My last time down in Lower Pearl River Country was in July, about this time, 2005.
The last few pictures of Pearlington and lands bordering the Pearl River were to become, probably, some of the last mementos of an era. I believe it was August 31 when what was left of the old communities was no more as Katrina did what Katrina did.
From the write, "Riding the Pearl Down":
I have been collecting bits and pieces of information about the lumber companies, the company towns, and as many pictures as I could find, for a while. Then, for a couple of days I got into a "feeding frenzy" and ripped through the internet following threads of information to the end of each fray.
And, of course, I only scratched the surface, but it was enough to satisfy my appetite.
Let me add right here before I forget.
Many of the great pictures were found on the Hancock County Historical Society's pages.
I merely grouped them to fit this offering.
You can spend hours there.
Then the computer crashed due to a power outage at a very bad time, when it was shutting down.
After two day, I'm back up with enough steam to post what I've found.
I'm afraid there will be no roads but those on a 1914 map which I'll post right now. It is huge and by clicking it you should be able to download the original uploaded version. It is the first time machine.
The red lines are railroads. The brown ones are roads.
I suggest downloading he large version and opening it up so you can follow along.
Click and Save.
This is the first of many "histories".
This I got from the government.
The canal was a boondoggle that never did anything but waste money and supplied a few jobs.
Bogalusa did not become a port.
I had thought of just posting the lumber industry stuff, but, this guy did an alright job of portraying the history of the area. Then he dives into the towns, my interest.
I'm including the References for your reading enjoyment.
Now to meet a personality and more background information.
Fixing these online writes is always a joy.
They can't spail nar punuate.
Henry Weston of Logtown, Mississippi ...author ... unknown.
Henry Weston was born Jan 9,1823 in Skowhegan Island, Somerset County, Maine to John Whitney Weston and Sarah "Sally" Parker Walker.
Henry and a brother, Levi, migrated from Maine to Sheboygan, Wisconsin in the fall of 1844 looking for better business opportunities. He was also looking for a healthier place to live. Several members of his family had died of tuberculosis. He initially got a job floating logs down the Eau Claire River, but later operated a sawmill on the same river. Because of his health, he decided to move south.
Henry migrated to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1846, where he stayed about a month. While looking for a job on the wharf he noticed a schooner hauling lumber from Gainesville, Mississippi to New Orleans. A discussion with the Captain convinced Henry that he should be in Mississippi where the logging industry seemed to be going strong. The captain hired him as a deck hand in return for his passage from New Orleans to Gainesville, Mississippi. As Henry often explained the trip, he left New Orleans on the schooner with everything he possessed tied up in a red bandana handkerchief. Shortly after arriving in Mississippi, Captain William J. Bill Poitevent gave him a job working for Poitevent and Favre Lumber Company for $49 a month. His talent was soon recognized and he was promoted to the job of sawyer, the most important and highest paid job in the mill. This mill was large for its day, processing 7000 board feet per day. His talents as a first class sawyer became well known and on July 1846 he was offered the job of managing Judge David Robert Wingate's sawmill in Logtown, Mississippi. This mill was located on Bayou Homa at its junction with Pearl River. This mill had the capacity of 9000 board feet per day.
He wrote to his brother Levi Wyman Weston on January 7, 1847, "They live too well in this country for me. They kill everything with pepper and salt and spices and mix it so that you could not tell what the original is. We breakfast at 7, dine at 2. A great many dine at 3. Supper at 6. So you see that we have 7 hours between breakfast and dinner and that we eat too much dinner every day".
While working for Judge Wingate in 1849, cholera struck New Orleans and up Pearl River. Henry left and went back to Wisconsin with no intention of ever returning. For a time as many as 250 people a day died in New Orleans. In Wisconsin his health soon became so bad he had to return Mississippi the following year.
Judge Wingate fired his replacement and gave Henry back his old job. It appears that the Judge paid Henry a commission for every thousand board feet of lumber the mill cut. Henry wrote his brother that he was making $3 per day, getting board with the engineer for $8 a month and saving about $65 per month. The mill employed 14 workers with a payroll of $210 per month. Old records show that Wingate was getting about $10 per thousand feet for the lumber
In 1854 Judge Wingate sold his mill at Logtown along with the Chalons Claim comprising practically all the land at Logtown to John Russ, W.W. Carrie, and Henry Carrie. Henry continued to operate the mill for the W.W. Carre Company.
In 1856 John Russ conveyed his interest in the mill to Henry Weston. This was his first ownership in a sawmill. Two years later he married Lois Angela Mead the daughter of Stephen Mead of Bedford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts and Adeline Russ of Brunswick County, North Carolina on July 15, 1858 in Gainesville, Hancock County, Mississippi. He purchased the Wingate home where all his nine children were born.
By the time of the war Henry Weston and partners had paid in full for the mill and the big tract of land where Logtown stood. In addition to the mill and lands they owned $20,000 worth of slaves. Each partner was drawing $5000 per year salary, a huge amount for that time. Lumber business profits prior to the Civil War were large compared with investment and labor costs. Henry Weston bragged that he made money like smoke.
The W.W. Carrie Company continued to grow and maintained successful operations until the Union Army captured New Orleans in 1862. Their markets blockaded, the mill closed and the equipment buried in the forests of southern Mississippi for the remainder of the Civil War.
Henry Weston stayed in Logtown operating his farm and doing other things. Records of the Police Jury for April 1863 show that Henry was appointed Captain of the Patrol from Logtown and Pearlington eastward for several miles. The Patrol was formed to protect citizens from irregulars and Jayhawkers. These years were filled with uncertainty and unrest as deserters and Jayhawkers were raiding theses sparsely populated areas. They would rob and kill widows and women, whose husbands were at war, of their cattle, horses and everything of value. Federal troops worked with and encouraged these bands.
A particular incident is quoted from Henry Weston's grandson, John Roland Weston's history.
"In the latter part of 1864 law enforcement had broken down in many areas of the South and particularly in the rural sections. Bands know as Jayhawkers, roamed over the many areas of the South, robbing and murdering Confederates and Yankees alike. A band came close to Logtown and encamped on a branch of the Pearl River. They intended to kill Henry Weston, Henry Carrie and several other prominent citizens. Then they would rob their widows of the cattle, horses and anything else of value".
"My grandfather and the others heard of this and formed a posse and attacked the bandit's camp. They killed several and several escaped. One, by the name of Pape, was captured and hung almost immediately at the camp site. This location is about 2 miles east of Pearlington, Mississippi, close to U.S. Highway 90 and from that day to this the branch has been known as Pape's Branch"..
The mill resumed operations following the end of the Civil War and soon began to prosper again. There was a big demand for timber of all kinds. By 1870 the lumber business was booming. Everyone was giving up subsistence farming to work in the logging business. In 1874 Henry bought out the Carrie brothers share of the mill. Records do not show what he paid, but it is said that he paid them the biggest price that any sawmill had ever sold for in that area. In 1877 the industry was devastated for two years when the federal government seized the lumber at the mills on the Gulf Coast claiming that it was illegally taken from federal lands, including strategic naval reserve forest lands. The Poitevent and Favre and the H. Weston Lumber Companies closed their mills and spent the next two years in court defending their position. A compromise was reached in 1879. The economic havoc created by this incident was felt along the coast. People were on the verge of starvation with food riots being predicted. To make matters worse a yellow fever epidemic struck in 1878 causing problem from the coast to Memphis. In Mississippi alone, 3000 people died. Govenor James K. Vardaman proclaimed a shotgun quarantine and called out the National Guard to seal off the coast from the interior by stopping travel to or from Pearlington, Logtown and Napoleon.
In 1888 the company was incorporated as the H. Weston Lumber Company with two new partners, John Sidney Otis and H.U. Beech. Henry Weston devoted all his energy to improving the efficiency of his plant. He would visit other mills looking for better ideas.
In the early days Henry would work side by side with his workers. He remained the common man even after he became a millionaire. He would wear a hat until it was in shambles. "The family being ashamed of the hat would hide it or burn it to get him to buy another". Mr. Ulman Koch, who worked for Weston for many years in the mill and as a tugboat captain, said that Weston was like a father to his men. He would loan his employees money with no security or notes.
Leonard Kimball Russ said that Henry Weston watched after his sons like he did when they were boys. If he saw something at one of their homes that needed attention he would take a man or a crew and attend to it. He was strict with his sons even after they were grown men with families. At one time the mill broke down in freezing weather the day before Christmas. He made his sons as well as others of his crew work all day Christmas to have the mill read to operate the next day.
According to Leonard Kimball Russ, Henry Weston used to try to impress on everyone that saving money-thrift- was the key to anyone's success in life. He kept a milk cow and milked her himself long after he became a millionaire, in fact, until just before he died in 1912. He wore common inexpensive clothes and would ridicule his sons for putting on airs and wearing fine clothes. He would take a spike pole and cross a river of log, a feat that none of his son could ever do. It was said that he was a calm, conservative man who seldom got excited about anything. When he found a man loafing on the job his demeanor changed and he became very riled. He was a conscientious worker and expected everyone to do the same. After a big storm one of his sons came and told him much timber had been blown down and would ruin. Ruin, heck,� he said, get out of that car, put one work clothes, get a crew and go to laying a road to it and haul it out.�
The H. Weston Lumber Company was for a number of decades a major employer in the Hancock County, Mississippi area. At the peak of the company holdings were almost two million acres in Mississippi, Louisiana, Mexico, Oregon and British Columbia. Markets had expanded from the domestic to international with much of its lumber going to South America and Europe. At this time H. Weston Lumber Company was the largest lumber company in the world. At the zenith the capacity of the company was 30,000,000 board feet of lumber per year. The company railroad tied into the Southern Railroad at Nicholson, Mississippi (south of Picayune on old Highway 11), and into the Louisville and Nashville (L & N) Railroad 12 miles west of Bay St. Louis.
Henry Weston died 29 October 1912 in Logtown, Hancock County, Mississippi capping a 64 year career of operating lumber companies that made him a multi-millionaire. Two of his sons, Horatio Stephen and John Henry Weston, took over the operation of the company. The company continued to thrive until 1925 when the mill ceased sawing operations. In 1930, the mill shut down never to open again. Most of the 150, 000 acres of land were sold to International Paper Company. Other people like S.G. Thigpen bought much of the cut over land for as little as $1 per acre. Many lumber companies let the land go for taxes.
Logtown was a one company town. It was the Company Store with the company owning the commissary, the power station, the ice house, the livery stable, the telephone company, railroad and maintained the roads and docks. It was a self sufficient operation with much of the supplies being shipped in from New Orleans. They had a fleet of boats, piers, and wharfs to handle the movement of logs. Now Logtown is just a memory. Only the cemetery remains. The Tourist Bureau located on Interstate 10 just across the state line from Louisiana is now called Logtown.
Now, a little, very little, railroading information.
Quote the LWR:
Keywords above are:
Ansley
Louisville & Nashville
Suyber Lumber Co's "road"
Jordan River Lumber Co.
These will be covered down the line.
A little on Westonia.
Yes, very little, but the Weston shops were there.
I will note to find more.
More perspective on the area:
If not interested in a lot of early history, scroll down to where you see the chapter, ".... Lumbering".
If awake and wanting sleep, read on.
Back to the personalities. You've met Henry, now it time to meet the Poitervents.
But, first a little historical clarification.
H. Weston Lumber Company was not the first located in Logtown. In 1845 the first sawmill was constructed by slave labor. Several years later, E. G. Goddard Lumber Company also built a sawmill in Logtown. Yet, it was Weston that made Logtown one of the most famous lumber producing sites in the United States.
The H. Weston Lumber Co., founded in 1848, was said to be the largest in the United States. The huge sawmill was the hub of activity and employment in the community of Logtown, one of five communities that existed where Stennis Space Center is now located. The lumber company finally closed in 1928. In October 1961, the federal government announced its decision to locate a national rocket test facility in Hancock County, Mississippi. The towns of Logtown, Gainesville, Westonia, Napoleon, and Santa Rosa and their residents had to be moved to make way for the NASA center.
Poitevent & Favre
A Brief Travelogue Follows.
This from MS Rails
36" gauge, converted to standard gauge in 1886
Named East Louisiana RR
Headquarters: Pearlington, MS
Mill Location: Pearlington, MS (Hancock County)
Mill Capacity: 150,000 ft/day in 1910
Years of Operation: 1867-ca.1907
Miles Operated: 5 miles in 1886
History by Gil Hoffman:
The firm of Poitevent & Favre was composed of W. J. Poitevent and Joseph A. Favre. At Pearlington, three sawmills were operated together with a shipyard and a fleet of steamers and schooners in the Caribbean lumber trade. The first of these mills was built in 1867. Around 1880 large tracts of timber land were bought by the company in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana.
The mills at Pearlington cut their last log about 1907. In December 1912, Poitevent & Favre sold their holdings at Pearlington to the H. Weston Lumber Company, of Logtown, Hancock County. This sale included 5,500 acres of timber, sawmill, planer, dry kilns and marine equipment. Poitevent & Favre then moved to Mandeville, Louisiana, where they built a new mill that was placed in operation in 1913.
Me:
The appearance of the "East La. Railroad's" entrance into the fray is fairly interesting.
I'm sure you are excited as well.
This railroad's history seems to have taken a few twists & turns.
This expands on the above.
It is a description of donated historical material.
I found it by trying to find information on R. J. Williams.
The Williams name and lumbering is a familiar one in South La.
I have not pursued a match or near match.
Sorry, a picture of the Williams Lumber Co., in Westonia, is not available.
Let's continue:
Manuscript Collection
Collection Title: Goodyear Yellow Pine Company Photographs
Collection Number: M134
Dates: ca. 1918-1920
Volume: 45 photographs
Provenance: Donated to the University by Miss Mary Ruth Smith in 1973.
Biographical/Historical Sketch:
The Goodyear Yellow Pine Company was formed in 1917 when L.O. (Lucius) Crosby (Crosby, Mississippi) and his associates exercised an option on the John Blodgett timber holdings in Pearl River County. Crosby, with financial backing from the International Harvester Company, then bought R.J. Williams's Rosa Lumber Company located in Picayune, Mississippi. That operation was enlarged and modernized when the Goodyear mill was built the next year. Crosby had a half interest in the venture, with Lamont Rowlands and the C.A. Goodyear interests holding the other half. The Goodyears sold out their interest in 1920, and in 1929 Crosby purchased Rowlands' interests to assume complete control of the company. During the 1920's, the boom period for the southern pine lumber industry, the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company had as many as five mills operating in southern Mississippi. Under L.O. Crosby's direction, the company became one of the first lumber companies in the state to institute programs to rehabilitate the cut-over timber lands. Agricultural developments such as peach, lemon, and satsuma orchards were planted, but most suffered setbacks during the Depression. Tung nut trees were also planted during this period with the hope that the tung oil industry would prosper in southern Mississippi.
During the depressed economic times of the 1930's, L.O. Crosby, with support from the International Harvester Company, instituted aid and subsistence programs for his mill employees and the people of Picayune.
In 1934 a new lumber operation known as the Crosby Lumber and Manufacturing Company was built at Stevenson, Mississippi. Three years later Crosby Naval Stores was created to utilize pine stumps to manufacture resins, chemicals and naval stores. During World War II both the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company and the tung oil operations prospered. A wirebound box plant was added in 1946 and a veneer mill was built in 1947. In 1950 the name was changed to the Crosby Forest Products Company and it has continued to expand its product base into chemicals and paint manufacturing. During the 1960's the wirebound box plant was sold and later closed, and an agreement for the management of Crosby timberlands was signed with the St. Regis Paper Company.
Scope and Content:
This collection consists of forty-five photographs taken by New Orleans Photographer John N. Teunisson between the years 1918 and 1920. The photographs show the operations and facilities of the Rosa Lumber Company of Picayune, Mississippi, which became a part of the Goodyear Yellow Pine Company. The photographs also show the last stages of construction and the early operations of the new Goodyear Yellow Pine Company mill, also located in Picayune. Six photographs show Camp Anderson, a temporary settlement for loggers. One of the photographs reveals the use of duplex "houses on wheels" which were actually railroad cars. Other photographs of the mill ponds, various types of mill buildings, machinery and equipment, the planing mill, lumber sorting and railroad car loading areas, lumber transport vehicles and lumber drying and storage yards.
Me:
A combination of rail and sea transportation was used by the lumber companies.
The proximity of the huge Pearl River with "easy" sailing to New Orleans was an useful facet.
The use of the water prevailed before and after the little railroads were built.
But, being the Gulf Coast, that usage was not without its danger.
Sixteen Lives Lost at the Rigolets
Three Schooners Going down in the Storm
Submitted by Larie Tedesco
Daily Picayune 10-05-1893; pg 6; Issue 254 Col. A
Pearlington was "home base" for the Poitevent Fleet.
Imposing Considerable Suffering Upon the People There.
New Orleans Fishermen at Lake Catharine Rescued After Being Hemmed in
Since Saturday.
A watery grave!
Sixteen men meet a horrible death near the Rigolets.
Three captains and thirteen sailors go down in the storm and are lost
forever.
The little lumber city of Pearlington, full of woe and sorrow, and women
and children weep over the tragic ending of those dear to them.
The first news of any disaster at Pearlington to the shipping and the
sailors was received yesterday, when the reporter for the Picayune visited
the Rigolets and vicinity.
The dead are:
Captain Stephen Peters and five sailors on the schooner Angeline.
Captain Wm. Delavier, of the schooner Alice McGuigin, and five of his
sailors.
Captain _____(name unknown), of the schooner Addie Eads.
There are rumors of several other disasters and loss of life, and rumors
that more men are missing from the neighborhood of Pearlington.
It was impossible to get to Pearlington yesterday, and rumors had gained
currency in the neighborhood of the Rigolets that twenty-four men had been
swept ashore near that settlement. The reports of the disasters were at
first doubted, but as the day rolled by in the Rigolets confirmation made
belief of the mishaps permanent and dispelled all doubts of the loss of
the schooner.
The two-masted schooner Alice, McGuiggin, belonging to the Poitevent &
Favre Lumber Company, left Pearlington on Sunday last in command of
Captain Wm. Delavier, with a crew of five men. The last seen of them was
when they were sailing out of the grief-stricken city of Pearlington.
Little did they think of the terrible death that awaited them on the water
which, at the time of their clearance, was smooth and tranquil.
The storm struck the vessel when it was heading into the lake
Pontchartrain, and it was driven back down through the rigolets and out
into lake Borgne. It was found upside down in the lake by the Pearlington
mailboat and towed ashore. There was no sign of human life about the boat,
and a yawl was found tied to the stern of the vessel. It had never been
molested. The yawl was full of water. The schooner was mast downward when
found. Captain Delavier and his five men were drowned and none of the
bodies have been recovered from the waters. It is believed they were
washed out into the lake Borgne and will never be heard of nor seen, much
less rescued and brought to the stricken relatives. The schooner was
righted, towed to shore and tied up.
The schooner Angeline and all her crew met a similar fate, and neigher the
bodies of the men nor the vessel has been seen or heard from since Sunday
night. The vessel, in command of Stephen Peters and his crew of five men,
left Pearlington Sunday night, and was not long at sea when struck by the
destructive and death-dealing hurricane. The vessel went to the bottom,
and all the men went down with her. The schooner was a two-masted and the
property of the Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company.
The schooner Addie Eads has not been seen since Sunday, and it was
reported from Pearlington last night at the Rigolets that the vessel, with
the captain and all the crew, had gone to the bottom, and had met a fate
similar to that which ? the ill-fated schooners in command of Captains
Peters and Delavier. Not a vestige of the ship or anything whatever about
her were found or learned, except that it is certain that she is lost.
Dr. Salter, the officer in charge of the Quarantine station at the
Rigolets, was seen by a reporter yesterday near his post of duty. He had
been apprised of the disasters and gave additional details of the loss and
destruction of the crews and the vessels. He was positive early in the
afternoon, and when the information was first received, that it was true,
on account of tallying reports and the manner in which it was received by
him. He was seen later in the evening and had received information , he
said that confirmed the story of the drowning of the men and the
destruction and foundering of the vessels.
Rumor was current in the region of the Rigolets last night at 9 o’clock,
and just as the reporter for the Picayune was leaving on a special train,
that twenty-four negroes and white men had been drowned around
Pearlington.
Nothing could be ascertained as to the manner and cause of drowning and
death of so many men in a place where property has not suffered as
severely as in some other sections of the country.
The schooner R. O. Elliot was reported last night as lost in the
neighborhood of Brown’s island. None of the particulars could be learned
and no one know the names of the officers on the lost ship, as reported is
the neighborhood of the Chef.
The schooner Two Brothers was severely damaged in the storm, and her crew
had a frightful experience in their battle with the turbulent and furious
elements. Captain Worley states that the schooner started from the second
station, through the Blind Rigolets. The vessel was unmanageable during
the hurricane, and was lifted by the swift tide and the rising water
through the Catherine Lake. The ship went through the grass of the swamps
and in some places was blown where the weeds were high out of the water.
It went away around the canal is that neighborhood and came back to the
bridge near the Rigolets, making a trip never before made by a vessel. It
was damaged and badly beaten up but the men were glad to get out with
their lives.
The marine quarantine station near the Rigolets came in for a share of the
general loss, and was battered up severely by the hurricane. The loss
sustained at the station will aggregate fully $1000. The storm raged
Sunday night until 2 o’clock before any damage was done to the building,
fences, etc. The watchman reported all well at 2 in the morning, but
shortly after the velocity of the wind increased to such a degree that the
weak places about the station were obliged to give in and succumbed to the
fury of the terrific blasts. At 2:30 o’clock the boathouse and the wharf
were blown away, and disappeared altogether from the knowledge of the
officers. The tide carried the wharg away completely, and the fences were
blown down all around the station. A steam launch belonging to the
government was broken from her mooring and washed to the sea. The launch
together with all the small vessels and the yawls, with one exception,
were carried away in the tide of
water. They were surely foundered, as nothing has been heard from any of
them since the storm.
When at its height the water was within 3 feet of the officers’ quarters
and the waves beat with the fury against the walls of the lighthouse and
the small buildings surrounding it. For a time the whole station was in
danger of being destroyed and swept away. The water was at one time within
3 feet of the officers’ quarters. Dr. Salter has been unable to make any
reports as the wires have all been down and the mails cut off.
The whole population in the neighborhood of the Rigolets are suffering
from want of provisions and from being cut off from all communication with
the world. Something will have to be done for them soon. Every fisherman
has suffered some severe loss and, as the whole territory was overflowed,
the provisions and means of living have been destroyed to a great extent.
The special train which arrived at the Rigolets last night from the city
about 9 o’clock brought provisions for the army of men now working hard to
replace the tracks washed away by the tide. On the return of the engine
and the car attached three gentlemen were picked up near Lake Catherine
who had been fishing since last Saturday, and who had been hemmed in by
the tide, with scarcely anything to eat and no prospects of relief. The
party was composed of W. H. Mansell, C. A. Anderson and J. N. Hardy. They
had gone out on a jaunt to the lake to fish and were stopping in the
“Happy Family Club Building.” They intended to return to the city Monday
last and had only enough provisions to last the for that length of time.
The storm beat against the clubhouse. The water was 16 inches deep in the
clubhouse and they were obliged to spend the night in there thinking every
minute would complete the demolition of the building that protected them
from the fury of the
storm. Their provisions were exhausted and they had very little to eat
except fish. The say the wind caused the water to rise, and that it has
never been known to rise so high before in the state of Louisiana. It was
by 3 feet the highest tide of water ever known. The whole country was
completely submerged, and nothing during Monday was visible but water,
which spread out in an exhaustive sheet that spread as far as the eye
could reach. The gentlemen say they never before knew the wind to blow up
Such a tide of water except by the east winds, whereas this tide was
caused by winds from the northeast.
Vessels Sunk
Many Seamen Lose Their Lives in Mississippi Sound
Pearlington, Miss., Oct. 4 – (Special) - News of the many disasters along
the gulf coast from Sunday night’s storm is coming in slowly, but enough
is know, however, to assert that fully three-fourths of all the vessels on
the Mississippi sound, from Pearl River to Biloxi or Scranton, are either
wrecked or capsized. The worst feature seems to be the great loss of life
attending the disasters. Among the vessels known to be lost are the
schooners Alice McGuigin, Angeline, New Union and Eliza B. The three first
were owned by the Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company, of this place, and the
last by E. G. Goddard, of Logtown.
The schooner Victoria has just arrived, bringing the body of the captain
of the Alice McGuigin, which was found near the mouth of Pearl River.
Another body was found, which was supposed to be that of a young colored
man from New Orleans named Manuel Munro, who was making a pleasure trip on
one of the wrecked vessels. The four schooners above named had on board,
altogether, twenty-three men, and it is supposed that all are lost.
A large vessel, supposed to be the bark Sino, is ashore on the west end of
Ship Island and dismasted. The steamer Dial and the tug Pearl Smith, with
two schooners, left here last night for Ship Island to seek the missing
crews of the lost vessels.
The roadbed on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, from Pearl river to
Waveland, is completely washed away, and west of Lookout it is nearly as
bad. Telegraph poles along the railroad are down as far as the eye can
see.
Messrs. Geo. Lhote, H. Dudley Coleman, L. Roca, T. J. Blackman and several
others arrived here last night from Bay St. Louis and left this morning on
the steamer Pearlington for New Orleans. The schooners Alice McGuigin and
Angeline have been discovered bottom upwards, three or four miles from the
mouth of Pearl River. The names of those suppose to be lost are Anderson
Thompson, Tobias Young, Samuel Young, Dan Johnson, Albert Burton, Steve
Peters Cord Galloway, Eli Galloway, Henry Galloway, Ed Grant, Louis Banks,
Wm. Delavery, Guy Freightman, John Walker, Perry Harris, John Baker, Eli
Peters, Allen Peters, Philip Peters, Elijah Williams, Geo. Scott, and two
young men from New Orleans, all colored. One of the last mentioned is
supposed to be named Manuel Munro, and is a cigarmaker by trade.
The steamer Dial has just arrived from Ship Island, bringing the bodies of
two of the crew of the schooner Alice McGuizin and one of the schooner
Angeline. The drowned men are John Walker, John Baker and Ed Grant. The
captain also reports two other drowned men picked up by him, one white and
one colored. The brig Rosalia Smith capsized at Ship Island, along with
several others. The schooner New Union broke loose from her moorings
between 6 and 7 o’clock Monday morning and drifted out to sea. The bark
Annie E. B. has gone entirely to pieces and the British barkentine
Antillas has lost her bowsprit and mainmast by collision with another
vessel.
At Chef Menteur
Mr. Paul Lafaye, cashier in the city treasurer’s office, was at his post
of duty yesterday. Mr. Lafaye, in company with Mr. Mounsell, Mr. Anderson
and Ex-Treasurer Joseph N. Hardy, left New Orleans Saturday to spend
Sunday at Lake Catherine, intending to return Monday morning in time to-
resume the daily routine of business. How they were disappointed was
partly related in the Picayune yesterday, when it was published that Mr.
Lafaye and several other gentlemen, after having experienced a terrible
night during the storm, sailed from Chef Menteur on board of a schooner
Tuesday noon and reached Spanish Fort in the evening, and then, footsore
and weary, made their way to the city on foot.
Mr. Lafaye stated to the reporter of the Picayune, who found him at his
desk yesterday, that between Lake Catherine Jump and Chef Menteur, a
distance of about three mile, the Louisville and Nashville tracks are a
total wreck. The road bed was completely washed out and the cross ties and
rails were scattered in all directions.
Mr. Lafaye and his companions, Messrs. Hardy, Anderson and Mounsell, were
at Lake Catherine when the blow began. Their clubhouse withstood the
storm, but they were exceedingly apprehensive. Every moment they expected
to be swept away in the raging waters.
When day dawned there was a scene of desolation far and wide. The waters
of the lake had risen nearly a foot and covered the surrounding country as
far as the eye could reach. After 11 o’clock Monday forenoon the wind
shifted and decreased in violence, and the flood began to subside. All the
fishermen’s and hunters’ camps at Lake Catherine suffered little damage,
but lost a few pirogues and skiffs.
Tuesday morning Mr. Lafaye determined to walk to Chef Menteur. It was a
risky undertaking, and the other gentlemen declined to go. Mr. Hardy,
being in indifferent health, could not risk the dangerous journey, and
Messrs. Anderson and Mounsell agreed to remain with him. Mr. Lafaye
started on his perilous tramp. He crawled on his hands and knees for a
distance of 100 feet through mud and slush and sea-weed, over slippery
crossties, until he reached tolerably safe ground. When he arrived at Chef
Menteur he found eighteen or twenty people there who like himself, had
been storm-bound. There were no casualties at the Chef, but many narrow
escapes. The particulars of the storm at the Chef have already been
published.
Mr. Lafaye, with other New Orleans people, whose names were mentioned in
the Picayune yesterday, returned home on board of Mr. Cheneville’s
schooner.
The storm struck the vessel when it was heading into the lake
Pontchartrain, and it was driven back down through the rigolets and out
into lake Borgne. It was found upside down in the lake by the Pearlington
mailboat and towed ashore. There was no sign of human life about the boat,
and a yawl was found tied to the stern of the vessel. It had never been
molested. The yawl was full of water. The schooner was mast downward when
found. Captain Delavier and his five men were drowned and none of the
bodies have been recovered from the waters. It is believed they were
washed out into the lake Borgne and will never be heard of nor seen, much
less rescued and brought to the stricken relatives. The schooner was
righted, towed to
http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/orleans/newspapers/00000500.txtshore and tied up.
The sale below, 1889, predated the incident above, 1893, so its reason is unclear to me.
This was a stern wheel model and the drowned ones were described as "schooners".
Nor were they super human.
More information, some conflicting.
Many of the names should be familiar by now so you can read this will full understanding.
But, there is more:
Edward Hines had a lumber company in Kiln.
Note the "Thigpen" name. You know there are connections.
oops, read the paragraph again
Another was the Jordan River Lumber Co. at Kiln. The river above would be the Jordan.
Grainesville
Gainesville earned its reputation as the center of Hancock County in the mid to late 1800’s.
Aside from its steady lumber business, it served as a busy crossroads community for travelers
to and from New Orleans. The town prospered until the Great Depression of the 1930s,
when all but one of its lumber mills closed down. Later on, the county relocated its center
(County Seat? – GBS) to the small coastal town of “Bay St. Louis”. In 1961, the land was
sold to NASA and Gainesville became ground zero for booster rocket testing. Some of the old
buildings andstructures can still be seen today in the NASA compound, and there is a program
being sought out to possibly restore a few of them for historical value.
With the coming of the Great Depression, many of the mills closed,
except one that was located on the Pearl River at Gainesville. The town was alive until it
was sold by the state to NASA in 1961. In the end, Logtown
and five of its neighboring towns were bulldozed into the ground, sparing
only the cemeteries and roads.
Contributed by Patrick Duhe
(Nov 04, 2003)
Flat Top
Located just northeast of Gaineville,
this small town got its name from a flat-roofed building at the town center
(which was more like a crossroad). In 1961, the land was bought to serve as a
“buffer zone” for the NASA rocket test-firing facility. Little to nothing
remains from this town today.
Contributed by Patrick Duhe
Napoleon
Pearlington (Then)
Pearlington sits (sat) above US 90. CLICK for larger version:
Pearlington can be seen above US 90. Ansley, where Weston's railroad met the Louisville & Nashville,
can be seen in the lower right hand corner.
While I'm clearing out the town names, here's Ansley:
Now I'm making a full circle back to Logtown, originally Poitevent property and then made huge by Weston.
Logtown
All I can do is just lay it out.
Check this out. This picture is repeated below as then being taken in Mandeville.
Oh, you historians are a crafty bunch.
Was it the one that pulled the capsized boat back to Pearlington?
So, which is it, "at Mandeville" or "at Logtown"?
Are you sure?
I'm shutting this down with more pictures from the Society's site.
Bay St. Louis Shots
My 2006 picture taken after Katrina.
US 90's repairs were still in progress.
Picayene
_____________________________________________________________________________________
COLLECTIONS and MORE STUFF
Collection Title: Weston Lumber Company Photographs
Collection Number: M293
Dates: ca. 1920-1924
Volume: 2 Photographs
Provenance: Donated September 27, 1984, by D. O. Sigworth, director of the physical plant and security at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Park campus, these two oversized photographs were found in the old Logtown, Mississippi Post Office when it was closed in the early 1960s.
Copyright: This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code).
Biographical/Historical Sketch:
The H. Weston Lumber Company, located in Logtown (Hancock County) Mississippi, was founded in 1889 by Henry Weston. Weston, a Skowhegan, Maine native, was born January 9, 1823. His father, John Whitney Weston, owned a sawmill in Maine, and Henry Weston grew up working in almost every aspect of lumbering. In 1844 Weston moved to Wisconsin with his brother in an attempt to better his prospects. In Milwaukee, he was hired as superintendent of a mill site on the Eau Claire River. However, the harsh Wisconsin winters nearly killed him, so a physician recommended he move to the South -- either Louisiana or the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
In 1846, Weston arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana, looking for work. He found employment in the lumber business as a sawyer for J. W. Poitevent in Gainesville, Mississippi, making $45 a month. Weston built a good reputation as a lumberman in the area and by 1848 was hired by Judge David R. Wingate to work at a sawmill in Logtown.
By 1856, Weston had formed a partnership with Henry and W. W. Carre to purchase Wingate's Pearl River mill at Logtown. Two years later the mill burned down, but the partnership re-built it and installed the best equipment available from the North. Unfortunately, the lumber business was disrupted by the Civil War after New Orleans fell to Union troops, and the partnership shut down the mill at Logtown.
After the war, the partnership re-opened the Logtown mill and started producing lumber again. By 1870 the sawmill churned out 5,110,000 feet of lumber per year. Four years later, Weston bought out his partners and purchased surrounding timberlands. He visited other mills to observe their operations, then began improvements in his own business. One of those improvements was the installation of the first planing mill on the Pearl River.
In 1889, Weston joined with two new partners, J. S. Otis and H. U. Beech, and re-organized the corporation as the H. Weston Lumber Company. During the following years Weston and his partners made millions of dollars, expanded their operations to a yard and office located in New Orleans, and built railroad lines to join with major railroads, such as the New Orleans and Northeastern. As a result of their operation, Logtown grew to a population of 3,000 people and changed its name to Westonia.
Henry Weston died October 29, 1912, but his sons took over the business, which continued to thrive until 1925 when the mill ceased sawing operations. Then in 1930, the mill shut down completely.
H. Weston Lumber Company was not the first located in Logtown. In 1845 the first sawmill was constructed by slave labor. Several years later, E. G. Goddard Lumber Company also built a sawmill in Logtown. Yet, it was Weston that made Logtown one of the most famous lumber producing sites in the United States.
Scope and Content:
This collection consists of two oversized, panoramic views of the H. Weston Lumber Company in Logtown, Mississippi, which show the mill in full operation. The photographs were taken sometime between 1920 and 1924, and are on a plastic-like translucent surface, possibly celluloid. The first photograph portrays the business along the river as tugboats chugged up and down the Pearl River and pulled beside the site. The foreground is dominated by a long sluice, but a couple of rail lines are visible as well. Railroad lines constructed by the Weston company criss-crossed the sawmill location, bringing raw materials in from surrounding timberlands, and transporting the finished products to New Orleans, Louisiana for export to South America. The second photograph shows huge stacks of lumber and a network of ramps in the foreground, with the river on the left. Buildings in the background are neat in appearance, indicating that the Weston Company took pride in its surroundings.
This collection should be of interest to researchers of the lumber industry in Mississippi or general industrial development in the state, particularly the Gulf Coast area.
More Info Place at Bottom
Eads Poitevent Collection, Addendum 1, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans
The Poitevent family, of Huguenot descent, moved from South Carolina to Mississippi in about 1832. William James (Bill) Poitevent (1814-1890), a native North Carolinian, settled first in Pearlington and then moved to Gainsville (Hancock County), where he was a partner in a sawmill business in the 1840s. Poitevent made a fortune in shipping lumber around the coastal United States as his fleet of schooners transported piling and brick, as well as lumber. Meanwhile he continued to reside in Gainsville, operating a sawmill and a brickyard.
Poitevent and his wife, Mary Amelia Russ (1819-1873), had eight children: Junius (1837-1919), John (1840-1899), Adolph (1845-?), Ellen (1848-?), Eliza Jane (1849-1896), Virginia (1850-1882), Samuel (1854-?), and Lois (1856-?). The eldest, Junius, called June, worked in his father's sawmill until 1868. It is believed that he served as a midshipman in the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. In 1866 he married May Eleanor Staples (1847-1932) of New Orleans. They became the parents of three: Cora May (1868-?), Vera (1874-1897), and Schuyler (1875-1936).
June Poitevent engaged in shipping on the Pearl River in Mississippi and on the Trinity River in Texas, and he owned farms in both states, as well as a Victorian Italianate home on the Bay of Biloxi which was called the “Bay Home” and a home at Palmetto, Florida, near Tampa. His other interests included serving as captain of steamboats, including the Pearl Rivers and later the Lake Charles; operating a sawmill at Hillsdale in Pearl River County (Mississippi) in 1893; and maintaining a large truck and fruit farm near Tampico, Mexico, in 1895. June Poitevent spent his retirement years in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
The eldest child of June and May Poitevent, Cora May, studied law. In 1890 she married Charles Theodore Earle (1861-1901), son of horticulturalist and entrepreneur Parker Earle (1831-1917) and writer Melanie Tracy (1837-1889). Charles Earle worked with his father in the Winter Park Land & Development Company and the Earle Farm. Charles and Cora Earle were the parents of Eleanor Tracy (1891-ca. 1915) and Theodore (ca. 1893-ca. 1935), called Carlos. It is believed that the widowed Cora married a man who worked in her father's boatyard and moved with him to Palma Sola in Manatee County, Florida. There Eleanor, like her grandfather, earned a captain's license and worked in area bird sanctuaries as a warden for the Audubon Society. She died in her sleep at age 24. Carlos was employed in his stepfather's mango grove.
Cora's sister Vera married Frank J. Lundy (1863-1912), owner of a mercantile store in Ocean Springs and the Ocean Springs Hotel. Their daughter, Virginia May (1894-?), was called Vera. June and May Poitevent's only son, Schuyler, was educated at Tulane University and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. While attending the latter, he met Thomasia Overton Hancock (1879-1964) of “Ellerslie” in nearby Albemarle County. They married in 1906 and moved to Tampico, where they raised cattle, fruit, and vegetables on the Poitevents' ranch until the Mexican Revolution forced them to abandon their interests and leave the country. In 1914 they settled in Ocean Springs with their only child, Schuyler, junior (1911-1978). The younger Schuyler earned a law degree at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He practiced law in Ocean Springs with his wife, Virginia Margaret Favre (1912-1990) of Gulfport, whom he married in 1941.
As a boy, the senior Schuyler Poitevent began collecting artifacts, eventually amassing more than three thousand objects. Many are thought to date from the period 1699 to 1702, when Fort Maurepas, the first French settlement in the lower Mississippi Valley, was established, probably on land which was later owned by the Poitevents. Schuyler later composed at least five unpublished manuscripts based upon his research on early Mississippi Coast history.
The second of Bill and Mary Poitevent's children, John, wed Emily Toomer (1843-1874) of Harrison County, Mississippi. With Joseph Augustin Favre (1834-1909), who was married to Emily's sister Rebecca Ann (1841-1902), he operated the Poitevent and Favre Lumber Company, which by 1870 was the largest mill in Mississippi, employing over 150 workers. The company supplied lumber, ties, and pilings for the building of bridges to the Mobile & New Orleans Railroad Company and provided materials for the jetties constructed at the mouth of the Mississippi River by James B. Eads in about 1874. The brothers-in-law also owned three mills and a shipyard at Pearlington, and operated a line of steamers and schooners which transported lumber from New Orleans to Mexico, Argentina, and other foreign ports.
John Poitevent was active in the New Orleans business community and a member of prominent clubs in the city. He reigned as King of Carnival, a position which would be attained also by two of his grandsons, Eads Poitevent, Jr. (1974) and Edward B. Poitevent (1984).
Eliza Jane, the fifth child of William and Mary Poitevent, resided with an uncle and aunt, the Leonard Kimballs, because of her mother's ill health. Eliza was educated at home and at the Amite Female Academy. Early she exhibited an interest in and a facility for writing, and, using the pseudonym “Pearl Rivers,” submitted poems to the New Orleans Daily Picayune and other newspapers in New Orleans and New York. In 1870 she was appointed literary editor of the Picayune and, two years later, married its owner, Alva Morris Holbrook. After Holbrook's death in 1876, Eliza took over as editor-publisher and rescued the newspaper from bankruptcy. In 1878 she married the journal's business manager, George Nicholson (1820-1896). They became the parents of two sons, Leonard Kimball (b. 1881) and Yorke Poitevent (b. 1883).
Eads Poitevent, Jr. was born in New Orleans in 1919 and was raised there and in Mandeville, where his family was active in the lumber industry. He attended New Orleans Academy and graduated from Tulane University in 1942 with a degree in business administration. He also was a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
During World War II, Eads Poitevent, Jr. commanded a motor torpedo boat in the Mediterranean Sea and the Philippines and was decorated for sinking an enemy destroyer. He retired from the Navy in 1946 as a lieutenant. He began his banking career with the National Bank of Commerce and in 1958, at age 39, became president of National American Bank of New Orleans. Four years later he moved to Houston to become president and director of Business Funds Inc.
Mr. Poitevent returned to New Orleans in 1965 and helped form International City Bank. The bank introduced several innovations into New Orleans banking, such as Saturday hours and gifts for depositors, but it failed in 1976 and its accounts were taken over by the Bank of New Orleans. Mr. Poitevent was the bank's chief executive officer until 1974, when he moved to Mandeville. He was crowned Rex the same year. Married to Ginnette Bertin Poitevent, he was the father of three sons, William James Poitevent, Eads Poitevent III, and Edward Buffs Poitevent II. Eads Poitevent, Jr. died in Mandeville on November 4, 1996.
Geographic
locations: New Orleans and Mandeville, La.; Ocean Springs, Pascagoula, Pearlington, Logtown, and other southern Mississippi locations; Charlottesville, Va.; Manatee County, Fla.; Laguna de la Puerta and Tampico, Mexico.
Inclusive dates: 1849-1984
Summary: Records and manuscripts of the Poitevent and Hancock families of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia; their extensive business in milling and shipping lumber, primarily through the Poitevent and Favre Lumber Company, which operated plants in New Orleans and Mandeville, Louisiana, and various locations in southern Mississippi, together with a fleet of boats for the delivery of processed lumber. Includes correspondence and checking account records; journals of lumber sales, processing, shipping; payroll, insurance and debt and credit journals; journals of business operations in Mexico; maps and other publications; manuscript of a novel set in Mexico; Civil War reminiscence; photographs; related miscellany.
Related collections: Eads Poitevent Collection, Addendum 1 (Mss 264); also Poitevent Family Papers, Mississippi Department of Archives and History (No. Z 1751)
Source: Gift, 1994
Access: No restrictions
Copyright: Physical rights are retained by the Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans. Citation: Eads Poitevent Collection, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans
Biographical Note
The Poitevent family, of Huguenot descent, moved from South Carolina to Mississippi in about 1832. William James (Bill) Poitevent (1814-1890), a native North Carolinian, settled first in Pearlington and then moved to Gainsville (Hancock County), where he was a partner in a sawmill business in the 1840s. Poitevent made a fortune in shipping lumber around the coastal United States as his fleet of schooners transported piling and brick, as well as lumber. Meanwhile he continued to reside in Gainsville, operating a sawmill and a brickyard.
Poitevent and his wife, Mary Amelia Russ (1819-1873), had eight children: Junius (1837-1919), John (1840-1899), Adolph (1845-?), Ellen (1848-?), Eliza Jane (1849-1896), Virginia (1850-1882), Samuel (1854-?), and Lois (1856-?). The eldest, Junius, called June, worked in his father's sawmill until 1868. It is believed that he served as a midshipman in the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. In 1866 he married May Eleanor Staples (1847-1932) of New Orleans. They became the parents of three: Cora May (1868-?), Vera (1874-1897), and Schuyler (1875-1936).
June Poitevent engaged in shipping on the Pearl River in Mississippi and on the Trinity River in Texas, and he owned farms in both states, as well as a Victorian Italianate home on the Bay of Biloxi which was called the “Bay Home” and a home at Palmetto, Florida, near Tampa. His other interests included serving as captain of steamboats, including the Pearl Rivers and later the Lake Charles; operating a sawmill at Hillsdale in Pearl River County (Mississippi) in 1893; and maintaining a large truck and fruit farm near Tampico, Mexico, in 1895. June Poitevent spent his retirement years in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
The eldest child of June and May Poitevent, Cora May, studied law. In 1890 she married Charles Theodore Earle (1861-1901), son of horticulturalist and entrepreneur Parker Earle (1831-1917) and writer Melanie Tracy (1837-1889). Charles Earle worked with his father in the Winter Park Land & Development Company and the Earle Farm. Charles and Cora Earle were the parents of Eleanor Tracy (1891-ca. 1915) and Theodore (ca. 1893-ca. 1935), called Carlos. It is believed that the widowed Cora married a man who worked in her father's boatyard and moved with him to Palma Sola in Manatee County, Florida. There Eleanor, like her grandfather, earned a captain's license and worked in area bird sanctuaries as a warden for the Audubon Society. She died in her sleep at age 24. Carlos was employed in his stepfather's mango grove.
Cora's sister Vera married Frank J. Lundy (1863-1912), owner of a mercantile store in Ocean Springs and the Ocean Springs Hotel. Their daughter, Virginia May (1894-?), was called Vera. June and May Poitevent's only son, Schuyler, was educated at Tulane University and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. While attending the latter, he met Thomasia Overton Hancock (1879-1964) of “Ellerslie” in nearby Albemarle County. They married in 1906 and moved to Tampico, where they raised cattle, fruit, and vegetables on the Poitevents' ranch until the Mexican Revolution forced them to abandon their interests and leave the country. In 1914 they settled in Ocean Springs with their only child, Schuyler, junior (1911-1978). The younger Schuyler earned a law degree at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He practiced law in Ocean Springs with his wife, Virginia Margaret Favre (1912-1990) of Gulfport, whom he married in 1941.
As a boy, the senior Schuyler Poitevent began collecting artifacts, eventually amassing more than three thousand objects. Many are thought to date from the period 1699 to 1702, when Fort Maurepas, the first French settlement in the lower Mississippi Valley, was established, probably on land which was later owned by the Poitevents. Schuyler later composed at least five unpublished manuscripts based upon his research on early Mississippi Coast history.
The second of Bill and Mary Poitevent's children, John, wed Emily Toomer (1843-1874) of Harrison County, Mississippi. With Joseph Augustin Favre (1834-1909), who was married to Emily's sister Rebecca Ann (1841-1902), he operated the Poitevent and Favre Lumber Company, which by 1870 was the largest mill in Mississippi, employing over 150 workers. The company supplied lumber, ties, and pilings for the building of bridges to the Mobile & New Orleans Railroad Company and provided materials for the jetties constructed at the mouth of the Mississippi River by James B. Eads in about 1874. The brothers-in-law also owned three mills and a shipyard at Pearlington, and operated a line of steamers and schooners which transported lumber from New Orleans to Mexico, Argentina, and other foreign ports.
John Poitevent was active in the New Orleans business community and a member of prominent clubs in the city. He reigned as King of Carnival, a position which would be attained also by two of his grandsons, Eads Poitevent, Jr. (1974) and Edward B. Poitevent (1984).
Eliza Jane, the fifth child of William and Mary Poitevent, resided with an uncle and aunt, the Leonard Kimballs, because of her mother's ill health. Eliza was educated at home and at the Amite Female Academy. Early she exhibited an interest in and a facility for writing, and, using the pseudonym “Pearl Rivers,” submitted poems to the New Orleans Daily Picayune and other newspapers in New Orleans and New York. In 1870 she was appointed literary editor of the Picayune and, two years later, married its owner, Alva Morris Holbrook. After Holbrook's death in 1876, Eliza took over as editor-publisher and rescued the newspaper from bankruptcy. In 1878 she married the journal's business manager, George Nicholson (1820-1896). They became the parents of two sons, Leonard Kimball (b. 1881) and Yorke Poitevent (b. 1883).
254-108 Yellow Pine Manufacturers' Association. Standard Specification. Grading and Dressing Rules for Yellow Pine Car Material. Recommended by Railway Storekeepers' Association and Accepted as Recommended Practice by Master Car Builders' Association and Master Mechanics Association, June 15 - 22, 1910; in Effect January 1, 1911. [S.l., 1913?]
Series VII. Miscellaneous Documents
Miscellaneous documents, original and copies, including an abstract of title; bank statements; bills of sale for land and other property; cancelled checks; Confederate States of America money and clothing inventory; contracts; credit records on real estate purchases; deeds; division of property record; essays on historical topics; genealogical compilations; a handbill on lumber grading; income tax returns; insurance advertisements; insurance policy; inventories of timber holdings, stock shares, and native American artifacts; leases; marriage certificates; membership cards; memoranda; profit and loss statements; promissory notes; quit claims; receipts; reports; speeches; stock certificates; timber appraisals; wills; miscellanea. [n.d.], 1849-1982.
NASA'S SPIN:
SP-4310 Way Station to Space
- Chapter 2 -
A Sense of Place
The Setting
[17] Native Mississippian and Nobel laureate William Faulkner described the Gulf Coast as an area in which "the pine barrens and moss-hung live oaks give way to grassy marshes so flat and low and treeless that they seem less of earth than water. More of a beginning of the sea than an end to the land." Indeed, the Pearl River meanders like a sluggish water moccasin through the seaboard of Mississippi, creeping by the high bluffs at the site that is now Stennis Space Center. This deep river flows on through pristine cypress swamps, merging downstream with prairies of salt marsh before emptying its dark currents into the sparkling waters of the Gulf of Mexico.1
Likewise, the land that borders the Pearl River is part of a low-lying region extending 10 to 20 miles inland from the coastline, aptly named the Coastal Plain Meadows. Because of the region's distinct topography, its streams flow toward the Gulf with only moderate force and become tepid toward the coastline. The soil is gray and sandy, but in the low swampy meadows, where water [18] from the small streams and bays usually stands, the soil becomes black and peat-like. The Coastal Plain Meadows give way to a region known as the Piney Woods, where the soil consists of red and yellow sandy loam.2
Despite a mild climate, the Mississippi Gulf Coast remains captive to the fickle disposition of Mother Nature. Weather watchers can expect a mean temperature of 68 degrees, an average of 350 frost-free days, and an annual rainfall of 62 inches.3
Camille, the most powerful storm ever to strike the U.S. mainland, ripped the Gulf Coast in 1969. Its howling winds, clocked at over 200 miles per hour, created a 27-foot tidal wave that killed hundreds and left thousands homeless. In 1965, Betsy brought death and destruction to New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, and an unnamed 1947 Hurricane left the entire Mississippi coastline in shambles. If it were not for a chain of low, sandy keys, or barrier islands, that serves as a buffer, the coast would fall prey to even more storms and squalls swept toward shore from the deeper waters of the Gulf. The calm, shallow water between the barrier islands and the shoreline, known as the Mississippi Sound, offers a lagoon of modest protection.4
Along The Pearl
Indians were the first people to inhabit the lands along the Pearl River, as the natural resources along the river were a lure and a virtual paradise. Evidence indicates they settled in the area 4,000 years before the arrival of European explorers. The Acolapissas, an offshoot of the Choctaws, were living on the banks of the Pearl during the early 1600s. In 1699, Pierre LeMoyne Sieur d'Iberbille, a French-Canadian explorer, sailed up the river from the Gulf of Mexico. He discovered large oysters on its banks and optimistically christened it the "Pearl River".5
[19] Hancock County, where the NASA Space Center is located, was named after John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress. The first county seat was at Old Center, which stood about one-half mile east of the present community of Caesar. The courthouse was completed in 1817, the same year Mississippi was admitted to the Union, and was moved to Gainesville in 1846.6
Three towns, Gainesville, Pearlington, and Logtown, on the Pearl River experienced significant growth during the 19th century. These communities on the lower Pearl River were first noteworthy as ports and trade centers for the growing Mississippi Territory. Eventually, the area became known for its large sawmills fed by timber from the vast pine forests of south Mississippi and Louisiana.7
The town of Gainesville received its name from Dr. Ambrose Gaines. In 1810, he came to the area, known then as Cottonport, and found most of the choice property along the Pearl River still available. As a result, he petitioned Spanish authorities for a land grant of more than 500 acres. After acquiring the grant, Gaines laid out a new town he first called Gaines Bluff, but changed later to Gainesville.8
An industrious young man, J.W. Poitevent moved to Gainesville in 1832 and established the Pearl River Lumber Company. This sawmill proved to be very successful and Poitevent later moved downriver and opened another mill in Pearlington.9
As the logging and timber business boomed, a small sawmill was erected 5 miles downriver from Gainesville at Logtown. Logtown, originally an Indian site, was settled by early French pioneers who named it Chalons after a city in France; the town was later renamed Logtown by English-speaking settlers. E.G. Goddard of Michigan constructed the first good-sized sawmill in Logtown; and, in 1848, Henry Weston founded the H. Weston Lumber Company, which helped turn Logtown into one of the largest lumbering centers in the United States. At its peak, Logtown had approximately 3,000 residents, and most of them were associated with the lumber business.10
[20]
The H.Weston Lumber Co. sawmill
The H.Weston Lumber Co. sawmill, founded in 1848, was said to be the largest in the United States. The sawmill was the hub of activity and employment in the community of Logtown, one of five communities that existed where Stennis Space Center in now located. (SSC Roll Negative).
The prosperity of the river towns continued until the coming of the railroads in the latter half of the 1800s. Ironically, the sawmills along the Pearl River furnished most of the timber for the construction of the railroads. These railroads contributed heavily toward the demise of the Pearl River communities and toward the growth of the towns along the Mississippi Gulf Coast - Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Mississippi City, Biloxi, and Ocean Springs. Sawmills located in Gainesville moved north to locate along the railroad. The town of Picayune was built on the railroad, 2 miles north of Nicholson, and named after the Daily Picayune, a New Orleans newspaper that sold for "one Picayune," the equivalent of a Spanish coin worth 6 1/4 cents.11
[21] The railroads also boosted the prosperity of the resorts along the Gulf, further detracting from the once important Pearl River towns. Hotels and health resorts from Bay St. Louis to Biloxi became even more popular, once the railroad opened the way for vacationers and commuters.12
By the end of World War I, the great virgin pine forests of south Mississippi had been depleted. The H. Weston Lumber Company at Logtown closed in 1928, ending the economic boom in that town forever. As the towns along the lower Pearl struggled to survive the decline of their only industry, the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s compounded their problems.13
Logtown, with 3,000 residents at the peak of the timber boom, could claim only 250 residents in 1961. Gainesville, once the county seat and economic center for the entire area, had only one store left to serve its 35 families and 100 residents. The hotels, stores, taverns, and most of the homes of Gainesville had vanished. The streets and roads that had once been the arteries of a carefully planned town were barely visible in the dense forest on the Pearl River.14
Roy Baxter, Jr., was among those in the Logtown area at the time NASA arrived in 1961. Baxter often flew fishermen out to the barrier islands in a Cessna 180 seaplane that he co-owned with a friend. On 25 October, he had been to New Orleans to gas up his plane for a fishing trip the next day. While flying home, he looked at his watch and noticed it was time for the five o'clock news from the radio station WWL in New Orleans. Missing some of the report, Baxter heard enough to be alarmed and puzzled as he learned that the federal government was going to acquire vast amounts of land by eminent domain along the Pearl River and build a facility to test rockets bound for the Moon. When he landed and taxied the plane up to its dock, his mother Gladys met him on the banks of the river and said, "We've got some bad news."15
At first, many people in the Logtown area did not comprehend the full extent of the federal government's plan. Baxter himself looked up the term [22] "eminent domain" in the dictionary to be sure of its meaning. According to Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the term means "the right of the government to take (usually by purchase) private property for public use." Once the town realized the magnitude of the announcement, chaos ensued.16
Just up the river, at Gainesville, Alton D. Kellar and his neighbors were "shocked," and some never reconciled to the news. The day of the announcement, Kellar's father told Alton that "Moving is for you folk, it's not for me." Kellar responded, "Dad, you know we've all got to move when the government condemns a place like this." His father replied, "Well, you go on." A year later, the senior Kellar died of a heart attack, even as the movers had come to jack up his house.17
Other longtime residents received the news with mixed emotions. On the one hand, they felt confused and saddened about the prospects of being displaced. On the other hand, they looked to the future and pictured the NASA operation as a positive, economic force for the Gulf Coast. Leo Seal, Jr., president and chairman of the board of Hancock Bank, was one of these individuals. Seal, born and raised in Bay St. Louis, spent most of his adult life in Hancock County and recalled that people in the county received the news in "disbelief." Seal found it difficult to comprehend in 1961 that NASA proposed to spend such an enormous amount of money on the Mississippi project. An ardent supporter of the NASA project from the very beginning, Seal welcomed the test facility with "open arms."18
The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune carried a big headline that read "660 La.-Miss. Families Must Leave Testing Site." Without delay, the federal government began the legal action necessary to acquire land for a Moon rocket testing site. The families that had to be relocated lived in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, and Hancock and Pearl River Counties in Mississippi. Therefore, condemnation suits were filed in U.S. Courts in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi, and a timetable of 2-1/2 years was established to complete the removal process.19
[23] Governor Ross Barnett (D-Mississippi) said he was "happy" to know that NASA had decided to locate in south Mississippi. He pledged "full support" of the project and predicted great economic gains as a result of the project. Senator Stennis, at the time a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, told The Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger that NASA's decision "puts Mississippi in the space program and gives the state an unusually high military value in the program." He also said, however, that he regretted that families would have to be moved from the area. This aspect of the project concerned the senator for the rest of his career and played a major role in all of his dealings with NASA.20
Soon after the effects of dismay and excitement were being felt by residents along the Pearl River and by the state's politicians, news media representatives from Jackson, Mississippi, New Orleans, Louisiana, and the local area descended on south Mississippi to obtain firsthand reactions. Emotions churned. Some people were ready "to take up arms" to defend their land. Roy Baxter of Logtown drove to Bay St. Louis to confer with Leo Seal, Sr., an influential community leader and personal friend of Senator Stennis. They decided to ask the senator to meet with the people. Seal telephoned Stennis and the senator agreed to a meeting at Logtown on All Saints Day, 1 November 1961.21
If anyone had the ability to allay the people's fears and explain the need for the huge new project, it was John Stennis, the junior senator from Mississippi. In Washington, Stennis projected the characteristics of national pride, self-respect, sincerity, and extreme honesty. In his home state, Stennis exhibited these same qualities. In fact, Stennis's childhood years on the farm, his education in and practice of the law, and a political career dedicated to judicial and patriotic endeavors prepared him to be eminently qualified to help the people of south Mississippi deal with their relocation problems.22
John Cornelius Stennis, born 3 August 1901 in the Kipling community located about 8 miles south of DeKalb, Mississippi, was educated first at the Mississippi Agriculture and Mechanical (A&M) College (known today as Mississippi State University) and then at the University of Virginia...
[24]
U.S. Senator John C.Stennis
U.S. Senator John C.Stennis was an American statesman and national leader who served in the U.S. Senate for 41 years. In May 1988, the National Space Technology Laboratories was officially renamed the John C. Stennis Space Center by Executive Order of President Ronald Reagan. (SSC Portrait File).
....Law School. Stennis was elected to the U.S. Senate in a special election in 1947 after service as circuit judge, district prosecuting attorney, and state legislator. By the 1960s, his national reputation was such that President Eisenhower considered him to be a man who possessed presidential-like qualities. Others suggested that the senator's sound judgement and fine legal mind qualified him for the Supreme Court. Stennis never encouraged these recommendations. Instead, he simply affirmed his desire to serve as Mississippi's "battling lawyer" in Washington. He brought all of these qualities to the Logtown meeting, an event that in many ways defined his senatorial career.23
Promise at Logtown
An estimated 1,500 people congregated on the grounds of the elementary school at Logtown to hear Senator Stennis's speech. Local radio stations had previously announced that Stennis and representatives from NASA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would be present to answer questions about the project. When Senator Stennis and the NASA and Corps representatives [25] arrived, they quickly took their positions on the back of a flatbed trailer and spoke from a portable podium borrowed from the school.24
Senator Stennis, a noted southern orator, called on his natural talents and, according to some in the audience, spoke from "the bottom of his heart." The outdoor setting, of tall pines and stately live oaks, was familiar territory to Stennis, and he was at his best when face-to-face with his people. "The federal government is ready, willing, and able to pay full compensation for the property involved," Stennis said. "In other places where land has been taken over in like situations by the federal government, it has worked out very well."25
Stennis assured the land owners that the government would try to lighten their burden as much as possible. Moreover, Stennis solemnly declared that he was "under personal obligation" to help in the readjustment process. He then called on the patriotism of his fellow Mississippians to help in the nation's fight against Communism. He argued that the world situation was such that the "entire nation must arm to the teeth although there [was] no shooting war" and cited the vital nature of the space race to the success of the Cold War.26
"America's superiority of a few years ago with the atom bomb was lost when the Russians got a vehicle into orbit first," Stennis said. "General Medaris's predictions of things to come when the Commies launched Sputnik seemed like fantasy. But developments have shown since, that who controls outer space will control the Free World." Stennis explained that the static engine-testing operation would not be dangerous to area residents and predicted that the benefits from the installation would far outweigh any liabilities.27
Perhaps the best-remembered quotation from Stennis's rhetorical appeal to his fellow citizens came when he said, "There is always the thorn before the rose . . . you have got to make some sacrifice but you will be taking part in greatness."28
The courtly senator's speech on All Saint's Day 1961 was a powerful "call to arms" for the residents along the Pearl River. He asked them to give [26] up their land, and even their homes, as a sacrifice in America's crusade against the Soviets. This clarion call carried with it strong promise that day at Logtown, of fair compensation for their sacrifices and an uncertain glory for "taking part in greatness." Stennis stepped forward that day as their leader and accepted full responsibility for keeping the promises that he made on behalf of his country.29
Notes
1. James B. Meriwether , ed., Mississippi Essays, Speeches, and Public Letters by William Faulkner (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 11.
2. Mississippi, the WPA Guide to The Magnolia State (New York: Viking Press, 1938), pp. 34-35, 40, 50; For a history of the State of Mississippi, see John R. Skates's Mississippi, a Bicentennial History (New York: Norton, 1979).
3. Caroline Keifer, "Hancock County," Coast Area Mississippi Monitor 1961-1962, Bay St. Louis, MS, 1962, p. 19.
4. Ibid.; Staff of The (Biloxi/Gulfport, MS) Daily Herald, "The Story of Hurricane Camille" (Gulfport, MS: Gulf Publishing Company, 1969).
5. "Mississippi Will Test The Rocket That Will Put A Man On The Moon," Mississippi Magic, Jackson, MS, May 1963: pp. 3-5.
6. "Historical Resume, Mississippi Test Operations," George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Stennis Space Center Historical Record Collection at Stennis Space Center, MS (henceforth referred to as SSCHRC), p. 2.
7. Suzanne Grafton, "Formation of John C. Stennis Space Center," (unpublished paper, University of Southern Mississippi, no date), SSCHRC.
8. S.G. Thigpen, Pearl River: Highway To Glory Land, (Kingsport, TN: Kingsport Press, 1966), pp. 27-28.
9. Carol Fox, "Gaines Bluff: 19th Century Town," (unpublished paper, University of New Orleans, 1994), SSCHRC.
10. Ibid.
11. Charles L. Sullivan, The Mississippi Gulf Coast: Portrait of a People (Northridge, CA: Windsor Publications, 1985), p. 105; Fact Sheet, "History of Pearl River County," (Picayune, MS: Picayune Chamber of Commerce, ud.), SSCHRC.
12. Grafton, "Formation of The John C. Stennis Space Center."
13. Ibid.
14. Ron Bailey, Life Magazine, 26 September 1964, p. 3.; William R. Matkin, interview by Johnny Mann, video tape, SSC, MS, October 1991, SSCHRC.
15. Roy Baxter, interview by Henry Dethloff, Pearlington, MS, Mississippi Oral History Program, University of Southern Mississippi, volume 422, 24 July 1991, SSCHRC.
16. Ibid.
17. Alton D. Kellar, interview by Dr. Charles Bolton, Hancock County, MS, Mississippi Oral History Program, University of Southern Mississippi, vol. 454, 16 July, 1993, SSCHRC.
18. Leo Seal, Jr., interview by Henry Dethloff, Gulfport, MS, Mississippi Oral History Program, University of Southern Mississippi, vol. 482, 23 July 1991, SSCHRC.
19. "660 La.-Miss. Families Must Leave Test Site," The (New Orleans, LA) Times-Picayune, 26 October 1961.
20. "Uncle Sam To Testfire Moon Rockets In State," The Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger, 26 October 1961.
21. Roy Baxter, Jr., interview by Mack Herring, Pearlington, MS, December 1994.
22. Biographical Sketch, "John C. Stennis, United States Senator," SSCHRC.
23. Ibid.
24. "Watch For Speculators," Rural Electric News, December 1961, Mississippi edition.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.; Baxter, interview by Mack Herring.
28. "Watch For Speculators," Rural Electric News.
29. Ibid.
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