Terrebonne Parish Collection
Terrebonne Parish
A brief history and library collections
Happy 200 years to Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana! Two hundred years ago on March 22, 1822, Terrebonne Parish was created from the southern part of the Lafourche interior. Because of its rich soil from plentiful waterways, French settlers named this land terre bonne, meaning “good earth.” Comprised of a variety of wildlife, marine life, and other natural resources, the new parish became home to a diverse population seeking new opportunities and refuge. Many of these people were trappers, farmers, hunters, and fishermen ready to live off the land in seclusion from corrupt governing bodies. Although some came willingly and others unfortunately forced, the unique cultures of Native Americans, Africans, Frenchmen, Acadians and other groups of people are what made and continue to make Terrebonne Parish unlike any other place in the world.
If you’re interested in researching more about Terrebonne Parish, the library invites you to view our Louisiana and Genealogy collections that focus on Terrebonne Parish. Links to these physical collections are below. For an online visual history, visit the Louisiana Digital Library.
100 years: A Pictorial History of Terrebonne High School (Terrebonne High School, 2008)
A Leisure Walk Down Main Street, Houma, Louisiana: 60 odd years ago (Berger, 1979)
A Look Back in Time (Matherne, 2017)
A Sociological Study of French-Speaking People in Chauvin (Pierron, 1942)
Centennial Celebration, Houma Louisiana, May 10-13th (1934)
Faith, families & friends: 150 Years of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish and Montegut Louisiana (Browning, 2016)
Four Decades of Public Education in Terrebonne Parish (Bourgeouis, 1938)
Happy 150th Birthday, Houma (Houma Daily Courier, 1985)
History of Terrebonne Parish to 1861 (Watkins, 1939)
Houma (Cobb, 2004)
I Remember Donner (Plessala, 1999)
Island in a Storm (Sallenger, 2009)
Kramer: Its History and Its People (Larousse, 2015)
Ladies of Lorton (Hughes, 2011)
Land of the Houmas (Guidry)
Last Island (Sothern, 1980)
Last Days of Last Island: The Hurricane of 1856, Louisiana’s First Great Storm (Dixon, 2009)
Le Terrebonne: A History of Montegut (Guidry, 1970)
Louisiana Plantation Homes: Colonial and Antebellum (Overdyke, 1965)
Houma Courier: Magazine Edition (1967)
Schriever Memories: People, Places & Stories (Cope, 2015)
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church: Loss of a Historical Landmark (Abou-Issa, 2010)
Statistical Profile of Terrebonne Parish: 1973 (Public Affairs Council, 1973)
Terrebonne Farms, Louisiana: An Anthropogeographic Study of a New Deal Resettlement (Adam, 2000)
Terrebonne General Medical Center: 50 Years of Health Care Excellence (2005)
Terrebonne Magazine Vol.1-7 (1980-1986)
Terrebonne Parish Then and Now: A Pictorial History Book (The Courier, 1997)
The Houma People of Louisiana: A Story of Indian Survival (Bowman, 1982)
The Indians of Dulac (Roy, 1959)
The Story of Terrebonne 1822-1972 (Houma-Terrebonne Sesquicentennial Commission, 1972)
The Southern Manufacturer, Devoted to the General Development of the Southern States (Glass, 1901)
A Journey of Faith: A History of St. Eloi Church, Theriot, La. (Champagne, 1983)
A Leisure Walk Down Main Street, Houma, Louisiana: 60 odd years ago (Berger, 1979)
Centennial Celebration Houma, LA. 1934 (1934)
Chauvin: A Line Village (1999)
Eyes of an Eagle: Jean Pierre Cenac, Patriarch: An Illustrated History of Early Houma-Terrebonne (Cenac, 2011)
Faith, families & friends: 150 Years of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish and Montegut Louisiana (Browning, 2016)
Hard Scrabble to Hallelujah: Legacies of Terrebonne Parish, Louisana, Volume 1 (Cenac, 2016)
Houma (Cobb, 2004)
Kramer: Its History and Its People (Larousse, 2015)
Ladies of Lorton (Hughes, 2011)
Last Island (Sothern, 1980)
Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary: 25th Jubilee, 1948-1973 (1973)
Schriever Memories: People, Places & Stories (Cope, 2015)
St. Francis De Sales Church, 1847-1972 (1972)
St. Matthews’s Episcopal Church 1855-2005 (2006)
Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana: Our Bayou Parish (Usie, 2011)
The Bridge (Sims, 2015)
The Indians of Dulac (Roy, 1959)
The History of St. Ann Catholic Church Bourg, Louisiana: From the Beginning to 2008 (Usie, 2008)
The Mission Story of the Dulac Community Center (2013)
The Story of St. Francis De Sales Church, 1847-1947 (Pooley, 1947)
Xplorin’ Terrebonne (Guidry, 1980)
The Special Collection is primarily books of local significance kept in a secure location due to value. You can request a special collection title at the Reference desk on the second floor if there is not a duplicate of it in the main collection. You can also call ahead at 985-876-5861, option 2 if you know you will need a special collection book.
Old Families of Louisiana (Arthur & de Kernion, 1931)
The Memorial Volume of Jefferson Davis (Jones, 1889)
Mysterious Marie Laveau: Voodoo Queen (Martinez, 1956)
The Career of a Tinpot Napoleon: a Political Biography of Huey P Long (Fineran, 1932)
Every Man a King (Long, 1933)
Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Samuel D, McEnery (Montegut)
Revelations Concerning Napoleon’s Escape from St. Helena (Ebeyer)
Rachel of Old Louisiana (Craven, 1975)
Growing up in Louisiana (Russel, 1984)
Louisiana’s Haunted Plantations (Pascoe, 2004)
The History and Haunting of the Myrtles Plantation (Pittman, 2012)
Leaves from the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy (Carroll, 1888)
Catholic Church in Louisiana (Baudier, 1939)
The Negro Question (Cable, 1939)
Louisiana Conservation Review (Autumn 1937, Winter 1937-1938) (Department of Conservation, 1938)
Louisiana Conservation Review (Autumn 1938, Winter 1938-1939) (Department of Conservation, 1938)
Louisiana Conservation Review (Spring 1938, Summer 1938) (Department of Conservation, 1938)
Louisiana Conservation Review (Spring 1939, Summer 1939) (Department of Conservation, 1939)
Louisiana Conservation Review (Autumn 1939, Winter 1939) (Department of Conservation, 1939)
History of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Southern Louisiana : Interim Report [Equipment] (U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region)
The First Constitution of the State of Louisiana (Morgan, 1975)
Acts Passed at the Second Session of the Eleventh Legislature of the State of Louisiana (possibly 1834)
A Manual on Examination of Louisiana Land Titles (Louisiana Land Titles) (Baily, 1955)
John Marshall and the Constitution : a chronicle of the Supreme Court (Corwin, 1970)
Digeste Analytique des Actes de la Legislature […] (Collens, 1846)
Local Government and Administration in Louisiana (Carlton, Ph.D. 1935)
Louisiana: History of Our Local Government (Martin,1966)
A Citizen’s Guide to the Government of Terrebonne Parish (League of Women Voters Education Fund, 1979)
Gumbo Ya-Ya (Louisiana Writer’s Program, 1987)
La France en Louisiane (Tharp & de la Souchere Delery)
Wild Flowers of Louisiana (Dormon, 1934)
Baldcypress: The Tree Unique, The Wood Eternal (Brown & Montz)
The Original Watercolor Paintings (for the Birds of America) Vol 1 (Audubon, 1966)
The Original Watercolor Paintings (for the Birds of America) Vol 2 (Audubon, 1966)
The Bird Life of Louisiana (Oberholser & Louisiana Department of Conservation, 1938)
Audubon in Louisiana (Audubon, 1966)
Cajun Traiteurs: Faith Healing on the Bayou; The Cajun Traiteur and Transmission of Cajun Folk Healing Knowledge (Sonnier, 2020)
Build Your Own Louisiana Pirogue (Boudreaux, 1972)
Aeronautics and Astronautics (Emme, 1961)
Louisiana: A Lucrative Land (Louisiana County Agents Association, 1964)
Soil Survey: Terrebonne Parish – Series 1956 NO 1 (US Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, 1960)
Cane Sugar (Deerr, 1911)
Sugar Cane Vol. 1 (Stubbs, possibly 1900)
Picayune Creole Cook Book (12th Edition) (Times Picayune 1938)
The Lapeyre Automatic Shrimp Peeling Machine, Model ‘A’, No. 572, 1979 (2004)
Sugar: From Scarcity to Surplus (Edson, 1958)
Pen Drawings of Old New Orleans (Churchill, 1916)
The American Spirit in Literature: A Chronicle of Great Interpreters (Perry, 1918)
Evangeline (Longfellow, 1847)
Bonaventure: A Prose Pastoral of the Acadian South (Cable, 1901)
Chita: A Memory of Last Island (Hearne, 1969)
Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans (de Lavigne, 1946)
Pierre of the Teche (Olivier, 1936)
Madame Toussaint’s Wedding Day (St. Martin, 1936)
(Edited) Journal of Joseph Cyrille Dupont (Dupont, 1924)
Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (Vol 1) (Hearn, 1894)
Colonial Folkways: A Chronicle of Everyday Life in Early America (Andrews, 1975)
The Cotton Kingdom: A Chronicle of the Old South (Dodd, 1919)
Louisiana Tours: A Guide to Places of Historic and General Interest; Where to Go, How to Go; What to See (Arthur, 1950)
Directory of the Parish of Terrebonne: 1897
New Orleans: The Crescent City (Dufour, 1967)
The Bayous of Louisiana (Kane, 1943)
Cajuns on the Bayou (Ramsay. 1957)
State’s Houma Louisiana 1938-39 City Directory Vol 1 (With CD) (State Directory Company, 1939)
Father Mississippi (Saxon, 1927)
State Names, Flags, Seals, Songs, Birds, Flowers, and Other Symbols (Shankle, 1938)
They Came, They Stayed: Originas of Pointe-aux-Chenes and Ile a Jean Charles (Ledet, 1982)
Ebenezer A. Patterson (Patterson, 1991)
Louisiana Troops 1720-1770 (de Ville, 1965)
Houma Newspaper Deaths 1855-1981, with Addenda (Terrebonne Genealogical Society, 1988)
Inventory of the Parish Archives of Louisiana — No. 55 — Terrebonne Parish (Houma) (Louisiana Historical Records Survey, 1941)
Terrebonne Parish Superintendent’s Record Book of Public Schools
The Wave of the Future: A Confession of Faith (Lindbergh, 1940)
The Fighting Men of Louisiana and a History of World War II (Louisiana Historical Institute, 1941)
Elizabethan Sea-Dogs: A Chronicle of Drake and his Companions) (Wood, 1918)
The Indians of Dulac: A Descriptive Study of a Racial Hybrid Community in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana (Roy, 1959)
The Canadian Dominion: A Chronicle of Our Northern Neighbor (Skelton, 1919)
The Spanish Borderlands: A Chronicle of Old Florida and the Southwest (Bolton, 1970)
The Path of the Empire: A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power (Fish, 1919)
Comprehensive and Popular History of the United States OR Pictorial History of the United States (Stephens, 1882)
The Conquest of New France: A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars (Wrong, 1974)
The Fathers of New England: A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths (Andrews, 1919)
Dutch and English on the Hudson: A Chronicle of Colonial New York (Goodwin, 1919)
The Eve of the Revolution: A Chronicle of the Breach with England (Becker, 1918)
The Fathers of the Constitution: A Chronicle of the Establishment of the Union (Farrand, 1975)
Covington Revisited (Jahncke)
Washington and His Comrades in Arms: A Chronicle of the War of Independence (Wrong, 1974)
Washington and His Colleagues: A Chronicle of the Rise and Fall of Federalism (Ford, 1974)
The Baratarians and the Battle of New Orleans with Biographical Sketches of the Veterans of the Battalion of Orleans, 1814-1815 (de Grummond, 1979)
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 1Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 1 (Nichols, 1956)
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 3 (Nichols, 1956)
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 4 (Nichols, 1956)
Union, Disunion, Reunion: Three Decades of Federal Legislation (Cox, 1885)
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol 1 (Davis, 1881)
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol 2 (Davis, 1881)
The Louisiana Tigers or The Two Louisiana Brigades of the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 (Moore, 1961)
Southern History of the War: A Companion to Pollard’s “First Year of the War” (Richardson, 1863)
Captains of the Civil War: A Chronicle of the Blue and Gray (Wood, 1921)
Lee’s Lieutenants, Vol 1 (Freeman, 1942)
Lee’s Lieutenants, Vol 2 (Freeman, 1943)
Lee’s Lieutenants, Vol 3 (Freeman, 1944)
Forgotten Fighters 1861-1865 (Marchand, 1966)
The Agrarian Crusade: A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics (Buck, 1920)
The Sequel of Appomattox: A Chronicle of the Reunion of the United States (Fleming, 1970)
The Cleveland Era: A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics (Ford, 1972)
From Versailles to the New Deal: A Chronicle of the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover Era (Faulkner, 1950)
The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Chronicle of the New Deal and Global War (Brogan, 1950)
My First Days in the White House (Long, 1935)
The New South: A Chronicle of Social and Industrial Revolution (Thompson, 1919)
Pioneers of the Old Southwest: A Chronicle of Dark and Bloody Ground (Skinner, 1919)
Natchez: A Treasure of Antebellum Homes (Cooper, 1957)
Views of Old Natchez (Early 1800s)
Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Louisiana Vol 1
Athanase de Mezieres and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier 1768-1780 (Spain in the West), Vol 1 (Boldon, Ph.D., 1913)
Athanase de Mezieres and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier 1768-1780 (Spain in the West), Vol 2 (Boldon, Ph.D., 1914)
Tales of Old Louisiana (Carruth, 1979)
Louisiana or The History of Louisiana Vol. 2 (Chamber, 1925)
Louisiana or The History of Louisiana Vol. 3 (Chamber, 1925)
Un Pelerinage au pays d’Evangeline (Casgraine, 1887)
The Story of Louisiana, Vol. 1 (Davis, 1960)
The Story of Louisiana, Vol. 2 (Davis, 1960)
The Story of Louisiana, Vol. 3 (Davis, 1960)
Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form, Vol 1 (A-K) (Fortier, Lit D, 1914)
Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form, Vol 2 (L-Z) (Fortier, Lit D, 1914)
Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form, Vol 3 (Biographical) (Fortier, Lit D, 1914)
History of Louisiana, Vol 1 (1512-1768) (Fortier, Lit D, 1904)
History of Louisiana, Vol 2 (1769-1803) (Fortier, Lit D, 1904)
History of Louisiana, Vol 3 (1803-1861) (Fortier, Lit D, 1904)
History of Louisiana, Vol 4 (1861-1904) (Fortier, Lit D, 1904)
History of Louisiana: The French Domination, Vol. 1 (Gayarre, 1885)
History of Louisiana: The Spanish Domination, Vol. 3 (Gayarre, 1885)
Romance of the History of Louisiana: A Series of Lectures (Gayarre, 1848)
The Famous Case of Myra Clark Gaines (Harmon, 1946)
Huey Long’s Louisiana Hayride: the American Rehearsal for Dictatorship (Kane, 1941)
New Orleans: The Place and the People (King, 1913)
Stories from Louisiana History (King, 1905)
History of Louisiana (King, 1893)
The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana from 1542 to Present (Kniffen, Gregory, & Stokes, 1987)
Louisiana: A Record of Expansion (Phelps, 1905)
Louisiana Under the Rule of Spain, France, and the United States 1785-1807, Vol. 1 (Robertson, 1911)
Louisiana Under the Rule of Spain, France, and the United States 1785-1807, Vol. 2 (Robertson, 1911)
Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees Vol 1 (de Bachelle Seebold, 1941)
Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees Vol 2 (de Bachelle Seebold, 1941)
Riparian Lands of the Mississippi River: Past, Present, Prospective (Thompkins, 1901)
Acadian Reminiscences: with the True Story of Evangeline (Voorhies, 1907)
Northeast Louisiana: A Narrative History of the Ouachita River Valley and the Concordia Country (Williamson, 1939)
The Cabildo on Jackson Square (Wilson & Huber, 1907)
Les Cadiens d’Asteur (Gould, 1980)
Old New Orleans (Arthur, 1937)
Queen of New Orleans, City by the River (Kane, 1949)
Standard History of New Orleans (1900)
Mardi Gras–As It Was (Tallant, 1948)
A Leisure Walk Down Main Street, Houma 60 Odd Years Ago (Berger, 1976)
Hard Scrabble to Hallelujah: Legacies of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana V. 1 (Cenac, M.D., F.A.C.S., 2016)
Xplorin’ Terrebonne with Sherwin Guidry (Guidry, 198-)
Texas and the Mexican War: A Chronicle of the Winning of the Southwest (Stephenson, 1971)
The Old Northwest: A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond (Ogg, 1919)
The Passing of the Frontier: A Chronicle of the Old West (Hough, 1970)
Adventurers of Oregon: A Chronicle of the Fur Trade (Skinner, 1920)
Culture and History Genealogy
Acadian Cultural Center: Wetlands Division
Historical Maps of Terrebonne Parish
South Louisiana Center for the Arts
Southdown Plantation and Museum
Terrebonne Folklife Culture Center
Economics
Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce
Education
LSU AgCenter: Terrebonne Parish
Terrebonne Parish School District
Genealogy
Family Search: Terrebonne Parish
Terrebonne Genealogical Society
Government
Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Government
Terrebonne Parish Municipal Code
Terrebonne Parish Recreation: Parks & Grounds
Terrebonne Parish Quick Facts (Census Bureau)
Media
Nature and Outdoors
Bocage, Charles William. Bocage’s official map of the Parish of Terrebonne, Louisiana. [New Orleans, La.: Charles William Bocage, 1916] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2013593065/>.
– Rachel LeCompte, Reference Services Supervisor