workers' cabins.

Rayond Deshotel and his wife Euphrosine Nezat, the widow of Adolph Dejean, had been married only two years and had an infant daughter when the storm hit their place. They apparently received only minor injuries. But the Dejeans would not be spared.

"I would to God that the record of evils could stop here.,"  the editor wrote. Instead, at the Honore Dejean plantation it "collected all its fury and power ... [and] everything that it touched was prostrated and destroyed." When it hit "the large and commodious dwelling house of Mr. Dejean," the building was "taken from its foundation and carried some distance from where it stood."

According to one account, Honore's house was turned over, landing on its roof. The Opelousas Courier recorded, "From under the ruins ... were extracted the dead bodies of his wife and son, Emile Dejean, a promising young man of twenty, with two or three others."

The Patriot said the storm killed Mrs. Dejean "(nee Euphrosine Close), Emile Dejean, a young man (age 21), Mathilda Dejean, a young lady (age 17), Mrs. Joseph Zeringue (nee Josephine Stelly, age 18), and child (Joseph, age 18 months), the last two mentioned being visitors at the house, and a Negro boy."

The "seriously if not fatally injured" included Mr. Dejean, "femur broken, and a severe injury of the spinal column and other parts of the body; Jean Baptist Dejean, both bones of the leg broken below the knee, not otherwise injured; Mrs. Tellsphore Zeringue (nee Genevieve Close), seriously injured (age 40)."

 Mrs. Zeringue died from her injuries on March 2.

Honore died four years later, in 1867, at the age of 74, leaving six children by his first wife, Carmelite Verrett (whom he married in 1814) , and 11 by his second wife, Euphrosine Close (married 1838).

 

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You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jhbradshaw@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.