1991 Chapter 5 Historic Setting

The Project Area, 1880-1910

Development along Bavou Teche

The period from 1880 to 1910 was an era of consolidation in the project area. By 1880, the sugar plantation regime had recovered from the Civil War, and the chronicler of the sugar crop no longer felt it necessary to compare annual crops with the pre¬ invasion yield of 1862. Halted by the war, the trend toward consolidation once again advanced. Furthermore, during these years there was a change in the old antebellum system whereby each plantation was a factory as well as a farm. Large processing plants developed that made it uneconomical and unnecessary for each plantation to have its own sugar house. Figure 15 shows the consolidation of plantations along the lower Teche, 1862-1920, and indicates the development of large sugar factories and their proprietary lands during this period.

Fairfax Plantation in the 1880s was far less prosperous than it had been in the pre- Civil War era. It had poor yields in the decade, and like most of the plantations in the project area, it had no yield at all in 1882, the year of the disastrous flood along the Teche. In the season of 1886, the plantation attempted to cultivate rice as well as sugar, but this experiment was unsuccessful (A. Bouchereau 1886:11). After 1886, Fairfax Plantation disappeared from the sugar reports as a separate entity. It was absorbed by the Shadyside Company (Figure 8).

Bethel’s upper and lower plantations, Grandwood and Live Oak Grove, began the 1880s still manufacturing sugar in Grandwood’s brick sugar house. Yields in the 1880s, however, never equalled the pre-Civil War output. In the late 1880s, Grandwood attempted to refine sugar, but this effort failed. Consequently, in the 1890s all the former Bethel holdings were absorbed by Calumet Plantation, Daniel Thompson’s establishment below the Bethel tracts. Under Daniel Thompson’s proprietorship. Calumet Plantation was among the leading agricultural enterprises in Louisiana. Thompson’s experiences at Calumet give insight into developments in the project area in the 1880s and afterward.

Born in Maine in 1821 and orphaned at the age of three, Thompson had been educated as a civil engineer and migrated in the 1840s to the Midwest, where he became involved in the elevator and grain storage business in Chicago. He was so successful that he expanded into other enterprises, including real estate, timberland, oil, streetcar systems, and banking. His health seems to have motivated him to purchase the Cornays’ sugar plantation in the project area. At first, he resided there only a few months a year, but in 1879 he made it his permanent residence (Marquette 1940:521-523).

With his business acumen and yankee ingenuity, he invested in apparatus to improve the manufacture of sugar. Early in the 1880s he reported.

As usual each year I am spending some considerable money ... to increase my sugar house capacity. I am glad to say the manner in which I have done work for other persons gives such satisfaction that I am obliged already to turn away work to the amt. of $12,000 to $15,000. Will probably make for self and others 2,500,000 lbs. sugar which is about the capacity of the house for our short season of say 75 days... (Marquette 1940:536).

In May 1882, however, a severe flood inundated the project vicinity. The flooding destroyed all the crops and put Calumet Plantation under water. There were 11 in of water in Thompson's house. The flood drove the black laborers from their cabins; Thompson put them up in his sugar house, which luckily escaped damage. Every bridge on the bayou was washed away. According to Thompson, "The loss is such that I hear of some places that will not try to start again. Were it not for my fine sugar house and machinery with its large capacity to do outside work I think I should abandon and flee to the mountains" (Marquette 1940:537).

Thompson’s chief contribution to sugar cultivation in Louisiana was his experiments with fertilizer (Heitman 1987:65). By this means, he was able to increase the yield per acre considerably. In 1884, he reported that he had an output of 1,200,000 pounds of sugar from his 300 acres at Calumet. He said:

The crop for the No. of acres is quite remarkable, and exceeds anything in the State. The price of sugar however is very low and the rate of wages very high, so the profit is not large. I think it is more profitable for me to make sugar for others...than to cultivate the cane....Our improved machinery enables us to compete with the refineries, except in adulterating and they may drive the planters into that, altho I think none of it is done yet on our plantations.... (Marquette 1940:538).

In the late 1880s, Thompson continued to experiment with means of improving cane cultivation and the manufacture of sugar. Before the Federal government sponsored such programs, Thompson created what he called an agricultural experiment station at Calumet Plantation and funded it from his own pocket. His son reported in December 1887 that a chemist and two other experts, one from England, were in the household for the season. The men were experimenting “without marked success" in several new processes (Marquette 1940:544).

Thompson was one of the earliest leaders in the project area to see how profitable it could be to "make sugar for others." The Cornays had built a brick sugar house in the late 1860s. Thompson converted it from steam and kettles to steam and open pans, then to steam kettles, vacuum pans, and centrifugal force. By 1890, he had installed double effects, vacuum pans, and centrifugals (A. Bouchereau 1890-1892:47), and in 1898 the Calumet factory was using the Deming system of clarification (Glass 1898:65). The following year Calumet Plantation produced more than 3,000,000 pounds of sugar for itself and for its neighbors (A. Bouchereau 1899:11). Thompson had the foresight to see that the manufacture of sugar for others could be an extremely profitable means of livelihood.

Thompson’s son echoed his father’s views. In a speech to the Louisiana State Agricultural Society in 1892, Wilbray Thompson said that the principal impediment to sugar cultivation was the retention of the antebellum system which united the growing of cane with the manufacture of sugar. He called for large central factories to process the product (Sitterson 1953:259).

Below Calumet Plantation was Avalon, the former Fuselier holding. After his election to Congress in 1878, Joseph Acklen sold this property. It eventually came into the hands of John Henderson, who was proprietor during the disastrous flood of 1882. Henderson produced refined sugar in the 1880s but not until 1893 did Avalon assume its position of leadership in the project area. In that year, the plantation was acquired by Oscar and Webb Zenor (A. Bouchereau 1894:8). A few years later, they listed the size of Avalon as 1,300 acres (Glass 1898:75). Converting the sugar house to double effects, vacuum pans, and centrifugals, the Zenors made Avalon a leading factory for the manufacture of sugar, producing more than 3,000,000 pounds annually from 1900 to 1910.

Below Avalon was Luckland Plantation, the establishment in the 1880s of Dr. H. J. Sanders. He created Luckland from Mrs. Meade’s lower holdings and from the tract of Joseph Charpentier. In 1882, he acquired the former Baskerville plantation (A. Bouchereau 1883:13). Sanders in 1886 consolidated sugar manufacture into one factory on Mrs. Meade’s lower tract on the left bank, and he converted her sugar house to steam kettles, vacuum pans, and centrifugals (A. Bouchereau 1887:8). He soon was manufacturing for his neighbors almost as much sugar as Daniel Thompson of Calumet. By the 1890s, Sanders had converted the sugar house at Luckland to double effects, vacuum pans, and centrifugals in a sugar house constructed of wood and iron. In 1896, he manufactured more than 3,000,000 pounds of sugar (A. Bouchereau 1896:8). This was clearly sugar production for others; Luckland Plantation at the time consisted of only 572 acres (Glass 1898:73). After the death of Sanders early in the next century, his family leased the Luckland operation. It still was manufacturing sugar in 1910, but it had dropped behind its competitors at Shadyside and Avalon.

At the lowest reach of the project area was Moro Plantation, which the Zenor family had created from the Wilcoxon and Lynch holdings. In the 1880s, the Zenors transferred production of sugar from Moro to their factory at River Side, outside the project area below the town of Patterson. When the Zenors acquired Avalon in 1893, they also used its factory for the production of sugar. Nevertheless, the Zenors continued to operate a large cane plantation at Moro. In 1898, this plantation consisted of 295 acres (Glass 1898:75).

By the turn of the century, considerable consolidation took place within the project area and the planting of cane had been separated from the manufacture of sugar. Shadyside emerged as the giant in the vicinity, controlling Fairfax and Ricohoc plantations but manufacturing sugar outside the project area at the factory at Shadyside. The Ohio- born proprietor of Shadyside, James W. Barnett, was among a prominent group of northern businessmen who entered the sugar industry after the Civil War {Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer XXXIII: 117). Barnett joined a series of plantations which in 1898 encompassed more than 5,000 acres of land, 3,000 of which were in cultivation. The acreage would increase in the twentieth century. There was a private tramway joining the different plantations, besides the railroad line which had a private locomotive and 60 cars to haul cane in the height of the harvesting season. At the refinery at Shadyside, up the bayou, the equipment included a Krajewski crusher, a six-roller mill, one 9 ft and one 10 ft vacuum pan, ten centrifugals, a 150,000 pound double effect, Deming system of clarification, and numerous pumps and boilers (Glass 1898:71). In 1902, Shadyside manufactured more than 9,000,000 pounds of sugar.

Below Fairfax at the beginning of the century was Calumet Plantation, which absorbed the former Bethel Plantations. Daniel Thompson died in 1900, but his heirs still held Calumet, where in 1902 they manufactured more than 3,000,000 pounds of sugar. Oscar Zenor of Avalon, that same year, also exceeded the 3,000,000 pound mark, and manufactured almost as much sugar as the Thompson heirs at Calumet. Luckland Plantation, however, had dropped behind: the factory there produced only 2,200,000 pounds. Oscar Zenor's Moro Plantation continued to grow cane to be manufactured into sugar at the Zenor’s plantation at Avalon (A. Bouchereau 1902:11).

By 1910, Shadyside had acquired Daniel Thompson’s holdings at Calumet, closed down his sugar factory, and transferred operations up the bayou to it plant at Shadyside. James Barnett died in 1904, but his sons led the giant corporation. Shadyside manufactured sugar from the canefields of Fairfax, Ricohoc, Grandwood, Live Oak Grove, and Calumet Plantations. After 1910, Little Mound Plantation, Mrs. Meade’s upper tract, would be added to Shadyside’s lands. The fields of the project area were still planted in cane in 1910, but the manufacture of sugar there was confined to two plants: Avalon, the establishment of the Zenors, and Luckland, still leased by the heirs of H. J. Sanders. In 1912, Shadyside manufactured 8,500,000 pounds of sugar, Avalon produced almost 4,000,000 pounds, and Luckland’s output was less than 2,000,000 (A. Bouchereau 1912:13). In this age of corporate growth, it was clear which enterprise would be the next absorbed. Soon thereafter, Avalon engulfed Luckland and the entire project area was divided between Shadyside and Avalon, the enterprise of the Zenors.

Decline of Navigation of Bavou Teche

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, utilization of Bayou Teche as an important transportation route declined rapidly. Increasing amounts of cargo and numbers of passengers utilized the less expensive, faster, and more reliable rail. oad. By the 1890s, most of the local waterborne freight was carried on packet boats such as the John M. Chambers, and the two packet boats operated by Captain L T. Be'r’s New Iberia stationed Belt line. These packet boats maintained regular schedules on the Teche as they transported mail, cargo, and passengers. However, they were ui .able to efficiently compete with the railroad; by 1915, packet boats no longer were used along the Teche (Brasseaux 1979).

Extracted 24 Jun 2020 by Norma Hass from "Historical and Archeological Investigations of Fort Bisland and Lower Bayou Teche, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana" by Defense Technical Information Center, published 02 Jun 1991, pages 45-105.