The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-09


 as another letter from the same author telling of their stop at the old town of St. Stephens. then in the heyday of its glory.
 The List of Colenists.
 The same papsr gives full list of the French who came to Demopolfs. The strain of French blood from the South Alabama and this list of the members of the party should be of pe- culiar interest to the numerous de- scendants of members of the party who live in Mobile and other portions of South and West Alabama. The list shows that land was apportioned to some 300 men. The list does not, of course. include the female members of the party, being the official document of the Government containing the names of those persons who obtained | the benefits of the allotment. A colony of three hundred men, or heads of fam- flies. has been rare enough at all times in the colonization of the country. And no colony. perhaps. ever settled on American soil contained moro of ability, more of culture, more of refinement and more of bravery than that which set out to make home in the virgin woods of Alabama. And no colony that ever settled in America was less able to cope with the needs and emergencies of frontier life.
 And so. by the summer of 1918 the French colony had been established in Alabama.
 Gentle folks. fresh from another epoch making misfortune came to Ala bama in 1920 to reinforce their fellow French. They were the aristocratic French, the few who had escaped from that black night cf hcrror when tho slaves rose in San Domingo and del- uged the land with the blood of their former masters and mistresses. There were not many who escaped that carni- val of butchery when the foot of rapins was on the threshold and the hand of murder was on the door latch. They came to join their fellows in misfortanes. Nor were they any better | equipped to clear the woods and till Ithe soil than those whose life had been more active and more martial than the gentle life of the owner of a West In- dian plantation. In this party of re- Inducements came the Foruniers, the Mariners and the Ravises. the Bayols, the Stollenwercks and others who left their name and impress upon life in South Alabama. It is a source for | speculation that the San Domingan ex- | iles remained in great numbers in Ala bama and left the impress of their life, deeper upon the land than did the Bon- apartist exiles
 Foredoomed to Failure, Such were the gentiefolks who came to the new and wild land. They were foredoomed to failure from the first. The very olive they planted was abso- lutely valueless. If they had grown the olive as they set out to do. if they had succeeded. the fruit would not have been an article of commerce. So far as Is known there is now liv- ing only one of the olive trees set out by the French. It is in the yard of the handsome home of Capt. John c. Webb in Demopolis. at or near the very first settlement made by the French. Cap- | tain Webb has taken an especial care Of the tree. It bears fruit. but the fruit is of no practical use. Investiga- tions of the fruit by various experts have shown that it has no use or value There is pathos in this fact when one considers the bravery and the optim- ism of the gay and refined people who came to the Canebrake and devoted year after year to the utterly useless effort to grow olive trees.
 The Shadow of Failue.
 Of the colony 1t might be said. '"The stars in their course fought against Sfsera." The ominous shadow of fail- ure and misfortune was ever upon it The humble peasant on the vine-clad hills of France would have been bet ter equipped for the frontier tasks in all except courage and hope than the soldiers and leaders who went in the Canebrake woods end tried to make of it a vineyard.
 The butterfly could have been set to | the task of the bee, the tiger could have been harnessed to the blow, the l reindeer could have been put to the | treadmill more appropriately than sol l dier and fighter could have been set to | the frontiersman's task of clearing the | woods, building the cabin home and | founding the home.
 The French have never been colon- | ists. That is the Anglo-Saxon's task, the building up, the claiming and the | holding Of a new country. The white | mans burden" Is the Anglo-Saxon's | burden. German and French have no taste for it. The Anglo -saxons have been colonists and emigrants from the | nrst The hyphenated race was formed | of the emigrant Angles from Denmark and the emig"ant Saxons from Germany. From the time they mixed in England they have been explorers of land, con- querors of land and retainers of land.
 In exploration they have been ex- eelled by the French In conquering the French have been their equal. But the French have never been able like the Anglo-Saxon, to put his foot down and say, Here am and here remain" The French have never loved the lonely arduous work among "fretful folk and
 
 when the French flag flew over nearly every bit of the vast territory of the North American continent and today France does not control a foot of 1t.
 The stars in their course fought against Sisera." The colonist came to the site of Demopolis and there settled They went to work and cleared their land-some of 1t. at least. It was most trying work. Then came the stunning discovery that they had settled and cleared up land that did not belong to them. The land at White BIuff, and upon which part of the present city of Demopolis now stands, was not in- cluded in the grant made to the col onists.
 There was but one thing to do, leave the land they had cleared and move further on in to the forest and begin the work over again. A new trouble began. The land was allotted to the various members of the colony by the association in Philadelphia. The allotments were mixed. One colonist was upon the land of another. The man who had made improvements had move in and reap the advantages of his labor.
 The new town of the colony a mile east of the first settlement. was called 4iglette, a delicate compliment to the fallen leader. The standards of Ma poleon bore upon their staffs the figure Of an eagle and hence came the name.
 The Canebreak County.
 The soil of Marengo County, where the immigrants settled, was utterly AA Az l