Charley Andrew White, Woods Superintendent (1873-1951)

Charley Andrew White, the eldest son of Virginia Cathey and Andrew J. White, was born on New Year's Day 1873 in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. The world Charley was born into was full of racial tension. He was just 103 days old when the Colfax Massacre took place that year on Easter Sunday, about 80 miles south of his home. As many as 150 men, all but three of whom were Black, were murdered at the Colfax courthouse in Grant Parish, Louisiana—the deadliest incident of racial and political violence of the Reconstruction Era.

When Charley was three years old, white men were still undoing Reconstruction Era policies in spectacular fashion. The Supreme Court decided, in U.S. v. Cruikshank, that the federal government couldn't prosecute individuals for civil rights violations; only states could. As Charley grew up in the 1880s, he witnessed the total collapse of Reconstruction Era protections for Black Americans and the solidified rise of the Jim Crow system in North-Central Louisiana and the broader South.

Zion Memorial Cemetery in Grant Parish, Louisiana
Image by Candy Reardon Estrada (2011)

On 8 July 1896, in Winn Parish, Charley married Alice M. Long. She was the daughter of Lucy Wright and William Jefferson Long, as well as a second cousin to brothers Huey Pierce "Kingfish" Long, Jr., and Earl Kemp Long. Suffice it to say, Charley married into a political dynasty, albeit an eccentric one. Both Huey Pierce and Earl Kemp were governors of Louisiana. Huey Pierce Long, Jr.—the "Every Man a King" governor—was assassinated at the state capitol in 1935. Earl Kemp Long was briefly committed to a mental hospital the year before he died in 1960.

Given this chaotic political landscape in which Charley was born and raised, he lived a relatively stable life. By the early 1900s, Charley had become involved in the booming timber industry. When he registered for the draft in 1918, Charley stated his occupation was woods foreman for the Grant Timber and Manufacturing Company located in Selma, Grant Parish, Louisiana. Selma was a town built around this company that owned hundreds of thousands of acres of pine and hardwoods, and milled tens of millions of feet of lumber a year.

As a foreman, a mid-to-high level management position, Charley would oversee crews in the forests where the timber was harvested. According to his obituary, Charley served as woods superintendent for the Selma Lumber Company for 35 years, suggesting he was promoted to an executive field position. In this capacity, he likely oversaw the movement of logging camps—mobile villages where workers lived for longer periods of time deep in the woods.

A snapshot of this responsibility can be seen in the 1930 Selma, Grant Parish, Louisiana Federal census. Though his occupation is listed simply as saw mill laborer, the same occupation as nine other white men in the household, it's possible Charley was managing a company boarding house. In timber towns, the company would often entrust a high-ranking employee (and his wife) to oversee the housing and moral character of unmarried laborers.

(Click to Enlarge)

Over the course of his life with the Selma Lumber Company, Charley witnessed the entire arc of the Louisiana timber industry. From the boom years, when the forests were thick and the mill was running at full capacity, to the eventual "cutting out" (total harvesting) of the local forests, to the transition to conservation efforts that led to the creation of the Kisatchie National Forest that now encompasses much of the land once owned by companies like Grant Timber.

For further reading:

• A History of the Kisatchie National Forest (pdf)

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Genealogical Notes

The shared ancestors between Alice Long and the Long brothers of Louisiana politics are Dr. James Long (1790-1876) and Mary Ann Kirkman (1794-1866), who were married on 17 October 1816 in Ross County, Ohio. Applicable children:

• Charles Whatley Long (1821-1862) m. Lucretia Rushing (b. abt 1827)
• William J. Long (1851-1943) m. Lucy Wright (1860-1948)
• Alice M. Long (1880-1966) m. Charley Andrew White (1873-1951)
• John Murphy Long (1825-1901) m. Mary Elizabeth Wingate (1829-1901)
• Huey Pierce Long, Sr. (1852-1937) m. Caledonia Paletine "Callie" Tison (1860-1913)
• Huey Pierce Long, Jr. (1893-1935)
• Earl Kemp Long (1895-1960) m. Blanche Revere (1902-1998)

Children of Alice M. Long and Charley Andrew White:

• Shafter Lewis White (1898-1900)
• Bessie Ann White (1900-1981)
• Charles Otto White (1902-1977)
• Willie Dee White (1909-1981)

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