Jim Bradshaw: 'The best sheriff ever'

They said the argument began over a $78 bar tab. It ended one night in late February 1875 when Louis Rousseau, owner of a Ville Platte “grog-shop,” shot and killed Cyrinque Brignac. When sheriff’s deputies went to investigate, the newspapers said, Rousseau “had departed for parts unknown.”
That was how the “active and vigilant” sheriff C. C. Duson came to be involved in one of the exploits that helped establish the legend that he always got his man, and that caused the Lake Charles Echo to proclaim that Louisiana had never seen a better sheriff.
Even though Rousseau had vanished, the sheriff “kept his eyes and ears open,” according to the news reports, and, a few weeks after the shooting, got word that Rousseau was hiding in Terrebonne Parish, Duson immediately headed south, but after “a thorough search” was “unrewarded in getting any trace of the fugitive.”
But in July, Duson found out that Louis’s brother, Martin, “was on the eve of taking a journey,” and “a man with whom [Martin] was unacquainted was put to watch his movements.”
When the man discovered that Martin was heading for the Indian Territory, as Oklahoma was called then, the sheriff turned to the 1870s version of the internet and “immediately began telegraphing the different points through which [Martin] would pass.” He soon got word from Oklahoma authorities that Martin had joined his brother at a place called Chauton Station.
Duson and a deputy, Clarence L. Hayes, went to New Orleans, where they boarded a steamboat for St. Louis, and from there took a train to Gibson Station, about 25 miles from Chauton Station. They wanted to get their arrest order endorsed by local authorities before going on, but “failed to find any authorized person who would issue a warrant.”
Duson decided to go on to Chauton anyway and was at the depot waiting for a train when “two men passed through the building, who afterwards proved to be Louis and Martin Rousseau.” The sheriff did not see them, but Louis saw and recognized Duson.
The fugitive “secreted himself in an adjoining corn field and sent his brother back to be doubly certain” that they had really seen Duson. That was a mistake. This time Duson saw Martin, arrested him, and found out where Louis was hiding. Louis surrendered when the sheriff went to the edge of the field and “called out to him.”
After “bagging his game” Duson, Hayes, and Louis Rousseau, “striking through Missouri and Arkansas,” made their way to Galveston, where they boarded a steam ship that took them to Brashear City (Morgan City) and from there made their way to the jail in Opelousas, “having made the round trip in eleven days.” That was good time; one newspaper editor calculated that the sheriff traveled some 1,200 miles, all of it at his own expense.
The editors of the Opelousas Courier said that “Sheriff Duson certainly deserves great credit for his zeal in the matter, as he was prompted solely by his sense of duty, and anxiety to bring a criminal to justice, there being no reward offered for Rousseau and all of the expense of his capture having been paid by Duson out of his own pocket.”
Rousseau, apparently realized that a hangman’s noose was in his future and tried to kill himself while waiting for trial. He “secretly obtained possession of a wine glass [and] pounded it into small fragments, which he swallowed with his food.” That caused him “atrocious” suffering but did not kill him.
He was tried in November 1875, convicted, and, as he had anticipated, sentenced to be hanged. He appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court, but to no avail. The sentence was carried out on June 8, 1877.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters, "is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.