Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, September 30, 1997

Water route to Mississippi was key to development

by Jim Bradshaw

The water route east from St. Martinville and other places in the Attakapas district to the south of Opelousas was Bayou Teche. It flowed into Berwick Bay at what is now Morgan City, and gave access to the Mississippi through Lake Chitimacha. Some steamers also used the Atchafalaya River, which intersects the Teche in lower St. Mary Parish.

But the Teche was too far south for the people in the Opelousas district, and it was not reliably navigable north of Breaux Bridge. They had to take Bayou Courtableau, which ran into the Atchafalaya and then connected to a maze of rivers, bayous, lakes, and bays that would finally give access to the Mississippi or to the Gulf.

There are several old documents that show us some of the routes. One of them dates to 1791:

Today, the seventeenth day of the month of February of the year seventeen hundred ninety-one, by virtue of the seal of office of his highness M. De Miro, Brigadier of the Army of the King, Governor and Intendent General of the Province of Louisiana, we, Don Luis de Villars, lieutenant of Infantry, interim Civil and Military Commandant of the Post of the Opelousas, have convoked the assembly of citizens of this post in order to share with them the letter of his highness and to receive the proposition made by M. Olivier de Vezin to clear Plakemines (sic), to give it water in all weather, to consolidate the spur which nature has formed there and to make a road along the said Plakemines on the left downstream bank starting two arpents from the river, as far as the village of Champagne:

Furthermore, to clean the said Plakemines from the Bayou popularly called Grosse Tete, of all the trunks of trees and roots with which it is filled all the way to its mouth.

Thirdly, to open the entrance of the said Plakemines with a sixteen foot wide canal with a depth suitable to provide three feet of water at its entrance.

Fourthly, in order to clear the barrier in the Chafalaya (sic) from the head of Bayou Courtableau to tho lower end in such a way that the exit from this post to the said Plakemines should be open in all weather, by concentrating the raft of the said Chafalaya above the said Bayou Courtableau in such a way that it cannot interfere with navigation.

We, the commandant above named, having informed all the citizens present at this meeting of' the above: have proposed to them on the plea of M. Olivier de Vezin, to subscribe hereinafter for the sum which each of the subscribers shall judge proper, which will he payable in three years from the date on which the work shall begin and shall be paid in three equal installments, viz. one third each year. ...

The citizens who have signed here above having pointed out to us, the above named commandant, that being only the smallest part of the post, they ask and believe it a propos that the larger number of absent citizens subscribe to the same clauses and conditions, in consideration of the general good of the post this same day and year but as it may be possible that a large number of the absent citizens may not be reasonable in their subscription, the subscribers, hereabove requested that they be taxed in proportion to their property.

In 1818, geographer William Darby published an "Emigrant's Guide," an early version of a road map for people coming to south Louisiana. He does not mention the "Champagne" referred to in the earlier document, and it does not appear on other maps.

Darby's "Guide No. 14, New Orleans to Opelousas by Water," gave one of the routes used by travelers to cross the Atchafalaya Basin by boat during the early days of steamboats. According to his guide, points along the way were:

• Efflux of Bayou Plaquemine
• Blake's (this was probably a store)
• Mouth of Plaquemine into Atchafalaya
• Outlet into Lake Chetimacha (sic) (now called Grand Lake)
• Outlet of Lower Tensaw (sic) (probably the outlet of Big Tensas, though it could be Little Tensas or even Bayou Pigeon)
• Cow Island Lake (the lake was bigger then than it is today)
• Lower raft (This is apparently the barrier raft that was discussed in the earlier proposal to clear a way for navigation. It was apparently still there, though it may have been moved enough to no longer be a problem.)
• Mouth of Courtableau River
• Mouth of Bayou Bigras (probably Bayou de Grasse)
• Efflux of Bayou Fordoche
• Efflux of Bayou Fusilier (sic) (Today's Bayou Fuselier does not run out of Bayou Courtableau and may not be the same one that Darby names here. Fuselier de Clair, first commandant at the post, had extensive land holdings in the area and this may have been a stream named for him or one running across his land.)
• Bayou Derbane (Bayou Darborme)
• Barre's first Prairie and settlement (Port Barre)
• Wickoff's Prairie north, and Alabama Prairie south
• Mouth of Bayou Wauksha
• Bayou Carron (an extension of Bayou Courtableau named for the Carron family plantation)
• Opelousas Landing (This is Washington today. From here, traffic had to go overland to what is now Opelousas.)
• Opelousas Town

By the beginning of the 18th century, navigation was well established from Washington and Port Barre, with water routes through the bayous Courtableau and Teche to the Atchafalaya and then to New Orleans. Bayou Courtableau was first called the Opelousas River, later taking its name from prominent plantation owners along its banks. In some sections, it was called Bayou Grand Louis (after Grand Louis Fontenot).

An 1826 legislative act granted the Opelousas Steamboat Co. "authority to establish, keep and maintain a steamboat and ferry from Bayou Plaquemine, in the parish of Iberville, through the usual route of the Grand River, Atchafalaya and the River Opelousas or Courtableau to the junction of the Bayous Crocodile and Boeuf."

Steamboats thus came as far inland as the junction of what we now call Bayou Cocodrie and Bayou Boeuf which flow together into Bayou Courtableau. Here, goods were taken off the steamboats, loaded onto barges, and towed farther up the bayou by mules.

Port facilities developed at Port Barre and Washington after logjams were removed to open the waterways. Washington became a major jumping-off point for overland travel to southern Texas. It also became the shipping point for products bound for New Orleans. Cattle drives crossed the prairies to Washington, where herds were loaded onto boats to be taken to New Orleans.

But water transportation through the Atchafalaya Basin could become undependable, particularly during dry periods, when the Teche and the Courtableau fell too low for the steamboats. When that happened, most captains simply waited until the water was high enough to navigate. Some hitched their boats to teams of mules on the riverbank and pulled them through the mud between Port Barre and Washington.

Consider the travails of the editor of the St. Landry Whig, who took 13 days to get from New Orleans to Opelousas in November 1844. He told his readers:

"It is notorious to every one that Opelousas in certain seasons is almost entirely shut out from the world, and nearly inaccessible, either for business or pleasure. We were so unfortunate as to be absent from the Parish a few weeks since, and in our return left New Orleans expecting to reach home in three or four days from the time we embarked. The sequel proved that the time was exactly thirteen days!

"After leaving New Orleans, we got going pretty well until we reached the mouth of Red River, where the current runs with such felicity, and the water usually is so low, that it is impossible for boats to get up. Seven steamers lay within a half mile of each other at the same time, -- none of which could get through the current and mud, without the help of hawsers, which were spliced together and cast a mile ahead, by which means, and all the steam that could be put on, the boats, one by one, pulled over by their windlasses. The current very often was so great as to break the lines, and the boat was driven over into the mud. Not one crossed however without dragging.

"Having finally overcome this difficulty, and passed through the Atchafalaya with much trouble, we were brought up at the mouth of the Courtableau in no water, or next to it for navigable purposes, and were again forced to work through the mud with rope and steam. After getting in, it was almost as bad to get up further. But by dint of perseverance the boat was enabled to reach as high as the Wakshee. From thence to Washington, skiffs were our conveyances.

"No person, unless on the boats, could conceive of the trouble and inconvenience of such travel. Luckily for us, our captain was a determined man, else we should have been dropped at the mouth of Courtableau, as were some of our friends before us."