His 33 years of work, took him into 10 states, traveling over 200,000 miles.  He sold most of his property, even a 40-acre tract of land in Allen parish, to finance his project.  In October 1963, he had a claim of $47,167.64 (equal to $333,831.28 in 2008 dollars) filed before the Gretna district court, seeking this sum, as payment for his efforts of 33 years to the estate of Francois Zenon Boutte.

Ulysse (1884-1969) is the son of Constantino “August Constant” Pierotti and Stephanie Martel.  He married Aminthe Fruge in 1907.  They had five children, Olivia (married Tanies LaFleur), Gladys (married Herbert Soileau, Sr.), Pearl (married George Richard), Ruby and Frances (married Warren J. Strohmeyer).

Ulysse was a farmer and later a deputy Sheriff with Ville Platte Sheriff Charles Pucheu. 

According to Pierrottie, Francois Zenon Boutte died about 1869, long after the deaths of his wife and child, leaving no natural heirs, and all of his fortune gone. His life and death were completely forgotten until 1930, when the Standard Oil Co., of Texas came into Louisiana to explore and develop the piece of land called Lafitte Island (now called Barataria Island) on the southern tip of the Louisiana boot.

While engineers and surveyors were going over the island, abstracting each and every strip of territory, they came across a forgotten strip of land some five acres wide and six miles long, land which belonged to Francois Zenon Boutte, and left by him to his heirs after his death. The story goes back into the years here, when Pierrottie told of how the land came into ownership by Francois Zenon Boutte and his uncle, Jean Baptiste Boutte. This island was once given to the famous pirate, Jean LaFitte by a grant of General Andrew Jackson, in payment for his services in the battle of New Orleans.

Jean LaFitte later sold the island to a man named "Villa" and this same Villa sold the land to Pierre Lavigne. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase it was owned by Pierre Lavigne, whose heirs sold it in 1915 to the brothers Hilaire and Jean Baptiste Boutte (uncles of Francois Zenon Boutte).

Pierrottie pointed out that Hilaire then sold his undivided half of the island to Joseph Triscoue and Triscoue sold his half to Francois Zenon Boutte in 1819, but the notary making the sale made a mistake and the sale read that Triscoue sold the entire island to Zenon Boutte. This necessitated a new document to read that Zenon Boutte had purchased only half of the island, the other half belonging to Jean Baptiste Boutte. To make it more clear, the two Bouttes then decided that they would divide the island in two equal parts, with Jean Baptiste Boutte taking the northern half of the island and Francois Zenon Boutte taking the southern half.

It is at this point, following the discovery of a forgotten strip of land located in the southern half of the island, land which belonged to Francois Zenon Boutte that Pierrottie comes into the story.  After digging back into old records and birth records, history books and deeds some 33 years later, Pierrottie completed his work - the finding of close to 3,000 heirs and descendants of Francois Zenon Boutte, Heirs and descendants of eight generations, of brothers and sisters, of Zenon Boutte - Marie Louise Hycinthe Boutte, Antoine Hilliare Boutte, Modeste Boutte, Louis Hilliare Boutte, Juan Leon Boutte, and Celestine Boutte.

Pierrottie's grandmother, Louise Mathilde Boutte, was a daughter of Antoine Hilliare Boutte.  Pierrottie's work came about by a request of heirs of Francois Zenon Boutte, who thought then that the estate could never be settled and nor could all the heirs be located.

In 1963, Pierrottie stated that this 500-acre tract, more or less, will never be sold by the heirs, and today is worth millions of dollars, and will, as years go by, bear more fruits, and will create more hardship, as heirs die and other heirs are added on, which could reach 5,000 heirs by 1975.

In his years of research, Pierrottie said, his work was greatly hampered because of all old documents and records being recorded in French.  This necessitated an interpreter and added expenses.  He also had to establish the fact that because of the known birth of a son by a second marriage, his son may have had heirs who would then be heirs of the Francois Zenon Boutte estate.  This claim had been filed by the heirs of Jean Baptiste Boutte, he stated.  After seven years of research of old records of the St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, it was officially established that his only son had died at the age of seven, Pierrottie said.

Ulysee won the court case and assets were distributed.  However, as a descendent of this family, am I owed some of these royalties?
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The above is based primarily on "One Fellow's Evangeline" by Elvin Reed and printed in The Daily World, Opelousas, LA on October 6, 1963

Murphy Miller, Sr. and my mother Mary Lillian Naquin on March 19, 1938, their wedding day.

Murphy Miller, Sr., his mother Elvena Sonnier Miller and children of Murphy and Mary L. Naquin, Garland Ann, Murphy, Jr. and Floretta Dale. (ca. 1950, Basile, LA)

Murphy Miller, Sr. weds Gladys Fruge on September 1, 1952.

The small town of Basile, named after Basile Fontenot in 1905, is where I lived from 1948 to 1955. We, my father and my two sisters, moved in with my grandmother, Elvena Sonnier Miller on the east side of Basile. It was a difficult time in all our lives. My Me'me're' (grandmother) Miller, who spoke no English, had been widowed since 1940. When my grandfather Salomon died his estate was worth $8,000 and he owed $6,000 to his brother Faustin.

My father divorced my mother in March 1948 and before the year ended he had married and divorced his second and third wife. No one will ever know if there was a real love for the women he married. I believe that he wanted someone to care for his three children. He married his fourth wife a few years later in 1952. She, Gladys Fruge, was a wonderful person and helped me and my two sisters at time when it was needed.

At age five, my sisters and I rose about 4:30 a.m. to go pick cotton during the summer months. The farmer came by in his truck and we rode in the back of the truck in the cool air before sunrise. For lunch we often had Vienna Sausage and plain white bread. We pumped water from the farmer's well for something to wash down the less than nourishing meal. After my lunch and before the afternoon picking started, I learned a lot in the barn's cotton bins. People with a good income and a good education were not picking cotton. On my sixth birthday, September 10, 1949, the cotton farmer paid me $3 when I was due $2.76 for the cotton I picked. I do not recall how many days work it took to earn that amount.

One of my Me'me're's (grandmother's)  sayings was "Un rien tout neuf dans un panier perce" which translates to " a little bit of nothing new in a bored basket". Another saying of hers was "A pieds, nus pieds; racacha (lampourde) dans les pieds. A selles sur dos, batons de mais sur les bras". It translates to "On foot, barefoot, cocklebur in the feet. Horseback riding, corncob under the arms".  I never forgot these two sayings which were repeated to me many times by my grandmother.  She also taught me to say the Catholic prayers in the Cajun tongue.  Unfortunately, I did not retain saying the Catholic prayers in the Cajun tongue. Since my Me'me're' spoke no English I too became fluent in my Cajun language and its culture.

Many of the local radio stations broadcast the news in the Cajun language and the Cajun music played along with the local news each morning and all day Saturday. There was always a big dance in the two dance halls that were very popular  and well attended in Basile. The Basile trash dump Supervisor was Nathan Abshire. He was also a very well known Cajun artist. He plays "Jolie Blond", the Louisiana National Anthem, and others in this YouTube. Nathan Abshire is the only person that I know of that can represent the Basile community.

When cotton season was over, I shined shoes walking the sidewalks of Basile and into the Bar's where men drank beer and smoked while they played cards. My father was never one to hang out in bars. He never smoked either. My father, a master carpenter, made me my shoeshine box. I charged $0.15 for a shoe shine. After all, it costs $0.09 to go to the local movie theater.

By the age of six I had smoked my first cigarette with Bobby Guillory, my best friend who lived across the street. As we smoked more, he would steal a pack in open displays at Theriot's Grocery Store. I was too scared to steal. I learned later how to shoplift in my teen years. One day a cyst grew under my left arm. Great! I did not have to pick cotton but I did have to go to the local Dr. who lanced it. If he used medication to deaden the area it was not effective. I hollered like a butchered hog. I remember recovering in my army cot style bed in the summer heat. No homes had air conditioners then.

Memere Miller's house had a pump when we first moved in and later there was running water. There was no indoor bathroom. We used the outhouse. My job each morning was to empty the pee pots that were used by me sisters, my grandmother and my dad and I.

I walked to school in our bare feet until it was too cold, then we slipped on the one pair of shoes we possessed. We purchased our new clothes from the "Monkey (Montgomery) Ward Catalog". Since my sisters and I did not pay for our school lunches, you could say we were on welfare. We were outcasts eating free lunches and our parents were divorced in a predominately Catholic community and we were living with our father. But as Cajun musician Johnny Janet said "Cajuns are tough, we are made of good stuff, life may be tough but we're going to make it sure nough."

At about age 7 or 8, we went to my Aunt Cina's home near Elton for a Sunday BBQ. After everyone went into the house, my cousin Cee Cee took me horseback riding and gave me several Goebel Malt Liquor beers. They were in small cans. I believe it was the first time I was drunk. When we arrived at home, my sisters and I went to the movie but I did not recall much about it. After the movie I went home and went to bed while it was still light out.

Perhaps you have some experiences you want to share and comment on regarding this blog message and your early experiences in Cajun Country. Perhaps you know of other people that I could name that are known beyond the city limits of "Big Basile" home of the Bearcats.
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Basile: Village incorporated in 1911 with 261 citizens
(The Weekly Gazette, Anniversary Edition, February 23, 1989, Ville Platte, LA)
By Bernice Ardoin

               In 1911 the Village of Basile was incorporated and L. F. Schambers became its first mayor. The population at the time of incorporation was 261.
               It is recorded that Dr. E.S. Taylor became the village's first elected mayor. J.S. Darbonne was chosen the first marshall of Basile and three councilmen were Amos Fusilier, Adras Chaumont, and J.E. Chaumont.
               The land was once a cattle range where many herds grazed.
               The Village of Basile was named in honor of a Frenchman who was one of the first settlers in the area.
               Early settlers in the small town, located in the southeastern corner of Evangeline Parish, were Charles Vige, John Clark, Charles Percy, Senena Sete, Lucian Langley, David Young, Sr. and several member in the Fruge family.
               In the early days, stock raising was well known in the small community.
               Missouri Pacific Railroad was constructed there in 1905 and many stores were opened in the community. Telegraph service was obtained in the small village shortly after the railroad was laid. A telephone exchange has been maintained there since incorporation.
               Many stores were soon opened in the area. Some of the earliest merchants were Tommy Louis, Lee Milsaps, Otto Meyer, Louis Chambers, J.S. Darbonne, and John Chaumont.
               Several timber companies: Putnam Brothers, Lacroix, and St. Maurice Timber, chose Basile as a location for their sawmills.
               The forests, along Bayou Nezpique, Blue, Durald and Castor, provide raw material for the large mills. Logs were cut and floated down the streams to the mills which were centered near the Missouri-Pacific railroad on the edge of the forest where Basile now stands.
               In 1906, the post office was moved from a location in Acadia Parish on the property of L. Chamberst to the Basile community. The community had been laid out in 1905 by Gus Fusilier, James J. Lewis and Louis Burk. The land for the small village was obtained from Garsain Miller, an early settler in Evangeline parish.
               The first school consisted of a small building, built in 1909. The school was maintained by the residents there. Miss Carrie Lee Northway, of Nashville, Tennessee, was the first teacher at the school. She taught seven grades to a student body, consisting of 34. From 1918-1925, the Methodist Episcopal Church operated the school, Evangeline Preparatory College.
               In the third year, there were three teachers: W.W. Fussell, Theresa Davis and Jena Bond, at the school. After four years, school's enrollment was up to 75 students.
               In 1913, a two-story structure was built for students through the ninth grade. N.D. Roberts was named principal. Following Roberts, were principals Eloi Fontenot, C.C. Clark, G. Cranford, B. Fitester, and Lester Soileau.
               Among the first graduates of the school were Hadley Fontenot and J.J. Darphin.
               In 1914, the Methodists built their first church. Shortly thereafter, the Baptists entered this territory and established their house of worship. Catholicism was brought into the area by early missionaries and in 1922 the parish of St. Augustine was created. It wasn't until later on that the Pentecostal Church was established.
               In 1925, another school was built. J.A. Babin was [the] first principal.
               In 1935 with the development of Tepetate Oilfield, the town became known for its oil industry. Today, a mayor and five councilmen constitute the form of government for the town, of a population of approximately 2,000.
               Later in 1940, the increase in population made it possible to change the name from the Village to the Town of Basile. The population was recorded at 1,103 and the number of aldermen was changed from three to five. David Young was mayor. Aldermen were Harry Aguillard, B. Carriere, Lloyd Evans, Deo Guidry, and Wesley Hebert. David Young resigned half way through his term and Sammy Stagg Sr. was named mayor.
               In 1956, local businessmen organized the Basile State Bank.
               In 1963, it was voted by property owners to add better facilities to the school. A vocational building was constructed and a new modernized lunchroom was built.
               The high school building there today was built in 1980.
               The economy of Basile, located on Louisiana Highway 371 and U.S. Highway 190, is based primarily on agriculture and mineral resources.
               The Evangeline parish town is located 28 miles southwest of Ville Platte, the parish seat, and only 11 miles from the Town of Eunice in St. Landry parish. There are seven churches: Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, and Pentecostal in the town.
               The Basile Weekly, the town's newspaper, was first published in 1963. Jim Clark is now publisher of the weekly paper.
               Each fall, Basile hosts the annual Louisiana Swine Festival. The festival started in 1966 and this November marks its 23rd annual event.