The CHEVIS BOYS and the MURDER at COULEE CROCHE! Using Newspapers and Genealogy to Investigate a Family Story

PART ONE: MURDER

The weekly editions of the St. Landry Clarion and Opelousas Courier were preparing to go to press when the news broke of the up and coming physician’s impending death.  The publishers really didn’t have a whole lot of time or information, which is why the story appeared on page three, some of the details were inaccurate, and the victim already had died by the time people picked up their copies of the Saturday news.  Crime was rampant enough for people to be weary of more bad news, and the community expected things like this to happen.   What we first discover about the events of Thursday, September 19, 1895, is that Dr. D.T. Courtney was murdered, “his skull having been crushed with a club” at the hands of “a negro named Chevis”, a “scamp” who was about to be lynched as a result.¹ By the time the next edition of the Clarion was printed, more facts about the crime had become available.²  Here they are, stripped of speculation, passions, and embellishment:

Fact 1

Dr. Duchesne T. Courtney was attacked between 8 and 9 p.m. on Thursday, September 19, 1895, in the Coulee Croche community in Louisiana, about 12 miles south of Opelousas, 6 miles southwest of Grand Coteau, and 5 miles west of Carencro.³

Fact 2

Three Chevis brothers were initially accused of clubbing Dr. Courtney’s skull with a piece of wood.  However, only two – William and Jean Baptiste – were arrested and jailed in Opelousas immediately.  Deputy Sheriff Gay was the first officer on the scene, but he quickly delivered his charges to Constable James Darby.

Fact 3

On Friday morning, around 10:45, Dr. Courtney died.  A rumor began milling that community members were planning to storm the jail cell and lynch the brothers.  Sheriff T.S. Fontenot arranged for the brothers to be transported by night train to Alexandria in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.⁴

Fact 4

A variety of witnesses were questioned – the ladies who heard the Chevis family arguing; Alex Guilbeau and Baptiste Cheaux, the friends who were socializing with Dr. Courtney on the night of the killing; Leontine Chevis and the other Chevis family members; a black neighbor named Louis Jackson; and the accused brothers.

So, who exactly were the Chevis brothers? The answer to this question lies where the story first began for me – in the home of my Aunt Olivia.

AUNT OLIVIA

I didn’t know her very well then, but she is a familiar image in my childhood memories of my life in Louisiana.  I saw her sometimes at weddings but mostly at wakes and funerals, where my grandmother would lead me down the front row where the grieving family of the deceased waited to be comforted by those of us who knew them well or introduced to community and extended family members who cared to cry with or smile at them.  To the best of my knowledge, the lady I kept seeing was my grandfather’s paternal aunt, Aunt Olivia.

Unless you are from southwest Louisiana, you wouldn’t know that we pronounced her name “Ain’t Oh-lee-vee-uh” – that’s the Frenchy way to say it.  Aunt Olivia had skin that was the color of honey, the kind that has the comb in it still and flecks of something that reminded me of the tiny moles on her face.   One of my grandfather’s sisters looked a lot like her – wide, circular eyes, and jaunty smile.  Aunt Olivia’s hair was unusually black for her age, bouncy and flowing past her shoulders. With me, she was soft-spoken, and her voice sounded as sweet as her skin seemed to have been.

As a young adult, I became more curious about Aunt Olivia, how we were connected, and what she remembered about the ancestors whose names I had heard but about whom I knew nothing.  When I was in my twenties, I began to delve more into the realm of genealogy, and I interviewed my grandparents about who and where they came from.  I learned that my grandfather’s father was Provost Taylor and that Aunt Olivia was his sister.  Aunt Olivia actually was only three years younger than my grandfather, Junius Taylor.  She was born in 1928 to James “Jimmy” Taylor and Leontine Chevis.⁵  Leontine was in her forties at the time of Aunt Olivia’s birth and was ashamed to be having babies in what she thought was her old age.  For a long time, she hid her embarrassment by leading people to believe that her oldest daughter Edna had birthed Aunt Olivia. 

I gathered those tidbits of information on one of my several visits with Aunt Olivia.  Whenever my grandmother and I ambled up her long driveway, she kindly welcomed us, literally with open arms. I dropped in on her at least once during one of her frequent stays in Houston, and she seemed pleased to share what she remembered.  Aunt Olivia explained to me why her dad was called Jimmy Marks and shared the main two things she remembered about her dad’s mom – she was overweight and light-skinned. One story she recounted that both intrigued and puzzled me was about her mom, Leontine, and her brothers. As Aunt Olivia recalled hearing, the two men were in a field working when they spied an overseer on a horse being insulting and aggressive toward their mother.  They retaliated, and they were punished for it.  One brother was hanged, and the other was jailed.⁶  Nameless uncles with abbreviated lives, the Chevis brothers were like dandelions in the wind, never to be seen where they first took root…carried, buried, and waiting to live once more.

THE CHEVIS BOYS

John Tom Chevis and Leontine, known as Gam and Jane in their small community, loved each other deeply, and their twelve children were emblems of that.  Leontine was the youngest of the girls, and her sisters Elphidas, Francoise, Constance, and Ernestine, were all five to seventeen years older than she.  There were six sons, including the youngest, Louis Alexandre; Francois; Leonard; William; Felix; Aristide; and Jean Baptiste, the oldest.⁷  The family was devoutly Catholic; the parents’ marriage was consecrated at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Grand Coteau on December 26, 1867, and their children were baptized there and at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in nearby Church Point .⁸  The Louisiana parishes were meticulous about recording even the minute details of the lives of its sheep – birthdates, godparents’ names, places of origin, and circumstances pertinent to the sacrament in question.  The fact that there were no records of marriages, births, or baptisms that featured Jean Baptiste’s and William’s names as husband or father gave the ominous signal that these were the Chevis brothers whose names Aunt Olivia never knew but whose eternally consequential act was emblazoned in her memory.⁹  These were the so-called “Chevis boys” whose nefarious deed was featured in the fiery cables being prepared for the Saturday morning editions of southern Louisiana’s prominent newspapers. 

You can read about how to use newspapers in your genealogy research here and visit Genealogy Griot next week to read Part Two of this riveting story.

Footnotes

1. “Murder!” St. Landry Clarion (Opelousas, Louisiana), 21 September 1895; digital image, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/63759640/); citing original, p. 3, col. 3. 
2. “The Murder of Dr. D.T. Courtney by Negroes,” St. Landry Clarion (Opelousas, Louisiana), 28 September 1895; digital image, Newspapers.com(https://www.newspapers.com/image/63759640/); citing original, p. 3, cols. 2-3.
3. Coulee Croche means “crooked stream” and is located in the Bristol and Cankton areas served by St. John Berchman’s Catholic Church.  The stream is about .16 km or about 1/10 of a mile. See https://mapcarta.com/20987502.
4. Bobby J. Guidroz, “Did You Know? St. Landry Has Had over 30 Sheriffs in Its Existence,” Daily World (https://www.dailyworld.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/05/22/did-you-know-st-landry-has-had-over-30-sheriffs-its-existence/84662126/), 22 May 2016 .
5. “The Murder of Dr. D.T. Courtney by Negroes,” St. Landry Clarion (Opelousas, Louisiana), 28 September 1895; digital image, Newspapers.com(https://www.newspapers.com/image/63759640/); citing original, p. 3, cols. 2-3.  Also, 1940 U.S. Census, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Police Jury Ward 2, enumeration district 49-16, p. 13A, family 200, Junior Taylor in the household of Prevoe Taylor (mis-transcribed as George Taylor); digital image, “1940 United States Federal Census,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/121993283:2442); citing NARA microfilm publication T627.
6. Olivia (Taylor) Norman (1928-2009), interviews by author, dates unknown, Opelousas, Louisiana; notes in author’s files, Dallas, Texas, 2023. 
7. Louisiana death certificate no. 7633 (22 June 1949), Felix Chevis. Also, “The Murder of Dr. D.T. Courtney by Negroes,” St. Landry Clarion (Opelousas, Louisiana), 28 September 1895; digital image, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/63759640/); citing original, p. 3, cols. 2-3.  Also, 1880 U.S. Census, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Police Jury Ward 2, enumeration district 2, p. 184B, family 1, John W. Chevis household; digital image, “1880 United States Federal Census,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/6375832:6742); citing NARA microfilm publication T9, record group 29, roll 469. Also, 1900 U.S. Census, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Police Jury Ward 2, enumeration district 54, p. 2, family 28, Leontine Chevis (mis-transcribed as Leontine Cheris) household; digital image, “United States Census, 1900,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/6027909:7602); citing NARA microfilm publication T623.
8. Saint Landry Parish, Louisiana, marriage records, no. 3766; Clerk of Court, Opelousas, Louisiana, 26 December 1867, entry for John Tom Chevis (Part of the record that was completed by the priest refers to him “John William Davis”) and Leontine Gradenigo. Also,  Rev. Donald J. Hebert, Southwest Louisiana Records, 1750-1900, SWLR CD #101 (Rayne, Louisiana: LA Hebert Publications, 1975-2001, reprints by Claitor’s Publishing); Baptism, Leontine Chevis, 13 October 1888, citing Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Church Point, Louisiana.  Also, Rev. Donald J. Hebert, Southwest Louisiana Records, 1750-1900, SWLR CD #101 (Rayne, Louisiana: LA Hebert Publications, 1975-2001, reprints by Claitor’s Publishing); Baptism, Louis Alexandre Chevis, 27 June 1890, citing Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Church Point, Louisiana.  
9. Negative search results for Chevis, Cheves, Chavers, Chevers:  Rev. Donald J. Hebert, Southwest Louisiana Records, 1750-1900, SWLR CD #101 (Rayne: LA Hebert Publications, 1975-2001; reprints by Claitor’s Publishing).