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Friday, April 3, 2015

"Pierre Caliste Landry" (April 19,1841-December 1921)

Statesman,minister,educator,businessman, and attorney,was born on the plantation of Dr.Francois Marie Prevost near Donaldsonville,Ascension Parish,Louisiana.He is purported to have been born to Rosenmond Landry,a white laborer on the Prevost plantation and Marcelite,his slave
mistress.He was born with the name Caliste.Accordng to Pierre's unpublished autobiography,he resided with a free couple of color and was educated at a school conducted for free children.Despite is owner's wish that he been freed,when Dr.Prevost's estate was settled on May 16 1854 Pierre was auctioned was to Marius St.Colombe Bringier,a wealthy suger planter in Ascension Parish.He was sold for $1,665.He continued  his education on Houmas,the Bringier plantation,eventually earning the position of superintendent of the yard.As a young man,Pierre was taught the trades of  confectioner and cook,two trades he employed during his time with the Bringiers.Pierre enjoyed relative freedom at the Bringiers plantation,even being given permission to form business partnership with another slave,the head butler,to run a plantation store.In 1862 Pierre received a release from his yard duties and became an apprentice to both the plantation's head white carpenter and manchinist.
In 1866 he changed his name to Pierre for unknown reasons and moved to Donaldsonville.He soon became a prominent member of Donaldsville's African-American community.Within his first year there he founded two day schools and a night school for African-American children.He built the first home owned by a freed home slave in Donaldsville and opened a small but prosperous store.The Landry's was one of was one of the first African American families in town to own a piano.In 1867 he married Amanda Grigsby.At a January 1 1867 commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation a large group of African-American residents unanimously elected Pierre their leaders in matters,social,educational,and political because of his strong leadership usefulness.
In 1868 Pierre was elected mayor of Donaldsville and served for a one-year term,making him the first African American in the United States.He subsequently served as a member of the Ascension Parish School Board,superintendent of schools,and justice of the peace.In 1870 Pierre became president of the Ascension Parish Police Jury and was appointed tax collector for Donaldsonville by Governor Henry C.Warmmouth.In 1872 President Ulysses S.Grant appointed Pierre as the postmaster of Donaldsonville that same year he was elected to the state House of Representatives.One of  the more notable among his bills to aid African Americans was the establishment of New Orleans University,the third African American private college in Louisiana.
In 1874 Pierre became state senator for the 8th Senatorial District Of Louisiana.In his term as a senator he was one of two African Americans members to dine with President Ulysses S.Grant in 1875.During his tenure in the state senate he also edited a Christian newspaper called the Monthly Record.In 1879 he was elected as the delegate from Ascension Parish to the state constitutional convention.Pierre served in the state until 1878.Pierre had a private practice for twelve years.He was a founding member of the Board of Trustees for New Orleans University,which later merged with Straight College to form Dillard University in 1935.
After the Civil War,Pierre converted from Catholicism to Methodism through influence of a local congregation of Methodists.Perhaps this congregation was the Donaldsonville Methodist Episcopal church,which had been formed in 1844.He was an active member of St.Peter's Methodist Episcopal Church Society of  New York.Pierre was elected a lay delegate from the Louisiana Conference to the General Conference held at Brooklyn,New York,in 1872.He joined the traveling circult in 1878.He was appointed by Bishop W.L.Harris as pastor of St.Peter's which he served for three years.
At the Annual Session of the Louisiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1891 he was named Presiding Elder of the South New Orleans District,after which he moved his family to New Orleans.
In 1900 Pierre became the dean of Gilbert Academy in Baldin,Louisiana.Gilbert Academy was a prestigious school begun in 1865 as an agricultural and Industrial college for freedmen.The college  was under the  auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church.In 1919 Gilbert Academy High School.The school was located on the campus of New Orleans University on St.Charles Avenue (later the site of De La Salle High).Gilbert Academy eventually acquired the entire campus after New Orleans University merged with Straight College to form Dillard University.Gilbert Academy closed in 1949.Pierre served as dean of Gilbert Academy until 1905.That year,his second wife Florence Simpkins died.She and Pierre had two children.Pierre also served on the Board of Trustees of Flint Medical College,a Methodist-Affiliated institution in New Orleans.
Pierre was a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church for fifty years.The December 24 1921 issue of the New Orleans Times Picayune reported that "He is believed to have preached to more people of his race than any other man."This is not hard to believe as Pierre served at St.Peter's Church in Donaldsonville,Bayou Goula,Napoleonville,Woodlawn,Voiron(Belle Rose),Shreveport,New Orleans,and Gonzales.A few years before his death,Pierre became a member of the Missionary Baptist Church.
All of his fourteen children went on to receive a higher education.Among them was his son,Lord Beaconfield Landry,a physician for whom a public school in the Algiers section of New Orleans is named.Several of them became educators.
He died in the Algiers section of New Orleans,Louisiana.Among the speakers at his funeral was Governor Henry C.Warmouth,among the pallbearers were Walter L.Cohen and Dr.Charles Vance,two leaders in the New Orleans African American community.


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