A Tragedy at Campti

The Opelousas Courier, 12 Feb 1853

Again I'm bringing clippings from the Opelousas Courier relating to people from the Natchitoches area.  These two, which I came across while working on the post relating to deaths at Cloutierville published in the same journal, recount the story of a bizarre and inexplicable crime befalling a member of the Rachal family.  It's precisely the type of story that often gets lost or only hazily passed down among the simple aggregation of names and dates that often constitutes a genealogy.  The brief account in English is included here in the image to the right; below is my translation of the further details published the following week in the French edition of the same paper:

On the evening of 21 January [1853], a man named Samuel Summers disembarked from the steamboat John Strader at Rigolet de Bon Dieu and spent the night at the home of Mr. Cockfield.  The following day and night he proposed to spend at the home of Mr. Onézime Rachal.  In the afternoon he chatted with a person named Standish, and engaged him to go outside with him.  Standish agreed to his wishes and accompanied him outside; but they were just a few paces from the house when Summers drew from his pocket a knife and tried to cut his throat.  Standish, in resisting, received such a deep wound to his abdomen that his entrails were exposed.  A few moments after he ceased to live.

Drawn by the noise of the fight, Mr. and Mme. Rachal appeared outside; Summers, when he saw them, rushed toward them, knife raised, and inflicted several blows to the husband and wife.  The latter was mortally wounded.  The house-guests and servants, at the sight of the appalling tragedy, were seized with panic and fled.

As the news of what had happened spread throughout the neighborhood, many inhabitants armed themselves in haste and went in pursuit of Summers.  They found him after half an hour in a field belonging to Mme. Metoyer, two miles from the Rachal residence, but he had attempted suicide, for he had a large wound to the throat and three others to the abdomen.  He was taken to the prison and succumbed there during the night.  It is thought that Summers was a madman escaped from some hospital.  It is indeed impossible to conceive of such a crime on the part of a man capable of reason.

I searched the Natchitoches books I have copies of to try to determine who Onezime Rachal's parents were, without any luck.  I don't own a copy of every published Natchitoches record book that exists, though, so it is possible I may yet find him the next time I consult one of those in a library.  The 1850 census contains an entry for an "Onizieme Rachal" with a wife named Amelia.  The 1832 baptism of Marie Aimée Liegue Brevel, daughter of Jean Bte. Brevel and Marie Euphrosine Lestage, was sponsored by Onézime Rachal and Marie Aimée Lestage, "Mrs. Onézime".  Baptisms in the 1840s that Onézime sponsored are sometimes co-sponsored by either Emelie Lestage or Emelie Rachal.  Are Emelie and Aimée the same person, or is Emelie a second wife?  Is Amelia a census enumerator's anglicization of her name?  And is Emelie Lestage the Mme. Onézime Rachal who was killed at Campti?

Sources:
The Opelousas Courier, 12 February 1853 <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83026389/1853-02-12/ed-2/seq-2/>
Le Courrier des Opelousas, 19 February 1853 <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83026389/1853-02-19/ed-1/seq-1/>
Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009.
Riffel, Judy. Natchitoches Baptisms, 1817-1840: Abstracts from Register 6 of St. Francis Catholic Church, Natchitoches, Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Comite Des Archives De La Louisiane, 2007.
Riffel, Judy. Natchitoches Baptisms, 1841-1849: Abstracts from Register 9 of St. Francis Catholic Church, Natchitoches, Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Comité Des Archives De La Louisiane, 2010.