Prudhomme family.

The nearly 200 year history of the Prudhomme family as plantation owners began with Jean Pierre Emanuel Prudhomme (1762-1845), the son of Jean Baptiste Prudhomme (1736-1786), a physician, captain in the militia, and planter, and the grandson of Jean Pierre Philippe Prudhomme (circa 1673-1739), a merchant and trader who settled in the Natchitoches area in 1716. Emanuel married Marie Catherine Lambre (1763-1848) in 1782, and around 1792 he purchased land that straddled the Red River thirteen miles south of Natchitoches. He planted indigo and tobacco crops, and in 1795 introduced cotton to the region. He was the first planter to grow cotton on a large scale west of the Mississippi River in the Louisiana Purchase territory. In 1818 he began building a plantation house and in 1821 the family moved in. The house and plantation were called Bermuda until 1873, when it was partitioned by the family. The house and the land on the right bank of the Red River thereafter became known as Oakland.

Emanuel's son, P. Phanor Prudhomme I (1807-1865), appears to have taken over the family plantation in the 1840s. Phanor I was married to Suzanne Lize Metoyer (d. 1855) in 1835. The Metoyer family also seems to have owned considerable acreage in Natchitoches Parish, and may also have been active in commercial endeavors, such as cotton factorages and stores. The Prudhommes had five children: Adeline (1836-1878); J. Alphonse I (1838-1919); Emma (d. 1854); Henriette, (1848-1922); and Emanuel (1844-1934).

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