1991 Chapter 5 Historic Setting

The Project Area, 1869-1880

Reconstruction along Bavou Teche

Besides repairing the physical damage to their holdings and recouping the financial losses of property, including slave property, planters who wished to resume operations of sugar plantations had to deal for the first time with a labor supply that was not enslaved. Before labor could be hired, many obstacles had to be overcome, not least of which was the complete lack of trust exhibited on both sides in the bargaining. Nevertheless, by 1869 planters in St. Mary Parish were hiring workers at $15.00 to $20.00 a month for first class hands, with cabin, rations, and wood included in the bargain (Sitterson 1953:244). As might be expected, the cabins, originally slave quarters, were insubstantial structures. William T. Palfrey had a carpenter build some at Ricohoc in the 1850s for $25.00 each (Sitterson 1953:67).

The political situation in occupied Louisiana was unstable, and this was particularly true in St. Mary Parish, where newly enfranchised blacks outnumbered whites three to one. At the first parish election in 1868, a sheriff and a parish judge were elected. Both were black and both subsequently were murdered (Broussard and Broussard 1955:17).

In 1869, when Bouchereau resumed the chronicle of the sugar crops which Champomier had written in the antebellum period, only four plantations were operating in the project vicinity; Fairfax, Grandwood, the Cornay’s Radiviile, and Joseph Charpentier’s former property, then under the proprietorship of Dr. H. N. Sanders (Figure 8).

Judge Baker, who for the first six months of 1868 was governor of Louisiana, had resumed planting on both the right and left banks of Fairfax Plantation. He was using steam trains and open pans in his sugar house, which was constructed of brick with a slate roof. The last recorded production at Fairfax Plantation, under Dr. Bisland’s ownership in 1862, had been 565 hogsheads. Judge Baker's yield of 1869 was 205 hogsheads of sugar (L. Bouchereau 1869:42). After financial reverses. Judge Baker in 1874 gave up Fairfax Plantation. He became state engineer in 1875 and afterward retired to live with his daughter in Connecticut (Conrad 1988:31). A succession of proprietors assumed planting at Fairfax Plantation, but no major changes in the operation of the plantation occurred before 1880.

Mrs. Meade's upper tract was especially slow in resuming planting after the Civil War, during which her sugar house had been destroyed. Before the war, Mrs. Meade had planted her upper tract on the left bank only. After the war, her upper tract was worked on the right bank only, outside the project area. Under a new proprietor, who named the plantation Mound Place, some cane was harvested in 1871, but not until 1876 was a new wooden sugar house built. It used steam and kettles (L. Bouchereau 1877:76). Subsequent operations at the plantation can be briefly summarized. It remained independent if not prosperous for many years. In the 1890s, Mound Place abandoned sugar manufacture and became a cane plantation only. By 1920, it had become part of the Shadyside Company.

In 1869, Grandwood Plantation (Bethel’s upper plantation) was once again operating on both the right and left banks of the Teche. Steam and kettles were used in the sugar house, which was constructed of brick with a shingle roof. It was on '.he right bank of the Teche. Grandwood Plantation's yield of 1862 had been 480 hogsheads. The output of 1869 was 367 hogsheads (L. Bouchereau 1869:42). By 1870, Pinckney C. Bethel also had resumed operations at his lower tract. Live Oak Grove Plantation. He did not rebuild his destroyed sugar house at the lower plantation but continued to use his brick sugar house at Grandwood. Both Grandwood and Live Oak Grove passed from his proprietorship in the late 1870s, but no major changes in the operation of the plantations took place by 1880.

Below Bethel’s establishment was the plantation of the Cornay family, who spelled their surname very erratically. Bouchereau listed them as Cornet. Whatever the spelling, this family also once again was planting on both banks of the bayou by 1869, but they had abandoned sugar for rice. Their sugar house and their residence had been destroyed in the Civil War. Using horse power in their wooden rice mill, they produced 60 barrels of rice in 1869 (L. Bouchereau 1869:42). In the next season, the Cornays resumed sugar production on the left bank and replaced their wooden rice mill on the right bank with a brick, shingle-roofed mill.

In 1871, Daniel Thompson, a successful businessman from Chicago, acquired Radiville Plantation from the Cornays and renamed it Calumet. Thompson immediately converted the mill from steam and kettles to the use of steam and open pans, and by 1880, he had adapted the same structure to the use of steam kettles, vacuum pans, and centrifugals (L Bouchereau 1871:54; 1872:52; A. Bouchereau 1881:18).

Known in the postbellum era as Avalon Plantation, the Fuselier establishment on the left bank also was slow to recover from the war. Fuselier’s dwelling had been destroyed in the conflict, and planting did not resume until 1869, when Pinckney C. Bethel tried operating the tract. At that time, there was a wooden sugar house which used steam and kettles (L. Bouchereau 1870:67). This structure is depicted on the left bank of the Teche in Howell’s chart of 1870 (Figures 11 and 12). The following year, the property was acquired by Joseph H. Acklen, a rich young Tennessee Unionist who had sat out the Civil War. Acklen consolidated his holdings on the Teche and acquired the former property of the Widow Stanley on the right bank and the holdings of Duguy on the left bank. Since neither of these tracts had a postbellum sugar house, Acklen used the Fuselier sugar house in the project area without modification. He made no agricultural innovations on the plantation, but he was an important figure in the politics of Reconstruction in Louisiana. As a Democrat, he successfully contested the Republican candidate for Congress in 1878 and won a seat in the House of Representatives. At that time, he gave up his planting operations in the project area (Conrad 1988:4). Successive owners modified the sugar house apparatus at Avalon, but they used the same wooden structure for many years to come.

After the Civil War, Dr. Henry J. Sanders acquired Mrs. Meade’s lower plantation on the left bank and began operations there in 1870. Although his name is incorrectly spelled "Saunders," his house is shown on the left bank in Howell’s chart of that year (Figure 11). At that time, he had a brick, slate roofed sugar house which is depicted in Howell’s chart downstream on the left bank from Sanders’ dwelling. Sanders named his holdings Luckland Plantation (Figure 13). By 1880, he had absorbed Joseph Charpentier’s antebellum holdings into Luckland.

Thomas Wilcoxon's place, the next downstream and on the left and right banks of the bayou, was slow to recuperate from the Civil War. Wilcoxon’s dwelling and his sugar house were destroyed during the conflict. Nevertheless, Wilcoxon built a wooden, horse powered sugar house and he was able to produce 93 hogsheads of sugar in 1871 (L Bouchereau 1871:54). In 1872, G. G. Zenor acquired the Wilcoxon place, converted the wooden mill from horse to steam power, and renamed the tract Moro Plantation.

The Zenor family had an important influence on the project area after the Civil War. They originally were from Kentucky but migrated to the Natchez region, where G. G. Zenor was born and finished high school. After helping his father plant in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, Zenor moved in 1868 to St. Mary Parish, his wife’s home. The couple had three sons; Webb, Oscar, and George (Perrin 1891:388). Oscar in particular was to become a leading planter and sugar manufacturer in the project vicinity, and Moro Plantation was to be the nucleus of the family’s expanding operations for many years to come.

The plantation of Richard Lynch was the point where the bayou joins the Atchafalaya. It also was slow to recover from the Civil War. His sugar house had been destroyed. Lynch died soon after the war, but his heirs rebuilt the wooden sugar house in 1870, in approximately the same location. It is shown in Howell’s chart of that year (Figure 11). Nevertheless, the Lynch heirs produced only 26 hogsheads in their first postwar endeavor of 1871, and 18 hogsheads in 1872, as compared to 349 in the invasion year (L. Bouchereau 1871:54; 1872:52)). In consequence, the heirs in 1872 sold their plantation to the Zenor family, who incorporated Lynch’s Point into their newly created Moro Plantation. In 1873, the rebuilt sugar house at Wilcoxon’s former holdings, the upper part of Moro Plantation, again was destroyed (L. Bouchereau 1874:70). The Zenors, therefore, used the Lynch sugar house at the lower tract of Moro Plantation until 1880. Thereafter, they transferred sugar production to River Side, a Zenor family holding outside the project area on the river below Patterson.

Navigation of Bavou Teche

Following the Civil War, plantations along the Teche slowly recovered, and regular commercial utilization of the river resumed. Steamers, packet boats, and barges plied the bayou transporting passengers and cargo between the Attakapas region and the railroad at Brashear City. Obstructions placed in the bayou during the Civil War, along with remains of destroyed wharves and bridges, and accumulation of debris such as live oak trees, continued to inhibit navigation, damaging and sinking many vessels.

Captain E. B. Trinidad, of the U.S. Mail steamer Warren Bell, was so concerned about the safety of the Teche waterway that in 1868 he prepared a sketch of Bayou Teche which depicted 41 obstructions to navigation within the bayou (Figure 14). He also requested that these obstructions be removed. While many consisted of trees within and overhanging the bayou, the majority were sunken vessels, most of which Trinidad named. In 1870, the Warren Bell itself sank in the Teche after it hit a shallow underwater obstruction.

In response to the need for a cleared channel, legislation was passed in 1870 directing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to survey Bayou Teche, from its mouth to River Mile 75.5, for obstructions, and to prepare a cost estimate for removing these obstructions. The resultant survey was conducted in May 1870 by Major C.W. Howell, of the Corps of Engineers (Figure 11). The obstructions within the channel subsequently were removed (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 1870, 1915).

Throughout the 1870s, waterborne commerce c.. the Teche continued to expand. By 1884, Major Stickney, of the Corps of Engineers, wrote:

The commerce of the Teche is considerable, and is probably greater than that of any stream of the same length in Louisiana. The lands bordering the bayou are rich and are all under cultivation, principally in sugar cane. It may be said to be the center of the sugar industry in the State. Cotton, cattle, hides, wool, moss, lumber, &c-, are also produced in quantities. The trade supports a line of steamers which make regular trips to New Orleans about three times in two weeks, besides steamers which make daily trips to Morgan City and other small steamers in local trade (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 1884:1273).

However, the importance of riverine transportation was undermined in the late nineteenth century. In 1869, Charles Morgan purchased the bankrupt New Orleans, Opelousas and Great Western Railroad Company, and changed its name to Morgan’s Louisiana and Texas Railroad. While extension of the railroad started slowly, by 1880, Morgan had extended the railroad from Morgan City to Houston (Millet 1983).

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.