bayou chene the life story of an atchafalaya basin communityhouseholds. fifty-seven bayou chene...

By Benjamin D. Maygardenand Jill-Karen YakubikBy Benjamin D. Maygardenand Jill-Karen Yakubik

Bayou CheneBayou Chene

Preserving Louisiana�s Heritage v TwoPreserving Louisiana�s Heritage v Two

Atchafalaya Basin CommunityAtchafalaya Basin CommunityThe Life Story of anThe Life Story of an

19991999

New Orleans DistrictNew Orleans District

Serving Louisiana

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers� involvement in Louisiana dates back to 1803 when an Army engineer was sent to the newly acquired city of New Orleans to study its defenses. The Corps� early work in the area was of a

military nature, but soon expanded to include navigation and flood control. To-day, New Orleans District builds upon these long-standing responsibilities with itscommitment to environmental engineering.

New Orleans District�s jurisdiction covers 30,000 square miles of south cen-tral and coastal Louisiana. The district plans, designs, constructs and operatesnavigation, flood control, hurricane protection, and coastal restorationprojects. It maintains more than 2,800 miles of navigable waterways andoperates twelve navigation locks, helping to make the ports of south Louisiananumber one in the nation in total tonnage (number one in grain exports). The Corpshas built 950 miles of levees and floodwalls, and six major flood control structures tomake it possible to live and work along the lower Mississippi River.

The Corps cares for the environment by regulating dredge and fill in all navi-gable waters and wetlands, and by designing projects to reduce the rate ofcoastal land loss. Besides constructing major Mississippi River freshwater di-version structures, the District regularly creates new wetlands and restoresbarrier islands with material dredged from navigation channels. The Dis-trict also chairs the multi-agency Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Conservation andRestoration Task Force, which is planning and constructing a variety of projectsto restore and protect the state�s coastal marshes. In addition, the District man-ages the clean up of hazardous waste sites for the Environmental ProtectionAgency.

One important aspect of the New Orleans District program is its historicpreservation and cultural resources management program. The Corps pro-tects a great variety of prehistoric and historic sites to meet the requirementsof the National Historic Preservation Act. The New Orleans District recog-nizes its responsibilities to communicate the results of its numerous studies tothe public, and this booklet is the second in our series of popular publications.The booklet was prepared in connection with the District�s Atchafalaya BasinFloodway, an important component of the comprehensive plan for flood con-trol in the Lower Mississippi Valley. This multi-state plan, called the Missis-sippi River and Tributaries Project (MR&T) provides flood protection for thealluvial valley between Cape Girardeau, Missouri and the mouth of the river.

New Orleans District

Preserving Louisiana�s Heritage v Two

BAYOU CHENE

By Benjamin Maygardenand Jill-Karen Yakubik

The Life Story of anAtchafalaya Basin Community

1999

PRESERVING LOUISIANA’S HERITAGE

2Bayou Chene residents gather beneath the oaks at the Methodist Church to hear thepreaching of Pastor Chase, ca. 1904.

Bayou Chene

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Introduction

The Atchafalaya River Basinhas changed a great deal in thepast century and a half. Twist-ing bayous where steamboatstraveled, loaded with barrels ofsugar or towing huge rafts of tim-ber, are now filled with sedimentand grown over with trees.Other bayous, broad lakes andthe Atchafalaya itself have beenstraightened and dredged togreater depths. Willow thicketsnow stand where immense liveoaks and cypress once grew,robed in Spanish moss. Arrow-straight canals crisscross the land-scape, ignoring natural terrain.And every year the spring floodsof the Atchafalaya River leavemore silt and sand behind, bury-ing the basin�s past further be-neath the surface. However,some people can recall a differ-ent Atchafalaya Basin. They re-member a beautiful environ-ment that repaid hard work withrich harvests of timber, fish andgame. They remember a homewhere their ancestors lived formore than three generations, andwhere they themselves grew up.They remember a small commu-nity that no longer exists, butthat still draws them together,like a family, after the passage ofdecades. They remember a placecalled Bayou Chene.


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Colonial Period

We do not know when thefirst Frenchman traveling in theAtchafalaya Basin named BayouChêne or �Oak Bayou.� Who-ever it was, Native Americanshad been there first. When theFrench arrived in Louisiana inthe late-1600s, the Chitimachatribe, numbering about 3,000persons, lived in the area stretch-ing from Bayou Teche to theMississippi River. SeveralChitimacha settlements werearound Bayou Chene, includingKa�me naksh tcat na�mu, onBayou de Plomb, Ku�shuh (orKu�cux) na�mu (�CottonwoodVillage�) on Lake Mongouloisand Na�mu ka�tsi (�Village ofBones�) on Bayou Chene itself.The precise locations of thesesites are not known.

Contact with the Frenchwas eventually a disaster for the

In the 1700s, the Louisianacolonists usually saw theAtchafalaya Basin as an obstacleto east-west travel rather than asa place to settle. Travelers notedthe area�s fine timber, but theypreferred the better farmlandelsewhere in Louisiana. By thelate-eighteenth century, cattleranchers from the Attakapasprairies drove herds of cattleacross the basin to eastern mar-kets. As they establisheddrover�s roads across the basin,people became more familiarwith the area�s potential forsettlement. Scattered settlementswere established in the basin bythe 1790s, including at least onefamily at Lake Chicot nearBayou Chene. Frenchman C.C.Robin described a trip throughthe Atchafalaya Basin in 1803:

...The bayou breaks up into in-numerable channels, as it flowsalong, in which one is easily lostif he is not familiar with them.

Chitimacha. The twobattled from 1706 until1718. The French killedor enslaved many of theChitimacha. Only ahandful of theChitimacha were left bythe time of the Louisi-ana Purchase. Their de-scendants resided alongBayou de Plomb intothe late-nineteenth cen-tury, but they moved toBayou Teche nearCharenton by 1900.

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Sometimes, the channel enlargesinto lakes, sometimes it narrowssuddenly and one finds oneself inshadowy avenues, overhung withenormous trees, impenetrable bythe rays of the sun, interlaced withdense vines, and loaded with gray-ish streamers of Spanish moss,barely leaving room for the passageof the boat. One imagines himselfcrossing the shadowy Styx withAcheron. Alligators in swarmssurround the travelers or are seensleeping everywhere on the shellbeaches. Mixed with the deepthroated bugling of giant frogs...[are] the sharp cries of black cor-morants and the melancholy lovenote of the owls.

After long sinuosities which forminnumerable islands, among whichthe inexperienced traveler would

require the thread of Ariadne in or-der not to wander forever, the riveropens suddenly into a magnificentlake of several leagues extent. Thesudden light surprises the travelerand the beauty of the water, set aboutwith tall trees, forms an enchantingsight.

These tall trees are cypresses.Stretching away from us as far asthe eye can see, each cindery col-umn, based upon a broad, deeplyfurrowed cone, crowned withbranches which hardly bend downat all. These columns seem to formthe portico, and one fancies that heis before the immense palace of theGod of the Waters... the mysteri-ous lair of Old Proteus... [Robin1966:184-185]

Antebellum Period1804-1861

Residents of the AtchafalayaBasin were few at the time of theLouisiana Purchase, and much ofthe basin interior remained un-known. However, in the late-1820s and early-1830s, a growing

demand for agricultural landprompted widespread surveys ofthe area. Parts of Grand Riverhad been surveyed by 1829 andwere settled by the early-1830s.During the 1830s, settlements alsodeveloped on Bayou Grosse Teteand Bayou Sorrel, with plan-

The oldestform of boatused in theAtchafalayaBasin was thedugoutpirogue,adapted fromNativeAmericancanoes.


6Pirogues were traditionally carved from a singlecypress tree. Pirogues began to be built of planks by1920, but cypress dugouts continued in use becausethey outlasted plank-built boats.

OriginalU.S. landclaimants inthe vicinityof BayouChene,1848.

Bayou de Plomb. The first claimsof land in the Bayou Chene areawere registered with the U.S.government in June 1848, andnearly all the tracts in the vicin-ity were claimed by the end ofSeptember 1848. The descen-dants of many of the originalBayou Chene claimants still livedthere a century later.

The 1850 census was the firstto list residents at Bayou Chene;it counted 184 free persons in 41households. Fifty-seven BayouChene inhabitants were FreePeople of Color, accounting for30% of the free population in1850. Many of these Free Peopleof Color migrated out of the areaduring the 1850s. Twelve slaveowners in the area held a totalof 93 slaves, who also constituted

tations following soon after at BayouChene. By 1841, at least 16 planterswere homesteading along BayouChene, Bayou Crook Chene and

0 1 mi

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about 30% of thepopulation. Thetotal Bayou Chenearea populationwas about 277 per-sons. A post officewas established atBayou Chene in1858, indicatingthat the populationwas large and stableenough for officialrecognition.

tive Americans were probably inthe area in 1850, but were missedby the earlier census. Therewere about 375 plantation slavesin 1860, outnumbering the freeinhabitants. Several original resi-dents still resided in the area,notably members of the Carline,Falcon, Lafontaine and Verretfamilies. The Allen, Mendozaand Seneca families came into thearea by this time and remainedinto the twentieth century.

Bayou Chene planters raisedsmaller amounts of sugarcanethan the great planters along theMississippi River, Bayou La-fourche and Bayou Teche. Mostbasin planters still had horse-powered cane mills when theCivil War began, but a few hadsteam-powered cane mills. AllBayou Chene sugar houses usedold-fashioned open kettles toboil the sugar instead of the moreadvanced vacuum pans. Someother inhabitants were subsis-tence farmers who also hunted,fished, collected Spanish moss

By the 1860 census, the to-tal Bayou Chene population in-creased to about 675 persons.Two-hundred and ninety-fourfree persons were listed as resi-dent at Bayou Chene or onnearby bayous. Free People ofColor made up less than 10% ofthe total number of free personsby this time. The 1860 recordsalso indicate that Native Ameri-cans composed 5% of the totalpopulation in 1860. These Na-

Steamboatstransportedsugar from theAtchafalayaBasin tomarket duringthe antebellumperiod. Manyof the basinwaterwaysthey used havevanished, filledwith sediment.


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ingly frequent and made lifemore difficult for Bayou Cheneresidents.

Union forces defeated theConfederates at Bisland, GrandLake and Fort Burton in thespring of 1863, giving them con-trol of the Atchafalaya water-ways wherever they could oper-ate gunboats. The Confederatescould not match the firepowerof these vessels. Even with thisadvantage, though, Confederateguerrilla forces, as well asjayhawkers and smugglers, con-stantly harassed the federals, es-pecially in the summer of 1864.Jayhawkers were bands of de-serters, draft dodgers and crimi-nals who infested much of Loui-siana during the last three yearsof the war. Confederate irregu-lar forces used the familiar ter-rain of the basin to their advan-

ses, cotton and firearms frombasin residents. These forays byfederal troops became increas-

tage, relying uponpirogues, skiffs andhorses in their hit-and-run foraysagainst the fed-erals.

To deal withthese problems, theUnion commanddecided to destroyall ferries, bridgesand boats in the ba-sin as well as con-fiscate all contra-band goods. Any-

thing not produced locally, in-cluding flour, salt and otherstaples, became unavailable to

and cut timber. Before 1860,floods ruined some crop years inthe basin, most notably in 1851.Floods became worse after theAtchafalaya was cleared of log-jams in 1861, making life moredifficult in the basin.

The Civil War In TheAtchafalaya Basin

Basin waterways were con-sidered a route between theUnion forces on the lowerAtchafalaya River and Unionforces in the Baton Rouge area.In turn, Bayou Chene becamethe main route from GrandRiver to Grand Lake, drawingattention to the area. Before at-tacking Confederate Fort Bur-ton at Butte-à-la-Rose (Butte LaRose), Union troops raided thebasin, confiscating sugar, molas-

U.S. Gunboat#53 wastypical of theshallow-draft,lightlyarmored�tinclads� thatbrought theCivil War toBayou Cheneand otherAtchafalayaBasinwaterways.

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Waterwaysand landformsin the BayouChene vicinitybefore channelalterations inthe twentiethcentury.

residents. These policies antago-nized local Union sympathizersand hindered the collection ofintelligence. In November 1864,the Union command concededthat �small loyal planters� in thebasin could keep their boats ifthey were hidden at night from�guerrilla thieves.� However,the federals still withheld sup-plies from inhabitants who didnot inform on the guerillas. Ba-

sin residents, including familiesat Bayou Chene, also sufferedfrom jayhawker activity into1865.

Much damage at BayouChene was the direct result ofmilitary action. Many boats,sugarhouses and stores of sugarwere destroyed by Union gun-boats and troops. By February1865, the levee on Grand River


10

The large family of Charles and Agatha Larson, ca. 1897.

was broken in many places, andthe entire region below BayouPlaquemine was impassable be-cause of flooding. This caused anumber of Union sympathizersat Bayou Chene to leave the ba-sin on federal gunboats. Largenumbers of livestock could notbe saved and were left to drown.The end of the Civil War inLouisiana found Bayou Cheneflooded and abandoned. Thepost office at Bayou Chene hadstayed open through the war butwas officially closed on June 22,1866. It would not reopen forten years.

the free population in1850. By 1876, thepopulation had grownto approximately 450persons despite the1874 flood. A dra-matic change was thedeparture of most Af-rican-Americans, themajority of whommoved during the warand Reconstruction.By 1900, not a singleAfrican-American re-sided at Bayou Chene.

Bayou Chene from theCivil War to 1907

Some antebellum residentsreturned to Bayou Chene afterthe 1865 flood. For the mostpart, planters did not share thepost-war recovery enjoyed bythe sugar growers on the Missis-sippi River. Only W.W. andE.T. King produced any sugar

between 1862 and 1873. Finally,a severe flood in 1874 endedcommercial agriculture in the re-gion. Some former residents canstill remember seeing plantationcane field features in the BayouChene area when they wereyoung. Today, these have allbeen obscured by sedimentationand tree growth.

New settlers also moved intothe Bayou Chene area after theCivil War, including at least oneUnion veteran. By 1870, theBayou Chene population totaled277 persons, roughly the same as

The number of French orAcadian families also declinedduring the late-nineteenth cen-tury. Among those that re-mained were the Theriot,Landry, Daigle, Verret andBroussard families. Even a fewEuropean immigrants and first-generation Americans moved toBayou Chene, but most new set-tlers were Anglo-Americansfrom southern and northern

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AnAtchafalayaBasin swamperon a �choppingboard�preparing tocut down acypress tree, ca.1888.

An AtchafalyaBasin swamperfloating out alog, ca. 1888.

states. Family histo-ries relate how�people from all overended up in BayouChene.� BayouChene offered thesepost-Civil War mi-grants cheap land (foras little as $.25 peracre) where theycould make a living

as members of the community,but no one tolerated �foolish-ness.� Residents sometimes sub-stituted personal action for dis-tant legal authority. The St.Martin Parish sheriff usually vis-ited Bayou Chene at electiontime, though rarely otherwise.

The lumberjacks and othersat Bayou Chene could be a roughcrowd. One newcomer toBayou Chene, Robert Wisdom,was reputedly challenged toprove that he was tough enough

cutting timber, hunting, fishingor raising livestock.

Bayou Chene retained itsfrontier character in this period.Education levels were generallylow, although Oswald Templetestablished a school in the late-nineteenth century, holding classin any available building. In thefrontier tradition, a person�s pastwas behind them at BayouChene. Former residents indi-cate that if newcomers �behavedthemselves,� they were accepted


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vention of the pullboat in 1889and the overhead cableway rail-way skidder in 1892 brought onfull-scale industrial exploitationof swamp cypress. Louisianasawmills produced 248 millionboard feet of cypress lumber in1899, and one billion board feetin 1915. The largest logging com-pany in the Bayou Chene areawas the Schwing Lumber Com-pany of Plaquemine. The steam-boat Carrie B. Schwing was a fre-quent sight at Bayou Chene,towing large rafts or �booms� oflogs to Plaquemine to be milled.Cypress was rapidly depleted af-ter 1915 and production de-clined. Large-scale logging wasvirtually over by 1925, littlemore than a single generation af-

basin. Trees werecut down with axesand saws, and thelogs floated out ofthe swamp duringperiods of high wa-ter. Float logginghad little impact onthe vast stands ofcypress in theAtchafalaya regionbecause of the dif-ficult process of re-moving the logsfrom swamps.However, the in-

The Carrie B. Schwing was a familiar site onBayou Chene booming timber to Plaquemines.

to stay. A small crowd had gath-ered at Cyrus Case�s store tomeet the steamboat on whichWisdom happened to arrive.Some locals told Wisdom that hehad to fight them or he could notstay in the community. Wisdom�rolled his sleeves up� and metthe challenge.

Luckily, the construction ofrailroads across the region al-lowed the basin�s products toreach distant markets, resuscitat-ing economic development inthe region. The most importantof these basin products in thelate-nineteenth and early-twen-tieth centuries was cypress lum-ber, which fed into a burgeon-ing national market for buildingmaterials. By the 1870s, mostmale residents of Bayou Chenewere involved with logging,while a few planted and farmed.

�Float� logging was the earlymethod used to cut timber in the

A pull-boat ina Louisianacypress swamp,ca. 1900.

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A cut-over cypress stand, 1920s.

maintain water levels, alteringdrainage in the region. Manypullboat roads, logging canalsand tramways were still visiblein the basin a quarter of a cen-tury ago, but many have van-ished because of sedimentation.

Trapping, fishing and mosspicking remained important toyear-round residents of theAtchafalaya Basin during theboom in the cypress logging in-dustry. Fishing be-came the most im-portant of theseother activities tothe Bayou Chenecommunity. Thedevelopment ofice-making ma-chines and thetow-car allowedlive fish to be trans-

ter it began. Industrial loggingwas a brief but intense ecologi-cal and cultural phenomenon inSouth Louisiana. It greatly af-fected both the ecosystem of theAtchafalaya Basin and its humanresidents. Removing stands ofvirgin cypress trees rapidly trans-formed the landscape. Pullboat�roads� pierced natural levees to

ported to the rail terminal inMorgan City, making commer-cial fishing in the basin viable.By 1894, state records listed 756�general fishermen� in theAtchafalaya Basin.

Life at Bayou Cheneca. 1907-1927

The golden age of BayouChene may have been the periodfrom the introduction of the in-ternal combustion boat motorbefore 1907 to the disastrous1927 flood. Cypress lumberingstill flourished in the region, andthe inboard boat motor madecommercial fishing more profit-able. Only one major flood in1912 and two lesser high-wateryears, 1913 and 1922, damagedhomes, livestock and fields in thebasin. After every major floodsome families left Bayou Chene,but a few new ones would moveinto the area, and a substantialcore of families remained resi-dent through the vagaries offloods and other events. Thepopulation of Bayou Chene in1927 was about 500 persons.

The skiff wasone of themajor forms oftransportationin the basinbefore theintroductionof boat motors.Outrigger-likejougs allowedthe rower tostand and faceforward in the�push-skiff;� a�pull-skiff� wasrowed whileseated facingbackward.


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Many Bayou Chene resi-dents farmed or raised livestockin this period. By the early-twen-tieth century, no one grew anyquantity of sugarcane at BayouChene, but several farms devel-oped on the extensive tractscleared in the nineteenth centuryfor cane-growing. Residentsgrew corn, potatoes, beans, cab-bage and fruit trees, and raisedmilk cattle and oxen, hogs,chickens, turkeys, ducks, geeseand guinea hens. Hogs and cattleranged freely, marked with ear-notches. In frontier style, peoplebuilt fences not to keep livestockpenned in but to keep them out

structures built in late-nineteenthor turn-of-the-century style.Most houses were more modest.Numerous families lived in two-room houses, and some lived inone-room houses. Architecturevaried widely. Acadian-stylehouses and shotguns raised onwood blocks were common.Some families resided on house-boats, those of fishermen in par-ticular. Drinking water was col-lected in cypress cisterns. Onlya few families had brick fireplacesand chimneys; some had tradi-tional stick and mud chimneys.Most families cooked on ironstoves. The favored heating and

An Atchafalaya Basin houseboat, 1920s.

of yards and gar-dens.

Some of thehomes at BayouChene, such asthose of JohnSnellgrove, AlbertStockstill, JohnCrowson, Ger-trude Tenpennyand Cyrus Case,were large frame

The CyrusCase house andstore, 1920s.The CyrusCase store waslocated nearthe geographi-cal center ofthe BayouChenecommunityand was long apopularmeeting point.

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cooking wood was ash, whichhad a low market value andcould be cut freely anywhere.

Among the important devel-opments in the Bayou Chenelifestyle was the introduction by1907 of the gasoline-fueled inter-nal combustion engine for pow-ering boats. Prior to the intro-duction of these engines, the av-erage resident of the AtchafalayaBasin owned only a pirogue or apush-skiff. The small earlysingle-cylinder, two-horsepowerengines greatly increased therange of fishermen or indepen-

dent loggers. Larger engineswere soon developed. The in-board engines were installed inwhat French-speakers called abateau and English-speakers

Small, two-cycle gasolineenginesrevolution-ized life inthe basin bymakingtransporta-tion muchfaster andeasier for theaveragebasinresident.

AnAtchafalayaBasin putt-putt.


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was quickly depleted nearground level, and harvesters had

An Atchafalaya Basin fish-boat. In the 1920s and 1930s, the fish-boatswere often luggers; in later years, large bateaux were often used.

called a �joe boat.� The bateauwas up to about 25 feet long,heavy, flat-bottomed, and had ablunt bow and stern. Fitted withthe small Lockwood-Ash, Kellyor Nadler engine, these boats werealso called �putt-putts.�

The adoption of putt-puttscorresponded with strong con-sumer demand for freshwater

fish. �Fish-boats� from the rail-heads came to the communityseveral times a week, collectingmostly catfish (blue and yellow),buffalofish and gaspergou fromlocal fishermen. They also pur-chased turtles, alligator skins andfurs. The fishermen kept theirdaily catch in live-boxes of cy-press, which were kept sub-merged. The fish-boats also sold

ermen used a wide variety of fish-ing techniques. They typicallyfished for catfish with baited lines,using shad, river shrimp or craw-fish for bait. Buffalofish wereusually caught in unbaited hoopnets. Fishing lines and nets weremade of cotton, and had to bedipped in vats of hot coal tarabout every two weeks to keepthem from rotting quickly.

grocery staples, coal oiland tar, kerosene andgasoline to the basin resi-dents. The fish werebrought to a dock by thefish-boats and thenshipped by rail to urbanmarkets.

Bayou Chene fish-

to use a longh o o k e dpole from amoss barge,a raisedw o o d e nplatform ona flatboat.The moss

Spanish moss-pick-ing reached its peak dur-ing the 1920s when mosswas in high demand forupholstery stuffing.Some moss could be col-lected as �black moss�that had fallen to theground and dried out,but it was usuallypicked green. The moss

The �putt-putt� wasmade byinstalling atwo-cyclemotor in abateau or �joeboat.�

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was laid on the ground to curein large piles. The piles were wa-tered and turned with a pitch-fork so that the moss would notcatch fire. Eventually, the moss

AnAtchafalayaRiverfishermanhauls a largehoopnet intohis joe boat,1940s.

Before theintroductionof nylon in the1950s, cottonnets andfishing linehad to betarred aboutevery twoweeks.

was spread out on a fence,wire or tree branches tofinish drying. The outercovering of the moss de-composed, leaving thehorsehair-like core. Afterabout six weeks of curing,the moss weighed 2/3 lessthan it did when picked.The dried moss brought thepicker only about one centper pound. The fish-boats

quantities for alonger period.

Reminiscentof its early days,Bayou Chenecontinued to be arowdy place.Several saloons

operated at various times, mostof them simple barrooms at-tached to grocery stores. AfterProhibition, some residentsbrewed their own beer, whilePatin�s store in Butte La Rosesupplied illicit liquor in the ba-sin. Fiddlers and accordionistsfrom St. Martinville, Catahoula,Butte La Rose and elsewhereprovided music for dances untilthe beginning of the 1930s. Eventhough a minority of the BayouChene population were Acadianor French, the community re-tained some Acadian cultural in-fluence. The most populardances at Bayou Chene were

�round dances� or roundelays,mazurkas and waltzes; all sharedin Cajun tradition. The presenceof the saloons may have contrib-uted to the rough-and-tumble at-mosphere of Bayou Chene inthis period, but drunkenness andfighting were probably no morecommon here than anywhereelse in rural south Louisiana atthe time.

The shooting of Joe Carpen-ter by Nick Burns around 1919

purchased the cured and baled mossfrom basin residents, taking it toa moss gin. Moss was harvestedat Bayou Chene in large amountsuntil the late-1920s, and in smaller


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has entered community folkloreas an unusual, late example ofviolence at Bayou Chene. Car-penter came to Bayou Chene asan older man and was deemed�half crazy.� Once a visitor spaton the floor of Carpenter�shouse, and Carpenter shot a holein the floor next to the visitor�schair. He then ordered thevisitor to spit through the holenext time. Carpenter dislikedthe family of Nick Burns, wholived across Bayou Chene, and

suspected they were stealingfrom his house. One day Car-penter dusted the floor withflour before leaving. Upon re-turning home, Carpenter foundseveral footprints, and inter-preted them as the footprints ofBurns� sons. Carpenter pro-claimed that he would killBurns� family from the littlebaby up to the father, from�blond to bald.� He asked twofish-boat operators to bring himrifle cartridges from town, but

each gave Carpen-ter excuses whythey could not ob-tain the shells. Fi-nally, Carpenterentered a piroguewith a shotgunand began pad-dling towardBurns� residence.Mrs. Burns sawCarpenter firstand said she wouldkill him if her hus-band would not.

Rafting outhardwoodlumber, 1920s.

Fashionablestudents poseat the BayouChene Schoolcistern, 1926.

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through the sixth grade. The in-board boat engine enabled morechildren from a wider area to at-tend the Bayou Chene school,and no later than 1912, motor-ized school boats or �boat trans-fers� were in use. They were apleasant ride in fine weather, butcould be bitterly cold in the win-ter. In later years, a traditionalprank was for a line of childrenin the boat to hold hands whileone on the end touched theengine�s spark plug. The chil-dren along the line got shocked.

The Decline of BayouChene, 1927 to 1953

The great flood of 1927marks the period of decline ofBayou Chene. Most residentsevacuated the area during the1927 flood. Myrtle Burns Biglerrecalled 1927 flood waters reach-ing seven feet above the bank ofthe Atchafalaya River. SomeBayou Chene residents remainedin the area living on houseboatsduring the flood, but most resi-

Nick Burns grabbed his deer rifleand warned Carpenter to turnback. Carpenter answered withfurther threats and obscenities.Burns, a crack shot, fired andhit Carpenter in the chest. De-spite his wound, Carpenter con-tinued to paddle toward Burns.Burns fired a second shot, hittingCarpenter in the head and kill-ing him instantly. JohnSnellgrove, Carpenter�s em-ployer, interceded with the St.Martin Parish sheriff on Burns�behalf, and no criminal action

Devastatingfloods in 1927,1937 and1947, plus highwater in otheryears,ultimatelypersuadedmany residentsto leave theAtchafalayaBasin.

was taken in thecase. Coinciden-tally, Carpenterwas buried next toone of the pastorsof the BayouChene MethodistChurch. Thiscaused a residentto comment thatBayou Chene is�the only place inthe world where apreacher and acriminal could be buried side byside� (quoted in Case 1973:130-131).

The rough character ofBayou Chene was tamed some-what during later decades. Thepopulation became more settled,more connected with the outsideworld, and better educated. TheSt. Martin Parish Public Schoolat Bayou Chene was built in theearly-twentieth century, replac-ing the old one-teacher school.In early decades, the school went


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dents� homes wereon the floodedbanks. A few resi-dents put theirlivestock on hast-ily-assembled lografts during thehigh water andkept them there aslong as they could,or until the watersubsided. Otherresidents returnedto find four feet ofwater in theirhomes, and builtscaffolds or plankwalks inside theirhouses. BayouChene folkloretells of WarrenStockstill�s goat

The Great Depression yearsof the 1930s were hard onBayou Chene residents. In-creased flooding in theAtchafalaya Basin made it moreand more difficult to pursue anyagriculture or raise livestock.Logging declined and hunting,fishing, trapping and moss-pick-

stranded in the MethodistChurch during the 1927 flood.The goat survived weeks of highwater by eating the hymnals andwallpaper in the church. Manyresidents returned to BayouChene after the great flood, butothers left the area to settle out-side of the basin.

ing assumed new impor-tance. For most of the lifeof the Bayou Chene com-munity, no restrictionshad been recognized onhunting season, locationor game limit. On theother hand, fishinggrounds were consideredproprietary and were re-spected by other fisher-men. By 1933, there were1,073 full-time fishermenFur trapping helped many Atchafalya Basin

residents make a living.

AnAtchafalayaBasin residentpicking mossfrom a skiff,ca. 1948.

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in the basin who received morethan 50% of their income fromfishing, frogging and crabbing,and about twice as many part-time fishermen. The rise oftruck transportation about 1940meant that fish-boats took theBayou Chene catch to a largernumber of docks at the edge ofthe basin.

Former Bayou Chene resi-dents agree that fish and shellfishwere never a major part of thetypical diet in the community,despite commercial fishing bymany residents. Apparentlyfishing and crabbing were prima-rily for outside markets, as wasthe case also with hunting alli-gators and frogs. The only twospecies of fish eaten with anyregularity were catfish (usuallyfried) and gaspergou. Alligatorswere hunted or caught on a linefor their skins, since the meatwas rarely or never eaten byBayou Cheners. Crawfish wereeaten rarely, only on Good Fri-day by many Bayou CheneCatholics. More important thanfish or shellfish in the diet werebeef, pork, poultry, game andbeans. In traditional fashion,hogs were typically killed in thecool weather months and themeat ground and salted for pres-ervation.

Raccoon, otter and minkfurs were other basin productsbought by the fish-boats. Afterthe early-1930s, higher water lev-els reduced the population of

some game in what had been ateeming habitat. Before the liveoaks of the Bayou Chene vicin-ity succumbed to sedimentation,squirrels were particularly plen-tiful in the area. Bayou Chenefolklore says that a man couldput a pot on to boil, leave thehouse with his gun, and returnwith a potfull of squirrels beforethe water was boiling.

Cypress logging and mosspicking declined during theGreat Depression. The last largevirgin cypress stand in the cen-tral basin was Buffalo Cove,south of Bayou Chene. BuffaloCove was logged in the early-1930s by John Snellgrove andseveral other Bayou Chene resi-dents. Moss-picking remained asideline for many Bayou Cheneresidents in the 1930s and 1940s,but finally died out when foamrubber replaced moss for uphol-stery use.

Former Bayou Chene resi-dents recall the excitement cre-ated by federal works projects inthe Depression, a time when

Despite theimportance ofcommercialfishing to thecommunity,livestock werea moreimportantfood source forBayou Cheneresidents.


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people were hard-pressed for em-ployment. Numerous residentsof the community worked onthe U.S. Army Corps of Engi-neers levee and dredging projectsin the basin that began in the

early-1930s. Some of theseprojects payed $3.20 per day �a dollar a day more than cuttingtimber. The Works ProgressAdministration also enlarged theBayou Chene schoolhouse andconstructed a levee around theschoolyard.

Despite flooding and theeconomic hardship of the De-pression, living standards even-tually improved for many BayouChene residents. Tin roofing re-placed wooden shingles. By thelate-1940s, stores and somehomes had gasoline-poweredelectric generators for lights, andcoal oil- or kerosene-powered re-frigerators. Radio also came tothe Bayou, lessening the isola-tion of the community. Someresidents served in World WarII, also widening their horizons.

Former residents recountthe reliability, honesty and civic-mindedness of the Bayou

Cheners. They contrast BayouChene with other parts of thebasin in the past, and particularlywith current society. The occa-sional livestock or timber theftin the early decades of the cen-tury were rare in the 1930s and1940s. Houses and sheds werenever locked, and permission wasunnecessary to borrow tools orequipment. People generally re-spected ownership of fishinggrounds and rarely disturbednets or lines. These conditionshave vanished in recent decades,and property crime plagues thebasin today.

Former residents speakhighly of the education they re-ceived at the Bayou Chene schoolin this period. During the late-1930s, approximately 100 stu-dents attended through the sev-enth grade; this total decreasedto 72 children in 1944, mirror-ing the declining communitypopulation.The schoolwas moved toa new build-ing on thenorth side ofthe BayouChene Cutabout 1945,and closed by1953. At St.Martin Parishschool rallies,the BayouChene teamoften won aca-demic hon-

U.S. dredgeZeta beingpushed by U.S.steamerChisca inWhiskey Bayduring theU.S. ArmyCorps ofEngineersAtchafalayaRiver ChannelRectificationproject,January, 1933.

Bayou Chene

23The Bayou Chene School photographed during the 1927flood. The school averaged around 100 students duringthe 1930s.

The CatholicChapel of St.Joseph wasconstructed onBayou CrookChene rightbefore the 1927flood.

1940s. A Catholic missionchapel had been present at BayouChene in the early-twentiethcentury but closed, perhaps atthe time of the 1912 flood. Anew chapel was built around1927 on a plot donated by theLandry family on Bayou CrookChene. The ReverendMonseignor R.J. Gobeil servedas pastor of the mission churchat Bayou Chene from 1938 to1948. A Methodist church hadbeen established at Bayou Cheneby the 1880s. After the closureof the first Catholic chapel atBayou Chene, the MethodistChurch remained active atBayou Chene. As a result, a few

Bayou Chene Catholicsconverted to Methodismduring the late-1910s and1920s. Pastors of theBayou Chene MethodistChurch included BrotherPines, Brother Newtonand Delos Cassels. TheMethodist Church wasmoved from Little BayouChene to east of BigBayou Chene about 1946.The original church bellfrom the Bayou CheneMethodist Church is nowlocated in the MethodistChurch of Bayou Sorrel.

ors. The Bayou Chene schooltaught at a relatively high levelbecause the first year of school-ing in St. Martin Parish was�primer,� in which AcadianFrench-speaking children weretaught English. This was notnecessary at Bayou Chene, sincemost families spoke English orwere bilingual. Riding in theschool boat is a vivid memoryfor former Bayou Chene resi-dents. School boat drivers of thisperiod, including Edwin Curry,Leon Curry, Earl Stockstill andKervin Chauvin gave manyBayou Chene youngsters thenicknames they carried for life.Nicknames were so universallyused at Bayou Chene that thereal first names of people weresometimes not known by oth-ers in the community.

The Bayou Chene commu-nity had a growing diversity ofreligious faith in the 1930s and


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Two other Protestant sectswere newly established in BayouChene in this period, the Bap-tists and the Seventh DayAdventists. The Baptists visitedBayou Chene with a chapel boatfor several years and constructeda small church east of Big BayouChene. During this period, theSeventh Day Adventists alsoconstructed a church on BayouCrook Chene, below Bayou dePlomb.

By the late-1930s, a few BayouChene residents made home-brew for their own consump-tion, but the bootleg liquor tradeseems to have declined. Houseparties largely replaced the sa-loons and dances that had beenheld with Acadian musicians.Late in Bayou Chene�s existenceas a community, young peoplewould sometimes even go toBayou Sorrel or CharentonBeach for socializing.

Bayou CheneMethodist Church,during the 1927 highwater. Originallylocated south of LittleBayou Chene, thechurch was adjacent toa large cemetery.

The social evolution of theBayou Chene community wasreflected in the demise of the sa-loons and dances of an earlierera. There were still a couple ofbars, including one on a boat, atBayou Chene in the early-1930s.

Baseball was long popularat Bayou Chene, and commu-nity teams would host games ortravel to play Plaquemine,Loreauville and other regionalteams. Bayou Chene producedseveral gifted athletes, and the

Bayou Chenechildrencostumed for aplay at the St.Martin Parishschools rally,1930s.

Bayou Chene

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baseball team was highly com-petitive. Other pastimes wereoccasionally available, such as si-lent movies (shown in a tent) andthe Harry Williams air showfrom Patterson, which appearedat Bayou Chene in the 1930s.

After the 1937 flood, severalBayou Chene residents movedtheir homes to the high spoilbanks created by the dredging ofthe Bayou Chene and BayouTarleton cuts. The first of theseresidents on the spoil bank eastof Big Bayou Chene was ErnestVerret, nicknamed �Canoe,� andthe area took the name of�Canoeville.� The U.S. PostOffice at Bayou Chene movedto the spoil bank adjacent to theTarleton Cut after 1937, andthen to Canoeville about 1945.On December 24, 1952, theBayou Chene community sym-bolically came to an end with theclosing of the U.S. Post Office.

Virtually all remaining residentsleft Bayou Chene soon after.Former Bayou Chene residentsclustered in New Iberia and St.Martinville to the west of thebasin and Bayou Sorrel andPlaquemine to the east, as wellas several other communities.

The Curryhome onBayou dePlomb, 1930s.

The 1941graduatingclass of theBayou CheneSchool.


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The End of Bayou Chene: Disappearance andRemembrance

projecting from ground level.Houses, graveyards and otherfeatures of Bayou Chene lie si-lent beneath the shroud of sedi-ment. Fishermen and huntersspeed down the bayou withpowerful outboard motors,oblivious to the buried historyof a once-thriving community.

Former residents of BayouChene are nostalgic for the by-

Decades of annual floodinghave blanketed the AtchafalayaBasin with an average of morethan 12 feet of deposited silt.The landscape of Bayou Cheneis unrecognizable even to formerresidents, unless they haveclosely observed the transforma-tion over the years. The mag-nificent live oaks that gaveBayou Chene its name are rot-ting stumps, their dead boughs

Aerial photographs taken in 1935 and 1947 show the devastating effects offlooding and sedimentation on buildings, fences and fields at Bayou Chene.

Bayou Chene

27

gone beauty of Bayou Chene andappreciate the self-reliance of itstightly-knit community. Someformer residents suggest that thepassing of Bayou Chene was theloss of a tradition, even a privi-lege, of personal autonomy andfreedom in a demanding butbountiful environment. Theysuggest that this was an Ameri-can heritage that Bayou Chenewas among the last communitiesto enjoy. However, the passageof time and an acceptance ofprovidence has generally tem-pered any bitterness over thebasin�s environmental deteriora-tion and the disappearance ofBayou Chene. Former Bayou

Chene residents and their fami-lies have met recent efforts bythe U.S. Army Corps of Engi-neers to document the historyand physical remains of theBayou Chene community withstrong interest, enthusiasm andcooperation. The profoundfamily and community feeling offormer Bayou Chene residentsis evident most dramatically atthe annual Bayou Chene re-unions that have been held since1971. Bayou Chene has beengone for half a century, but in asense the community still lives;proud of its past, and grateful forthe legacy it can give its descen-dants.

The Bayou Chene Post Office had several locations between its opening in 1858 andclosing in 1952. Postmaster Lynn Curry (center) poses with visitors from the U.S. PostalService, ca. 1948.


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SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING:

Abbey, D. Gail1979 Life in the Atchafalaya Swamps. The Lafayette Natural History

Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana.

Barry, John M.1997 Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed

America. Simon & Schuster, New York.

Case, Gladys Calhoon1973 The Bayou Chene Story. The Harlo Press, Detroit.

Castille, George C., Charles E. Pearson, Donald G. Hunter, Allen R. Saltus Jr.,Rodney E. Emmer and Susan Wurtzburg

1990 Cultural Resources Investigations, Cross Basin Channel Realign-ments, Atchafalaya Basin, Louisiana. Submitted to the New Or-leans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans.

Comeaux, Malcolm L.1972 Atchafalaya Swamp Life: Settlement and Folk Occupations. Geo-

science and Man 2. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Coulon, George A.1888 350 Miles in a Skiff Through the Louisiana Swamps. George A.

Coulon, New Orleans.

Daniel, Pete1977 Deep�n as it Come: the 1927 Mississippi River Flood. Oxford Uni-

versity Press, New York.Gobeil, R..J.

n.d. High Water, Low Water. Privately published.

Guirard, Greg1989 Cajun Families of the Atchafalaya: Their Ways and Words. Pri-

vately published.

Kniffen, Fred B., Hiram F. Gregory and George A. Stokes1987 The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana: From 1542 to the Present.

Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.

Lockwood, C.C.1981 Atchafalaya: America�s Largest River Basin Swamp. Beauregard

Press, Baton Rouge.

Mancil, Edwin1972 An Historical Geography of Industrial Cypress Lumbering in Loui-

siana. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geologyand Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Maygarden, Benjamin, Aubra Lee, Roger Saucier, Melissa Braud and Jill-KarenYakubik

1998 National Register Evaluation of the Bayou Jean Louis Cemetery(16SM89), Atchafalaya Basin Project, St. Martin Parish, Louisiana.Submitted to the New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers, New Orleans.

Bayou Chene

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Norgress, Rachel Edna1947 The History of the Cypress Lumber Industry in Louisiana. Loui-

siana Historical Quarterly 30(4):979-1059.

Prichard, Walter, Fred B. Kniffen and Clair A. Brown1945 Southern Louisiana and Southern Alabama in 1819: The Journal

of James Leander Cathcart. Louisiana Historical Quarterly28(3):735-921.

Raphael, Morris1975 The Battle in the Bayou Country. Harlo Publishers, Detroit.

Reuss, Martin1998 Designing the Bayous: The Control of Water in the Atchafalaya

Basin, 1800-1995. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alexandria,Virginia.

Robin, C.C.1966 Voyage to the Interior of Louisiana. Translated by Stuart O.

Landry, Jr. Pelican Publishing Co., New Orleans.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The memories of former Bayou Chene community residents were vital to the writ-ing of this booklet. Ben Maygarden spoke with the following oral informants (inalphabetical order): David Allen Sr., Electa Guillot Allen, Michael Allen, PhilipAllen, Walter Allen, Darl Ashley, Carl Carline, Joyce Kelly Carline, Ray Carline,Stella Larson Case, Amos Curry, Lila Larson Curry, Lynn Curry, Pearl TheriotCurry, Curtis Larson, Sarah Larson, Leota Buck Megas, Douglas Mendoza, CharlesRoe, Rene Seneca, Harold Snellgrove, Stanley Stockstill, Wesley Stockstill, CharlesVerret and Horace Wisdom. Mr. Maygarden would like to express his sincere ap-preciation for having been invited into their homes to hear about Bayou Chene, andasks their forbearance for his telling of the Bayou Chene story.

Former Bayou Chene residents accompany a U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers site visit to the Bayou Chene cemeteries, July 1997.


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PHOTO CREDITSFront cover: Mr. Edwin Curry�s Bayou Chene school �boat transfer� carried communitychildren to school. Mr. Curry stands with grandson Ronnie Curry, son of Amos andPearl Curry. Pearl Curry and her daughter Lana are inside the cabin. Courtesy ofMr. Amos Curry and Mrs. Pearl Theriot Curry.

Title page: Atchafalaya Basin houseboats, 1920s. Courtesy of Mrs. Mary ChauvinRobichaux.

Pages 2 and 3: Identifications by Mrs. Flavia Carline Ashley. Top row, left to right:unidentified, Oscar Delord, Anatole Verret, Clayton Verret, Jonny Gamble, SidneyVerret, Husville Verret, unidentified, John Stockstill, Jr., Albert Stockstill, EvisCarline, Charles Ashley, Sr., Nat Smith, James Case, unidentified, Frank Seneca,Arthur Fowler, O�Neil Bruno, Agricole Theriot, John Daigle, unidentified, FelixSeneca, Sr. Second row from top, left to right: John Stockstill, Sr., George Head,Virginia Ferguson, Emma Broussard, Amanda Seneca, Leslie Verret, unidentified,Joe Seneca, Patrick Daigle, Mrs. Emile Verret Allen, Nettie Verret, Dennis Carline,Blanche Verret, Lizzie Carline, Leah Carline, unidentified, Ellen Verret, JeromeCase, unidentified, Grandmother Crowson, Emma Wisdom, unidentified, WillieCrowson. Third row from top, left to right: unidentified, unidentified, Ethel Case,Lena Gamble, unidentified, Elodie Theriot, Antonia Smith, Lilly Mendoza, uniden-tified, unidentified, Rose Case, Martha Allen, Annie Fowler, unidentified, MaryDaigle, Nancy Carline, Sarah Case, Kate Crowson, Laura Daigle, Lorena Larson,unidentified, Pastor Chase, Pastor Chase�s daughter (playing the melodeon). Fourthand fifth rows from the top: all unidentified, with the exception of two persons indark clothes. Baker Verret standing in white shirt, dark coat and pants; WarrenStockstill between the fourth and fifth rows in dark clothes. Courtesy of Mr. AmosCurry and Mrs. Pearl Theriot Curry.

Page 4: The Louisiana Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane Uni-versity.

Page 5: Photographed ca. 1950 near Pierre Part, Assumption Parish. Courtesy ofMr. William Knipmeyer.

Page 6, upper: Earth Search, Inc.

Page 6, lower: Photographed ca. 1950 near Pierre Part, Assumption Parish. Cour-tesy of Mr. William Knipmeyer.

Page 7, upper: The Louisiana Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, TulaneUniversity.

Page 7, lower: Photographed ca. 1950 near Pierre Part, Assumption Parish. Cour-tesy of Mr. William Knipmeyer.

Page 9: Based on a map prepared by Henry L. Abbot in 1863, other nineteenth-century surveys and interviews with oral informants. Earth Search, Inc.

Page 10: Back row: Carl, Henry, Charles, Agatha, Christine, Ellen, Mable, Annie,Matilda; front row: Carl �Sonny� Mendoza (son of Christine Larson), Otto,Christine�s daughter, Mary, Amelia and Lottie. Courtesy of Mr. Charles Roe.

Page 11, both images: From Coulon (1888). The Louisiana Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University.

Bayou Chene

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Page 14, both images: Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

Page 15: Courtesy of Mr. Gregory J. Dupre.

Page 16: The putt-putts of Tom Pirie (left, upper image) and Tony Latiolatis, BelleRiver, Assumption Parish, 1998. Earth Search, Inc.

Page 16 and 17: Courtesy of Mr. William Knipmeyer.

Page 17, both images: Courtesy of the Simmesport Historical Society.

, upper image: Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

Page 18, lower image: Back row, left to right: Rachel Case, Mattie Larson, DollyVerret, Myrtle Theriot. Second row from back, left to right: Mary Chauvin, Flo-rence Chauvin, Dorothy Verret, Georgie Ferguson, Bertha Case. Third row, left toright: Victor Case, Henry Diamond, Walter Chauvin, Hervey �Hobo� Snellgrove.Lying down: Harold Snellgrove. Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

Pages 19: The Chauvin Store at Bayou Sorrel during the 1927 flood. Courtesy ofMrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

Page 20, upper image: Photo by John Gasquet, taken near Pierre Part, AssumptionParish. Courtesy of the Louisiana State Archives.

Page 20, lower image: Courtesy of the Louisiana Department of Conservation.

Page 21: Left to right: Charles Roe, Winnie Roe (Smallman) and John E. Roe, chil-dren of Edd and Maude Verret Roe, on the Verret property adjacent to Bayou JeanLouis, 1932. Photograph taken by Verona Verret Richardson. Courtesy of Mr.Charles Roe.

Page 22: Courtesy of the New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Page 22-23: Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

Pages 23: Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

Page 24, upper image: Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

Page 24, lower image: Courtesy of Mr. Amos Curry and Mrs. Pearl Theriot Curry.

Page 25, upper image: Left to right: Eldridge Larson, Ann Carline, Ray Carline,Hazel Seneca, W.A. Carline, Bonnie Verret, Roy Seneca, Katy Snellgrove, LynnCurry, Edith Curry and Russell Seneca. Courtesy of Mr. Lynn Curry.

Page 12, upper: The Louisiana Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, TulaneUniversity.

Page 12, middle: Courtesy of the Louisiana Department of Conservation.

Page 12, lower: Courtesy of Mrs. Mary Chauvin Robichaux.

Page 13: Photographed ca. 1950 near Pierre Part, Assumption Parish. Courtesy ofMr. William Knipmeyer.

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