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:''For other communities of the same name, see Abbeville (disambiguation).'' Abbeville is a small city in and the parish seat of Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States,〔 west of New Orleans and southwest of Baton Rouge. It is the principal city of the Abbeville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Vermilion Parish. It is also part of the larger Lafayette–Acadiana Combined Statistical Area. The population was 12,257 at the 2010 census. == History == Formerly called La Chapelle, the land that was to become Abbeville was purchased by founding father Père Antoine Désiré Mégret (Père is French for 'Father'), a Capuchin missionary, on July 25, 1843, for $900. There are two theories as to how the town was named. The theory that was generally accepted as correct states that Mégret named the town after his home in France. The second theory that cannot be discounted states that it was a combination of "Abbe" for Abbé Mégret and "ville" the French word for town – thus Abbé's town. Some support for the second theory could be found in the fact that the town in France is pronounced "Abbville" by its denizens. However, in 1995, Fr. Jean Desobry discovered in the diocesan archives of Amiens the proof of Mégret's birthplace. In the archive was found the dossier of Fr. Antoine Jacques Désiré Mégret, and that he was born on May 23, 1797, at Abbeville and was to become founder of Abbeville in Louisiana. Dr Mary-Theresa MacCarthy states in her article ''Un Autre Abbeville'' in the 1996 edition of Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie (translation by Father Herbert), On February 12, 1844, the pastor gave to his American town the name of the town of his birth. The residents find this name especially fitting because of the French word abbé which means father (priest ) added to the French word ville (means town ). Their Abbeville is truly la ville de l'abbé (priest's town ).〔 The residents that settled the town were descendants of the Acadians from Nova Scotia that had moved to the area around 1766 to 1775. It was incorporated in 1850.〔 There were two people living on the land at that time, Joseph LeBlanc and his wife Isabelle Broussard, whose former home Father Megret converted into a chapel. The chapel burned in 1854, and St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church now stands at the same location. Father Megret modeled his original plan for the village after a French Provincial village. In a map he made in 1846, the town was 38 to in size. It was bounded on the north by St. Victor Boulevard, on the south by Lafayette Boulevard, on the east by "the Sisters of Charity," and on the west by Bayou Vermilion. At this point in time the town was called “Abbville”. At the center of downtown is Magdalen Square, which is accented by large oak trees, a fountain, and gazebo. A statue in memory of Father Megret stands in the square. Megret's Chapel was destroyed by fire in 1854, and in its place, in 1910, was built St. Mary Magdalen Church. In 1856, the Last Island Hurricane destroyed every building in the town. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Abbeville, Louisiana」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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