(Delivered by Col. H. J. de la Vergne, before the Louisiana Historical Society, December 20, 1911, at the Cabildo.)

As a direct descendant of Charles Frederick d' Arensburg, through the de la Chaise and Villere families, I come before this learned body of the Louisiana Historical Society, and ask its attention that I may set before it information concerning my ancestor. I had the occasion last spring to make a beautiful and delightful voyage in the land of the midnight sun. At Stockholm I employed the services of a professional genealogist, with the request that he should make researches on the origin of Charles Frederick d'Arensburg. A fortnight ago I received the notes compiled by my genealogist, and I think that in justice to my ancestor to his numerous descendants and to the history of Louisiana, it is my duty to make public the knowledge in my possession.

Karl Fredrik von Arensburg was a Swede of noble German ancestry. He saw the light of day in the German Parish of the picturesque city of Stockholm in the year 1693. He received a military education and became a lieutenant in the Sodermanland Battalion of Boarders (naval). On the 25th of May, 1719, he submitted an application for promotion to a captaincy, which he obtained. He had then served his Majesty Charles XII eight years, was a prisoner of war twice and was wounded seven times. After the Battle of Pultawa he obtained leave to go on a voyage to Germany, but was in want of money for that purpose. It is then that he obtained service with the West Indies Company as leader of the German settlers, who arrived in Louisiana on board the Portefaix on the 4th of June, 1721. He was then 28 years old. He married in Louisiana Miss Marguerite Metzrin in 1722. He was commander of the German Coast about half a century. He was made Chevalier de St. Louis by Louis XV, was the head of the Revolution of 1768 and died honored as a Patriarch in 1777.

He was the son of Johan Leonard von Arensburg, who was Master (warden) of the Royal Mint of Stettin, called Director of the Minting Concerns in Pommerania. Implicated in a political affair of the Pommeranian Counts Bielcke, he and his brothers, Julius Kristian and Zakaris Hartvig von Arensburg were arrested in March, 1698. In a document addressed to the King, dated Stockholm, May 11, 1701, he states that they were all three then prisoners, and they had been under arrest in Settin for fourteen months and in Stockholm thirty months, but had never been arraigned before any court. Their hostess, Judit Opperman, had lodged a complaint before His Majesty, regarding their debt to her, upwards of two hundred rixdalers for board and meals during more than one year. His freehold and personal estate and chattels, of very considerable value were seized and sequestrated. The rent of his freehold property had benefited the tenant, and his wife had not been allowed to take the needful bedding linen and clothing, but had been compelled, with her six big and little children, to wander about with a beggar's staff. In 1703 he had been imprisoned altogether for six years, and was very nearly compelled to beg his daily bread. His relatives lived in Germany, where they owned in the town of Stettin a considerable stone house, and just outside of the town other possessions of houses and property. According to a statement of his son, Charles Fredrik, in 1719, it appears that his father had been imprisoned in Stockholm during thirteen years and that their house and garden, situated in front of the Frauen Thor by Stettin was totally destroyed in the Russian siege of 1713. His father married on the 14th of September, 1692, Elisabet Eleonora Forsmandt-Manderstrom, who was born July 17, 1678, and who died October 10, 1710. She was the daughter of Erik Forsmander, Chief Inspector of Customs at Wismar, sorting under the Customs Department of Mecklenburg, who was ennobled in 1703 with the name of Manderstrom, now a baronial family.

Karl Fredrik von Arensburg had six brothers and sis

ters, among whom are mentioned Charlotta Lovisa, and Kristian Ludvig, both born in the German Parish of Stockholm, the former in 1699, and the latter in 1706. He had three uncles-Fredrik Kristian von Arensburg, who at the general muster and review of July 7, 1679, was Captain and Commander of a company in the Dragoon Regiment of Colonel Karl Gustaf Skytte (his signature exists).

2. Julius Kristian von Arensburg, who was in 1695 engaged at the Royal Mint at Stettin, Pomerania, at which period he was a wealthy man, but as up to 1698 there was nothing to be done there his substance was expended partly in his own support and partly in that of his serving men. In March, 1698, he was, as already stated, arrested, and all his remaining property, money, cash, silver and personal chattels were sequestered. On the 5th of November, 1711, he had been for thirty months and in a state of great misery imprisoned in Stockholm. He had relations in Strelitz. His father-in-law was governor in Mecklenburg.

3. Zakarias Hartvig von Arensburg, in 1696, was appointed Coinage Master-stamper at the Royal Mint at Stettin, and was Inspector of Customs in Stockholm in 1724. In 1743 he lived in a house in St. Catharine's Parish, Stockholm. He was arrested, together with his bothers, Johan Leonard and Julius Kristian in 1698, and had to spend his youth in misery and in prison.

The Chevalier d' Arensburg left a large posterity. Some of the most prominent families of Louisiana descend from him. According to Rietspap the coat of arms of the Arensburg is a shield parted, first, of argent, with a sable cross, and second of azure, with an argent eagle, inferring that they were knights of undaunted valor.

JACKSON, MISS.; THE STATE HISTORICAL DEPART

MENT AND LIBRARY.

(By Wm. Beer.)

Jackson, Miss., is a name with which we of New Orleans are very familiar. On our trips north we pass through it rapidly, but it deserves a longer stay. The railroad runs along the west side of a small stream which runs in to the Pearl River nearby, a stream navigable for over 100 miles of the city for eight months a year.

The main street runs across the railroad and due east to the old capitol building, it is well built up with handsome stores, on the north side of it are the Governor's mansion, and still further north the new and very handsome capitol building, finished in 1903, at a cost of a million dollars. The . main resident street runs north and south in front of the old capitol building, at North Street, bordered with very handsome private dwellings; about a mile out, is the prosperous Millsaps College, and the new Belhaven Female College. The most picturesque view of the city is available on a car line known as the west end car, which runs northwest parallel to the railroad to a new suburb. On the return journey there is a beautiful view across the valley, of the city embowered in fine trees, having for its center the noble dome of the capitol. My interest was centered in this building in which are placed the collections of the State Historical Department and of the State Library.

The first repository of the territorial archives was the old home of the Spanish governors at Natchez.

There is also evidence to show that the official records of the territory were taken to Natchez during the first year of the administration of Governor Sargent.

During the administration of Governor Claiborne the town of Washington was made the seat of the territorial government and the official records were moved there.

It is stated in a report of the trustees of Jefferson College

that the archives of the State were deposited with the college librarian when the Legislature of 1819 met in Natchez.

In 1821 the seat of government was located at Columbia and it is known that at least a part of the records were kept there, as several manuscripts, messages, bills and acts of the Legislature are dated at that place.

Jackson was made the capital of the State in 1812, and the archives were brought to the new seat of government between that year and 1824 and deposited, no doubt, in the old capitol building, which stood on the corner of Capitol and President Streets, where the Harding building now stands.

Many years ago it was my privilege to spend a day with Chancellor Fulton at Oxford, Mississippi, when I examined various collections of newspapers and documents which were in the care of the Historical Society; founded in 1858 and reorganized in 1890, with the assistance and approval of its members. In 1900 an Historical Commission was appointed which led up to the formation of a department of Archives and History of the State of Mississippi, to which was handed over all the material that I had seen at Oxford, and the general archives of the State.

It was this collection and the general result of the work of Dr. Rowland, who has been since its creation the director of it, which was the cause of my recent visit to Jackson On the removal of the state documents from the old capitol to the new Dr. Rowland found himself in charge of a vast mass of cumulated matter in addition to the partly classified material from the University. Dr. Rowland at once outlined the work of the department along three lines:

First, a museum and collection of portraits. These, now amounting to a large number of great interest, are together with battle flags and other valuable relics exhibited in fairly well lighted rooms at the east of the building.

Second, the collection, classification and binding of state newspapers, of which a splendid set commencing with a file of the Mississippi Messenger from 1805, and containing a