Samuel Hyatt Biography

As a native I am interested in the history of the parish and haveresearched the history of my family(ies). The attached may be of interest to you for posting to the site. It is acompilation of information picked up over the years. I cannot attest toits accuracy but I believe most of the information is factual. I apologize to those who may have published some of the information previously.

Respectfully submitted by John Hyatt

Samuel Hyatt, son of Samuel and Henrietta Hyatt of South Carolina and Washington County, Alabama, was born in Edgefield District, South Carolina on December 1, 1812, and was living in Perry County, Mississippi, when, on December 25, 1828, he married Elizabeth Etheredge, daughter of Archibald Etheredge, of Edgefield District, South Carolina. Elizabeth's grandfather, Aaron Etheredge, fought in the American Revolution and her grandmother, Elizabeth DeLoach Etheredge, was the granddaughter of Michael DeLoach, a member of a refugee Huguenot family that came to American and settled in Virginia in 1663. Elizabeth's family continued to move westward from South Carolina, where she was born on April 17, 1810, living in Georgia and Alabama before settling in Perry County, Mississippi.

In 1835, five years after their marriage, Samuel and Elizabeth were living on Thompson Creek in Wayne County, Mississippi, and in 1840 were counted on the Washington County, Alabama census. It is possible that the family remained on the same land and that only the political boundaries changed, as Thompson Creek is very near the Alabama-Mississippi border.

Records of this family are not found in the area after 1860 indicating that they had started westward again to what would be their last home. Perhaps the early rumblings of the Civil War were the motivation for the move. Their sons, Elias, Archie, Doc, and Jasper served in the Confederate Army, and Archie lost his life at Vicksburg in 1862. Jasper, Doctor and Elias followed their parents to Southwestern Louisiana by the mid 1860s when they each married a Texas girl and brought her back to Louisiana to live.

It is not know exactly when Samuel and Elizabeth settled in what later became Beauregard Parish. They are believed to have first settled near Bundick's Creek in what is now the Woodward community, very close to the Beauregard-Vernon Parish line west of Ikes. At the time it was part of Natchitoches Parish. Eventually they moved to Bearhead Creek near what is now Fields. The party consisted of their one daughter, Elizabeth Jane, youngest son John, and at least two older sons with their families, and the war veterans who joined them later. They were among the earliest settlers in the area.

In 1880 they had given up house keeping and were apparently taking turns living with their various children, when the census counts them as part of the household of their son Jasper.

They had moved again and were living with John's family at the time of Samuel's death on February 10, 1898. The countryside was bitter cold and the wagon that carried his body to the cemetery traveled across frozen streams without breaking through the ice. Elizabeth lived until August 27, 1902. She was living with Peter's family when she died at the age of 92. She is buried beside Samuel in the Hyatt Cemetery near Fields, Louisiana. Samuel and Elizabeth Hyatt are the forebears of many descendants still living in the parish today.

Their children were:

James A. (1829)
Samuel Terrel (1831) m. Caroline Dreaden; Archibald Enoch (1812)
Peter Ebenezer (1814) m. Amanda Welch; Willis M. (1836) m. Martha ?
Elias Marion (1835) m. Mary Ann Hoosier
Doctor Solomon (1840) m. Nancy Emily Hoosier
Jasper Newton (1842) m. Martha Eliza Jacobs
Elizabeth Jane (1845) m. James Harvey Jacobs
John Joseph (1849) m. Ellen Dickerson