Bird, Edward Abraham

Submitted by Mike Miller

Edward Abraham Bird, vice president and manager of the Addis Ice Company, which is engaged in the manufacturing and distributing of ice at Addis, West Baton Rouge Parish, was born in the City of New Orleans, Louisiana, January 31, 1872, and is a son of Abraham Thompson Bird and Julia (Von Phul) Bird, both natives of the State of Missouri, where the former was born at Birds Point, in the year 1810, and where the latter was born in the City of St. Louis, in 1827. The parents passed the closing years of their lives on their fine homestead place, Shelter Plantation, near Mark, West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, where the father died in 1896, at the patriarchal age of eighty-six years, and where the widowed mother died in 1913, at the age of eighty-six years, both having been devout communicants of the Catholic Church. Mrs. Bird was a daughter of Henry Von Puhl, who was one of the leading merchants of St. Louis, Missouri, at the time of his death, he having there been the executive head of the Von Phul-Saugrain Company. Henry Von Phul was a son of Dietrich Von Phul, a knight of the High Ducal Order of Hunters in Wurttemburg, Germany, and general and captain of the guards at the ducal court of the maternal side. Edward A. Bird, immediate subject if this review, is a great-grandson of Dr. Antoine Francois Saugrain, who attained the distinction as the first scientist of the western part of the great national domain of the United States, he having been a contemporary and friend of Benjamin Franklin and having, according to well authorized reports assisted Doctor Franklin in his electrical experiments. To him is attributed also the manufacturing of matches that were used by the explorers Lewis and Clark on their great and historic expedition across the continent to the Pacific Coast, these matches having effectively served their purpose on the far distant Columbia River fully a generation be fore similar igniting mediums were devised and used in London and Boston. The Saugrain family was one of distinct prominence in French history. From 1518 up to the time at the reign of the great Napoleon the head of the Saugrain family in France served as librarian to the French kings. John Saugrain having been given this distinguished preferment by King Charles IX, in 1518.

Abraham Thompson Bird was afforded the advantages of a leading college of his day in the City of St. Louis, Missouri. where his marriage occurred and where eventually he became an interested principal of the Von Phul-Saugrain Company. He continued his alliance with this representative mercantile concern until 1870, when he came to Louisiana and engaged in the general merchandise business in New Orleans. In 1872 he purchased the Belleview Plantation in West Baton Rouge Parish, and this he operated successfully until he sold the property in 1888. He then purchased Shelter Plantation, at Mark, and there he passed the remainder of his life .as one of the successful exponents of plantation industry in this parish. His political allegiance was given unreservedly to the democratic party, and he served for a number of years as president of the police jury of the parish. Of the children the eldest was Harry Von Phul Bird, who died at the age of fifty-five years, he having been at the time engaged in the mercantile business in the Village of Mark; Thomas, who died in 1920, at Lake Charles, Louisiana, attained to the age of sixty-eight years and at the time of his death was vice president and general manager of the Lake Charles Ice, Light & Waterworks Company; Lizzie B., who resides in the City of New Orleans, is the widow of John S. Moore, who was there engaged in the hardware business at the time of his death; Benjamin H., a stationary engineer by vocation, was a resident of Mark at the time of his death, in 1914, and was sixty years of age; John is a successful fruit-grower in Fresno County, California; Mary B. is the wife of Sidney A. Levert, of whom specific mention is made on other pages of this publication; and Edward A., of this sketch, is the youngest of the number.

Private and public schools in the Village of Mark afforded Edward A. Bird his earlier education, and in 1900 he was graduated from Tulane University with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Thereafter he continued to be associated with the operation of the home plantation until he attained to his legal majority, when he assumed the position of chief engineer of the Lake Charles Ice & Water Works. He remained at Lake Charles until 1903, and thereafter was chief engineer of the Bunkie Ice Company at Bunkie, Avoyelles Parish, until 1907, since which year he has continued his effective administration as vice president and manager of the Addis Ice Company.

Mr. Bird is aligned in the ranks of the democratic party, and while he has had no ambition for public office, he gave three years of effective service as a member of the Board of Education of West Baton Rouge Parish. In the neighboring Village of Brushy he and his wife are active communicants of the Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist, and at Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, he is a member of Plaquemine Council No. 970, Knights of Columbus. He was formerly affiliated also with the Improved Order of Red Men and the Woodmen of the World. Just north of Addis is situated the beautiful modern home of Mr. and Mrs. Bird, and the handsome house stands on an attractive tract of twenty-six acres.

At Brusly, on the 27th of December, 1894, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Bird and Miss Lea Bernard, daughter of William L. and Belida (Landry) Bernard, who reside at Mark, Mr. Bernard being a successful planter and also being cashier of the Bank of West Baton Rouge at Port Allen. To Mr. and Mrs. Bird have been born five children: Julia Louisa is the wife of Theodore Landry, manager of the truck department of the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana at Baton Rouge; Verna M. is the wife of Felix Paille, who is associated with his father in the ownership and management of Eatmore Bakery in the City of Baton Rouge; Edward Abrim, Jr., is chief engineer of the Addis Ice Company; Leonard was killed in a school automobile-truck accident in 1921, when sixteen years of age; and Lea M., is the youngest member of the parental home circle.

NOTE: A signed photograph/painting accompanies this narrative in the referenced source.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 135-136, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.