By Jessica Gorman
The more you study local history, the more you start to realize that much of what we know is not documented fact. There are so many stories that have been handed down. Some are accurate, some not, many somewhere in between. Somewhere along the way, somebody told it a little bit differently. Maybe some dates got confused or speculation was misinterpreted as fact. Whatever the case, the story of Overton is one example. Many accounts say it was founded around 1822 when Newit Drew moved to the area and established a mill. Claims are that it became a thriving village that was hit with a yellow fever epidemic in 1839 which left hundreds dead. Unfortunately, the evidence tells a much different story. One in which there were never hundreds of people living at Overton.
When Newit Drew first came to Louisiana, he did not live on Dorcheat as some have mistakenly claimed. Instead, he joined other settlers from Tennessee living in the Flat Lick community. We can place him there in 1830, serving as chairman of the newly formed Republican Anti-Masonic Party organized at Flat Lick. There, he lived for more than ten years before the Great Raft was cleared and navigation was opened on Dorcheat. It was then that he moved to be near the head of navigation and built a mill and a steamboat landing known as Drew’s Landing. His initial purchase of eighty acres of land was recorded in June 1837. However, we know that he had been living there prior to this date as indicated by the note of preemption on the document.
The population of Claiborne Parish shifted westward and the parish seat was relocated accordingly. As evidenced by an act of the Louisiana legislature, Overton did not exist until 1836 when it was created by the legislature to serve as the new parish seat of what was then Claiborne Parish. The following year, the first contract for mail delivery was awarded to James Ambrose. This route ran between Drew’s Landing and Monroe. The contract did not name Overton but instead, Drew’s Landing. Mail service was to begin in January 1838. David Pratt was the first postmaster. The Pratt store is the only one at Overton of which I find any mention. According to “History of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana,” published in 1886, the store opened in 1837 and was first run by Mr. Savage of Campti before passing into the hands of Joe Robinson, and then to Pratt. Pike Reynolds names it as the only store at Overton in 1843.
One group of settlers came to Overton from Warren County, Pennsylvania around 1837. Among them was Richard Alden, brother of Isaac Alden, our earliest known settler. Isaac’s glowing descriptions of his home in Claiborne Parish had encouraged several members of his family to move to Louisiana. Of the group that came with Richard Alden, Dorliska Rathbun, a niece, was married in 1837 to Luther Pratt, a resident of Overton originally from New Hampshire. Philander Ingalsby died at Overton in 1838 and Dr. H.S. Newman in 1839. Richard Alden stayed only a short time before returning to Pennsylvania.
Some blame politics, others unhealthy conditions of the location, but whatever the case may be, I have found no evidence that Overton was ever “thriving” in terms of a community. Instead, the emphasis seems to have been on its commercial importance which lasted for decades as it became known as Minden Lower Landing. Earlier sources acknowledge that it was only “believed that the location would be permanent and a thriving village would build up.” Regardless of its status as the parish seat, the life of Overton was much shorter than many believe. Just five years after it was created, in December 1841, Rev. T.A. Morris passed through Overton as he traveled from St. Louis to Texas. He wrote that Overton “was nearly deserted in favor of Minden.” In 1850, an unidentified writer for the New Orleans Weekly Delta mentions passing “the ruins of the city of Overton.”
Whatever may or may not have existed at Overton has long disappeared leaving nothing but a few headstones in the cemetery.
(Jessica Gorman is the Executive Director of the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Webster Parish Historian, and an avid genealogist.)