Assumption Parish, Louisiana

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Assumption Parish Administrative Offices are located at 4813 Highway One, Napoleonville LA 70390; phone: 985-369-7435.

Beginnings [1]

Assumption is one of Louisiana's older parishes, having been legally established in 1807. Its early population consisted of persons of French, Spanish, Acadian, and German descent. This mixture was expanded by the addition of Anglo-Americans after Louisiana became, first a territory (1803), and finally a full-fledged state within the United States (1812). Agriculture has always been the parish's economic mainstay, with sugar cane the dominating crop. Perhaps as a result of its rural focus, the parish has never developed large communities. It appears that Napoleonville did not become the parish seat until 1818, when Maxill and Caroline Bourg donated a tract of land along the west bank of Bayou Lafourche to serve as the permanent location for the courthouse. Before that date parish leaders had held court wherever they pleased, including one site on the east bank of the bayou three miles south of town. The site donated by the Bourgs has remained the location of the courthouse, perhaps because the Bourgs stipulated in their act of donation that the land should revert to their heirs if the seat of justice should ever be moved.

  1. National Register of Historic Places, Assumption Parish Courthouse and Jail, nomination document, 1997, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.

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