Torras, Joseph

Submitted by Mike Miller

Joseph Torras, a native of Spain, was born near Barcelona in 1825, the youngest of thirteen children born to M. and Lucretia Torras, the former of whom was an officer in the Spanish navy, the greater part of his life being spent in the service. He was in the English and French wars, was a college bred man and had his two eldest sons educated in the Imperial college at St. Petersburg, Russia. Joseph Torras came to the United States in 1836, leaving home at the very early age of eleven years because his mother strongly opposed his entering the navy, which he very much desired to do. He joined a brother in Natchez, Miss., and entered the schools of that city, from which he afterward graduated. After spending three years in clerking he entered the receiving and forwarding business, which calling he followed until 1840, the three following years being engaged in merchandising in Van Buren, Ark. Since that time he has been a resident of Pointe Coup e parish, La.; on his arrival he entered in copartnership with his brother and purchased the plantation belonging to Gen. B. B. Simms. He and his brother severed their connection in 1858, Joseph Torras, the same year, marrying Mrs. Dr. Nelson, a native of Maryland, by whom he became the father of two children: Lulu, now Mrs. Phillips, and Jeannie C. The mother of these children died in 1863, since which time Mr. Torras has remained unmarried. He served in the commissary department of the confederate army during the Civil war and was in charge of cotton transports from Alexandria to Niblos Bluffs, Tex. In the fall of 1864 he returned home, and has since devoted his attention to merchandising and planting, being now the owner of Turnbull island in West Feliciana parish, containing about 8,000 acres; besides which he owns 1,200 acres in Pointe Coup e parish, all of which has been accumulated since the war. Turnbull island is devoted to the raising of cattle for beef, which he markets in Natchez and New Orleans, and has found it to be very profitable. He has been engaged in general merchandising for thirty years and only disposed of this business in 1888 to Mr. Phillips, his son-in-law. He is interested in local and state politics and has held positions of honor on committees of the democratic party. He is now chairman of the executive board of the levee board, created by the last legislature, embracing the district of the Atchafalaya basin. He is also a patron of education and his two daughters are graduates of the Convent of the Sacred Heart, located in St. James parish, La. He was the originator and is now the president of the St. Cecelian society, which has a neat little hall on his plantation, and has always taken a deep interest in Christian work. He is quite a philanthropist and has educated nine children besides his own, giving them good collegiate educations, six of these being the children of his wife by her first husband. He was he prime mover and chief contributor in building the Catholic church on his plantation. He is liberal in the use of his means, very charitably inclined and is upright in all his dealings, in fact, a model American citizen.

Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 424. Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.