C’est Vrai: Les batailleurs du Marais Bouleur

Marais Bouleur, the area northeast of Rayne, had a rough reputation early on. People who lived there didn’t back away from anything, least of all each other. That’s why they got to be called les batailleurs du Marais Bouleur, “the fighters of Marais Bouleur.”

The late Donald Hebert, who’s volumes of church records have been the inspiration and salvation for many a southwest Louisiana genealogist, wrote a little book, “L’eglise du Marais Bouleur,” while he was pastor rhere.

He heard an old a story about how a horse named Bouleur liked to stay in a swampy area, the marais, where he could roll in the mud According to the story, that’s how the place became Bouleur’s Marais and then Marais Bouleur. Hebert said he heard the same story from several people and it was the only consistent version of how the place got its name. Another version is that it comes from settlement in a swampy place by a German named Buhler, whose name was corrupted by the French to Bouleur

What’s clearer is how Marais Bouleur got its reputation. Hebert wrote that in the bad old days, “part of the young man’s preparation for going out to a dance on Saturday night was the usual sharpening of the knives.”

Barry Jean Ancelet seconds that notion in his book, “Cajun Country,” in which he says, “an abundance of ruffians in … Marais Bouleur made it impossible to keep a dance hall open for any length of time.”

Ti-Homer Meche was said to be one of the batailleurs that helped establish the rowdy reputation. People who knew him said he was ordinarily sociable and pleasant, but sometimes he would get aggravated.

You didn’t want to be around when that happened, according to Hebert’s account. Ti-Homer tended to pull out his pistol when he got aggravated, and he knew what to do with it.

“He could hit the head of a large kitchen match at some distance, and ignite the match,” Hebert wrote. “He would place pumpkin seeds in the bark of a tree and shoot them off. … When he was in one of his playful moods … he would … shoot the chickens’ legs off. This would aggravate his wife, but … all [she] could do was kill the chicken and cook a gumbo.”

Ti-Homer was aggravated on September 2, 1904, when he killed William Bruner and Joseph Trahan at Coulee Croche.

According to the story in the Crowley Signal, “Meche who was under the influence of liquor, was out for trouble and seemed to be particularly anxious to pick a quarrel with Mr. Higginbotham,” proprietor of the store at Coulee Croche. Bruner and Trahan were at the store and became his victims when Higginbotham didn’t come out of the store.

According to the account, “After the shooting Meche rode to his home nearby and commenced [shooting] at the fowls in the barnyard.”

He was sent to the state penitentiary at Angola and spent several years there—off and on. The stories vary on whether he escaped four or six times.

He finally got paroled but still couldn’t stay out of trouble. He spent some more time in jail for lesser crimes, then went to California for a while, visiting a jail or two there.

The last eight years of his life were spent in Big Charity hospital in New Orleans, where he died of tuberculosis.

Things are a lot more civilized at Marais Bouleur today, but it still doesn’t hurt to smile and be extra polite when you’re passing through.

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