Ernest Lagarde (September 4, 1836 – October 25, 1914) was a mixed race Creole author, journalist, professor, publisher, and linguist.

He started a newspaper for Mount Saint Mary's College called The Mountain Echo.

College of Saint Francis Xavier (New York) conferred on Lagarde a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)

[7] At the time, people of color in the region were persecuted by strict laws and being listed legally as white was desirable.

[8] The court eventually sided with Dragon, allowing her to keep her property and white status, ruling that the family as a whole had been in possession of the right to be categorized as a person not born of Negro heritage.

[9] Another incident involving the Dimitry family included Lagarde's sister's husband George Pandely.

[10] Pandely won th election, which was in 1853, but resigned the office seven months later because of the public pressure brought on by Wiltz's accusations.

Three similar cases were Cauchoix v. Dupuy (1831), Bollumet v. Phillips (1842), and Dobard et al. v. Nunez (1851) dealing with race.

[11][12][13][14][15] The Pandely Affair motivated later generations of the Dimitry family to create a new genealogy in which they claimed descent from a mythical, Indian princess of the Alibamu tribe named Malanta Talla.

She belonged to Charles Daprémont de La Lande, a member of the Superior Council and she is listed as mulatto.

[11] Despite enduring racial atrocities when he was in his teenage years, Lagarde was committed to personal advancement and his education.

He remained heavily influenced by his uncle, the scholar Alexander Dimitry, and continued to be close to him.

By the late 1850s, the family had survived the Pandely Affair, and Lagarde became the Librarian of the Mercantile Library Association in New Orleans, working there from 1857 to 1860.

He also started a political campaign publication named The Sentinel, which he published together with his cousin Charles P. Dimitry.

[14] During the American Civil War, Lagarde joined the Crescent Regiment, under Colonel Marshall J.

[18][4] At the end of the Civil War, Lagarde was appointed professor of modern languages at Randolph Macon College then located in Mecklenburg County, Virginia.

[20] In 1869, he was elected Chair of Modern Languages and English Literature at Mount Saint Mary College, a position he held for the rest of his life.

Lagarde was honored by College of Saint Francis Xavier (New York) which conferred him a degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.).

The home was built in the typical Victorian architectural style that was prevalent at the time in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Lagarde published the school's first newspaper The Mountain Echo from his library at Inglewood Estate.