Grandpère's Tomb

Augustin Metoyer is remembered as the founder of St. Augustine, the church at the center of the Isle Brevelle community, and the founding is told two ways. Tradition gives 1803 and says services never stopped; parish records document a chapel consecrated on 19 July 1829 as a mission of Natchitoches, made a parish of its own on 11 March 1856. His tomb in the churchyard was in critical condition by 2013. Conservation began in March 2015 under Teddy Pierre, a fourth-generation master craftsman from New Orleans, with Isle Brevelle mason Stephen Roque assisting and learning the methods.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. Augustine Church, Isle Brevelle — steps away
  The parish church at the heart of the Cane River Creoles of color, begun by Augustin Metoyer on his family's land and still holding Mass for the community that grew from Marie Thérèse Coincoin's children.
• Melrose Plantation — 0.6 mi
  The Cane River estate built on land granted to Louis Metoyer, son of Marie Thérèse Coincoin, with the Yucca House and African House, later an artists' retreat; guided tours Thursday to Sunday.
• Cane River Creole National Historical Park — 5.2 mi
  Oakland and Magnolia, two Cane River cotton plantations kept as they stood, told through the enslaved families who worked them, the 1864 and 1804 freedom seekers and the tenant farmers who stayed into the 1960s.
• Kisatchie National Forest: Longleaf Vista — 8.3 mi
  A free ridge-top overlook and 1.5-mile loop above the 8,700-acre Kisatchie Hills Wilderness on the Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway, in the forest Caroline Dormon helped win in 1930.

More markers nearby

• Yucca House — 0.6 mi
• Big House — 0.6 mi
• African House and Clementine Hunter's Murals — 0.6 mi
• Clementine Hunter Home and Studio — 0.6 mi