D'Iberville Fire Department MISS patch

 In February, 1699, Pierre LeMoyne Sieur d’Iberville anchored off the Mississippi Coast in three large ships, with 200 French, Canadian, and West Indies settlers and a contingent of 50 French marines, at what they called “Ship Island.”
A Canadian naval hero, Iberville had been charged by France’s King Louis XIV with completing the failed final mission of the explorer LaSalle to find the Gulf outlet of the Mississippi River and to establish French footholds-colonial settlements and outposts-throughout the lower Mississippi Valley.

Tides and weather permitting, Iberville took a small landing party onto the coastal mainland and made fast friends with the natives. They assisted him in finding the mouth of the river. This first task completed, he built a small fortress, which he named “Maurepas” for the family name of Count Ponchartrian, the French Minister of Marine. At the fort, he then laid plans for settlement and ultimate French colonization of the region as part of “New France.” He named the vast areas he sought to colonize “Louisiana” after the “Sun King” Louis.