The Community of Quay

by Wesley Harris
Claiborne Parish Library Historian

Did you know Claiborne Parish once had a community called Quay? Located in the southeastern portion of the parish, Quay had a post office from 1841 to 1867.

The word “quay” has evolved over time. Today it means a pier or the bank of a body of water where boats can tie up. Before it changed to its current form under influence of the modern French quai, its Middle English spelling was key, keye or caye. This in turn also came from the Old French chai roughly meaning "sand bank.” Pronounced “key” or “kway” today, it is reasonable to speculate the village of Quay was on a creek.

“Quay” is also a family surname common in France and the United Kingdom although a bit rare in the United States. Since no Quays appear in grave or census records for north Louisiana, it is unlikely the village was named after a family.

Only two other communities in America are named Quay — a tiny unincorporated village in Oklahoma originally named Lawson and the town of Quay in northeastern New Mexico. Both were named to honor Matthew S. Quay, a Medal of Honor recipient as a colonel in the Pennsylvania volunteer infantry in the Civil War and later a U.S. Senator. Quay of Claiborne Parish was so named when Matthew Quay was still a child.

Records in the National Archives note a post office was established at Quay, Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, on January 16, 1841. It would be ten years before a post office was placed at the nearest town — Arcadia. The post office at Quay served the community until February 4, 1867, about two years after the Civil War ended.

The postmasters who served at Quay:

Postmaster ~ Date of Appointment
Jabez Sanders ~ January 16, 1841
Littleton M. Duty ~ November 11, 1845
Wiley Duty ~ March 8, 1847
Philip Payne ~ November 1, 1856
William B. Smith ~ April 10, 1857
James Z. Browning ~ September 26, 1859
William Mitcham ~ February 21, 1860

Mitcham served until the office was abolished in 1867. The records give no reason for the office closure, but its proximity to Arcadia may have been the chief reason.

The closure of the post office indicated Quay was seeing its last days. The village also had its own Masonic lodge, Terryville Lodge No. 118, which apparently became the community name after the post office closed. In 1867, the Masonic Lodge listed its officers as H. F. Petty, H. H. McLendon, J. M. Walker, and J. M. Dormon. 1868 officers were Petty, J. Swint, W. W. Taylor, and G. W. Davidson.

Grave records were found for five of those seven men. Their burials sites give a rough approximation of the location of Quay—Old Athens and Macedonia Cemeteries in Claiborne Parish, Arcadia Cemetery (Bienville Parish), and Swint and St. Rest (Lincoln Parish). The best approximation of the location of Quay is a few miles in any direction from the present-day intersection of LA 544 and LA 151.

On February 10, 1869, the Grand Lodge of Louisiana granted a petition to change the meeting place to nearby Salem “as their lodge room at Terryville is so dilapidated that it is impossible for them to use it. They have a new Masonic Hall erected at Salem, which is a more central position and more convenient to a large majority of the members.”

Maps from the 1850s show Quay in southeastern Claiborne Parish very near its border with Bienville and Jackson Parishes.

In 1873, a portion of Claiborne Parish that included Quay was used to form Lincoln Parish along with bits of Union, Jackson, and Bienville. By that time, Quay had disappeared from Louisiana maps. While the name Terryville never appeared on maps, it was used as a community name in the early 1900s. Terryville School was located on LA 544 east of LA 151. The area is the center point of the gas-rich Terryville Energy Field.

---

Contributed 12 Nov 2020 by Wesley Harris

---