Great Increase of the Lake Trade- Railways and Canals. interior seeking the seaboard is by the southern route as about ten to seven by the northern route, so the value of the return merchandise, &c., going by the northern route, is as about thirteen to one. Hence there should be a very great preponderance in the value of western over eastern freight, on the northern route. That such is the fact, the returns of exports and imports at the upper lake ports abundantly testify, the latter in many cases being from three to four hunper cent. greater than the former. 429 975 tons, being an increase in measurement of nearly four hundred per cent. in ten years, while the increase in capacity, owing to a substitution of steam for sail, as a motive power both for propulsion and handling freight, is much greater still. The gross tons entered at all the lake ports in 1851 are estimated at 9,469,506, and cleared 9,456,346. The steamboat tonnage of the western rivers in 1842 was 126,278 tons; in 1846, 249,035, and in 1851 it was reported, by Secretary Corwin, at 135,559 tons. If But if the inland commerce arriving there is no error in either of these stateat and departing from the seaboard, is ments of tonnage, then the capacity of so considerable, what must be the the tonnage must have been greatly enamount in value, and the gross value of larged lately, by quickening the speed exports and imports at the several inland and making a greater number of trips. ports? To how many people must its It is most probable, however, that many transport, transhipment, storing, handling old, worn-out crafts were computed in and selling, give employment? How 1846, while in 1851 only the working many tons of boats and shipping are em- enrollments were taken into account. ployed? How much fuel is consumed The rivers employ 558 steamers and the in steam? How much capital is invest- lakes 157. The original cost of the ed in purchasing, insuring, transporting whole sail and steam tonnage on the and exchanging? These are questions lakes and rivers in 1851, was about fraught with deep interest, to all those at all interested in the progress of civilization, commerce, science and the arts. They might be intelligibly answered too, if a proper system for the collection and arrangement of statistics were established. As it is, however, we can only give a few of the most careful estimates, based upon the most authentic returns, obtainable from time to time, and arranged with great care. These estimates have always been represented as below the mark, from the fact that many ports make no returns at all. The United States have over 3,000 miles of lake coast, and some 30,000 miles navigable river; to which should be added about 3,000 miles of canal, composing a total of not far from 36,000 miles of inland water navigation. The gross value of the commerce of the lakes alone, in 1848, exclusive of cost of tonnage, passage or express business, was $65,000,000; in 1849, $123,000,000; in 1850, $186,000,000; and in 1851 it was $325,000,000. The unparalleled increase during the last three years is owing to the opening of many new lines of railway at various points intersecting the lakes, and cheapening the prices of transportation from the interior to the lake shore. The enrolled tonnage of the lakes in 1841 was 56,252 tons; in 1846, 106,836 tons; and in 1851, it was 215, $21,838,000. The total net money value of all the property transported on the lakes in 1841, was estimated at $33,000,000; in 1849 at $63,000,000; in 1850 at $93,000,000; and in 1851, $151,000,000. That of property transported on the rivers of the valley in 1842, was estimated at about $130,000,000; in 1846 at about $184,000,000, and in 1851, at about $275,000,000. This gives an aggregate money value for 1851, of interior lake and river commerce, of about $438,200,000, an amount far exceeding our foreign commerce, exclusive of specie. But if we add to this the enormous coasting trade of the United States, including California, the amount would more than double our foreign commerce. This, it will still be observed, is independent of the railway and canal commerce. The total movement of the New-York canals alone in 1851, about 860 miles in length, was 3,582,733 tons: valued at $159,981,801, and paying tolls to the state of $3,329,727. It is estimated that in this navigation 4,047 boats were employed, with an aggregate of 283,290 tons. The amount paid for transportation on these canals, in addition to the above amount of toll to the state, is estimated to have been about $2,500,000. This latter is the amount paid to the forwarder to indemnify him for carriage, wear of boat, horses, men, etc. These canals have cost the state river and railway. And there will be upwards of $29,000,000, besides the annual charges for repairs and maintenance. The state has received in tolls from the canals since 1824, $59,413.870. The railways of the United States in operation comprise about 15,000 miles, at an average cost of, say $25,000 per mile; making an aggregate expenditure of some $375,000,000. Nearly all of this railway that has affected the lake and river trade of 1851, has been opened since the commercial returns of 1848, or at least a large portion of it, and it has been seen that the results are beyond all anticipations. But the business of 1851 was benefited by less than 10,000 miles of railway, whereas, in 1855, we shall have in operation over 20,000 miles, penetrating the agricultural and mineral hearts of almost all the western states. What must result from the opening of so many feeders to the great through water routes? It has been observed that the amount of inland commerce reaching the seaboard is but a little of the "total movement." It is only the surplus that seeks a foreign market, while the great bulk, the unmeasured, the unfathomed mass, is consumed, changed and interchanged among the several states. A little of it adheres to the hands of every person who touches it, as it were; it pays to every exchanger, transporter and laborer its stipend, as its passes about to its places of consumption. It is, most unquestionably, a good thing to have a foreign commerce through which to dispose of our surplus products, but we should not, for this, sacrifice the internal commerce, so much more valuable to the whole country, and without which our foreign commerce could not survive a single day. In concluding this subject, the question naturally suggests itself: if such has been the progress of our commerce during the past thirty years, what is to be its future? If such results have followed the partial opening of the resources of the new states by water routes, what is to follow the perfect exhumation of the interior of all the states by means of the iron tracks which are to act as feeders to the great northern and southern water routes? The year 1860 will draw upon an internal traffic in the United States valued at no less than $1,800,000,000, including lake, canal, but little rivalry between the different History and Statistics of the Louisiana Parishes. 431 they will be exchanged among the ing them at various points, will weld States, and the surplus finds its way to together all the various interests of the the seaboard. By them the northeast several states in such a bond of union and southwest will be forever united, as will prove forever inseparable. while the numerous iron ways intersect ART. III-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL COLLECTIONS OF LOUISIANA. THE PARISH OF TENSAS.O [As Superintendent of the Bureau of Statistics of the State of Louisiana, we published a great number of papers, including material relating to the majority of the parishes. We have deferred a general report upon them all, in the hope of obtaining additional material, and in expectation of the completion of the national census, so as to embody its statistical results. As this report will be published, if possible, before the close of the summer, we continue to solicit information, and beg our friends to send to the office of the Review anything of interest that may relate to the history and statistics of their parishes and towns of the state. As a guide to the nature of the information desired, we refer to the papers already published by us, and to the annexed circular, which has been so often published before :] 1. Time of settlement of your parish or town; dates of oldest land grants; number and condition of first settlers; whence emigrating; other facts relating to settlement and history. II. Indian names in your vicinity; what tribes originally; what relics or monuments of them; if Indians still, in what condition? III. Biography, anecdotes, &c., of individuals distinguished in your vicinity in the past for ingenuity, enterprise, literature, talents, civil or military, &c. IV. Topographical description of your parish, mountains, rivers, ponds, animals, quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, &c., vegetable growths, rocks, minerals, sand clays, chalk, flint, marble, pit coal, pigments, medicinal and poisonous substances, elevation'above the sea, nature of surface, forests, or undergrowth, what wells and quality of well water, nature of coasts, does the water make inroads, mineral springs, caves, &c. V. Agricultural description of parish; former and present state of cultivation; changes taking place; introduction of cotton, sugar, rice, indigo, tobacco, grains, fruits, vines, &c., &c. ; present products; lands occupied and unoccupied, and character of soils; value of lands; state of improvements; value of agricultural products; horses, cattle, mules, hogs, and whence supplied; profits of agriculture, prices of products; new estates opening; improvements suggested in cultivation, and new growths; improvements in communication, roads, bridges, canals, &c.; kind and quantity of timber, fuel, &c.; state of the roads, summer and winter: kinds of inclosures, and of what timber; manures; natural and artificial pastures; agricultural implements used; fruit trees, vines, and orchards; modes of transportation; extent of internal navigation; levees, &c.; modes of cultivating and manufacturing sugar in use. VI. Instances of longevity and fecundity; observations on diseases in your section; localities, healthful or otherwise; statistics of diseases, deaths, summer seats, &c. VII. Population of your parish; increase and progress, distinguishing white and black; Spanish, French, American, or German origin; foreigners, classes of population; number in towns; growth of towns and villages, &c.; condition, employment, ages; comparative value of free and slave labor; comparative tables of increase; marriages, births, &c.; meteorological tables of temperature, weather, rains, &c. VIII. Education and Religion.-Advantages of schools, colleges, libraries enjoyed; proportion educated at home and abroad; expense of education; school returns, churches or chapels in parish, when and by whom erected, how supplied with clergy; how supported and attended; oldest interments; church vaults, &c. IX. Products in Manufactures and the Arts.-Kinds of manufactures in parish; persons employed; kind of power; capital; wages; per centum profit; raw material; sugar and cotton; machinery and improvements; kind and value; manufacturing sites, &c. X. Commercial Statistics.-Value of the imports and exports of Louisiana with each of the other states of the Union, as far as any approximation may be made or data given; growth and condition of towns ; increase in towns, &c. XI. General Statistics.-Embracing banking, rail-roads, insurances, navigation, intercommunication; learned and scientific societies; crime, pauperism, charities, public and benevolent institutions; militía, newspapers, &c.; application of parish taxes; expenses of roads, levees, &c.; number of suits decided in different courts; expenses and perfection of justice; number of parish officers, lawyers, physicians, &c. XII. Date, extent, consequences, and other circumstances of droughts, freshets, whirlwinds, storms, lightnings, hurricanes, or other remarkable physical events in your section from remote periods; other meteorological phenomena; changes in climate, &c., &c. XIII. Literary productions emanating from your neighborhood; your associations, if any; what manuscripts, public or private records, letters, journals, &c., or rare old books, interesting in their relation to the history of Louisiana, are possessed by individuals within your knowledge. State any other matters of interest. dis Place, owned, I believe, now by Dr. Duncan. Scales' and Nichol's Plantation was settled in 1806 or 1808. It was Tensas parish is the youngest daughter of "Old Concordia," being the last parish stricken off that extensive domain, which formerly reached from the at a period later than the above-menmouth of Red River to the Arkansas line. It was divided in 1843. It has a river border of between fifty and sixty miles. It is bounded north by Madison parish, west by Franklin parish and Catahoula, east by the Mississippi River, south by the Mississippi River and Concordia parish. It embraces a territory of six hundred and twenty-five square miles, or about four hundred and six thousand acres. tioned dates that the country back from the Mississippi and Lake St. Joseph was settled, though there were not lacking pioneers who penetrated the swamp to test its value. In 1813, two men, tanners, came from Greenville, Mi., for the purpose of killing alligators and cat-fish for oil, which they needed to carry on their business, at a time when commerce was suspended, and when the southern country was threatened with war. They SETTLEMENT.-As with other places bivouacked at what is now called Lake on the great river, nothing very accu- Shackleford, which derived its name rate can be obtained in reference to the from one of these adventurers. They first settlements. As might be supposed, were so much pleased that they made in very early times individuals passing preparation to reside there, and cultivate down the river were attracted by favor- the ground, but the high water of 1815 able locations which presented them- discouraged them, and drove them back selves, and made temporary settlements, again to the hills. The river settleand these, no doubt, were in some in- ments, as we have said, were early made stances cotemporaneous with the settle- and constantly increasing in value. The ments made on the other side of the Mis- deep forests in the rear were considered sissippi. These temporary settlements by many only as reservoirs which were being abandoned were occupied by per- necessary to hold the floods of the Missons of more energy, whose occupation sissippi, and not intended for cultivation. was the cultivation of the soil. It was Up to the year 1836 there were not known at a house known as the "Stone Chim- but very few settlers on the Tensas ney," nearly opposite the site on which River, from its mouth to its source. Grand Gulf has since been built, that During the administration of Judge Aaron Burr took up his residence for a George S. Guion, who was parish judge short time in 1807, where he was matur- from 1828 to 1836, there were but two ing his plans for ambition or personal or three settlements back from the Misaggrandizement in the South. The sissippi; two of these were on Walnut nearest post-office was Port Gibson, in Bayou, and one or two on the Tensas Mississippi, and the messenger who was River, and were ferrymen on the route employed to convey his correspondence of travel to Alexandria, La., and Texas. and receive his letters, identified him as. It was between the years of 1836 and the man. His stay was short, but mem- 1845 that the principal emigration set orable. No doubt the first permanent in to this parish, invited by the defences settler was Job Routh, the father of John made on the Mississippi for protection, Routh, Esq., who made his settlement and the exemption of the country from in 1800, or perhaps before that time. overflow for so many years. It was in The following are some of the early set- 1843 that the great land sales took place tlers, and the date of their settlement: at Munroe, for back concessions on the Mississippi, and for the lands in the interior of the parish. The lands had been previously settled, and needed only the proof of pre-emption to give the happy settler a title to his home. The contrast which a few years presented in the settlement and growth of the Parish was great. Formerly the roads leading up and down the river were the only ones, with no back settlements. Then and now there are roads traversing the parish in every direction, and leading to Job Routh, Lake St. Joseph, 1800; John Routh, Esq., Lake St. Joseph, 1808; James Miller, Mississippi River, 1808; Ebenezer Miller, Mississippi River, 1808; James Bray, 1800; Jacob Bieller, 1808; Burrel Vick, do., 1808; Mrs. Sarah Hays, in 1804, who is still a resident of the parish at the advanced age of 80 years; Job Bass, 1805; Arthur Andrews was representative of the parish from 1815 to 1825, and resident of this part of it, at what is now called the Mar Settlement-Biography-Rivers and Lakes. 433 neighborhoods which abound with life brooked the difficulties which presented and industry. It was in the year 1828 themselves to a poor man in a new counthat the road from the Mississippi to try, and gained competence and even Sicily Island was established by the wealth. The town of Waterproof was police, usually called the Rodney Road. laid out in 1846, and sold the next year. Before that time it was merely a by- Mr. Miller shaped his course to suit the path, and afterward, until there were exigencies of the times and the pressing settlements on the route, that had its demands of the people. care, unless in the fall or summer, it was not a very pleasant road to travel, though the shortest through the swamp. MOUNDS.--There are numerous mounds in this parish; so numerous that I think it has a pre-eminence in this respect, and was a favorite resort of the tribe of Indians who formerly inhabited this country, and whom Robert Patterson, formerly editor of the Concordia Intelligencer, styled the Mound Builders, a name very applicable. All attempts to fathom their history is, of course, of no avail. There they stand-the monuments of an age or ages gone by, leaving no record of the past save their beautiful appearance, in contrast with the dead level of the surrounding country, and the bones which are frequently disinterred by the spade or plow. They are always on streams or lakes, and stand in clusters, one larger than the rest. They are usually cultivated with the balance of the plantation, or used, when convenient, for orchards. Their height is from twelve to twenty feet above the ordinary level. I know of one used as a convivial spot on a fourth of July occasion. When the party had assembled, there was a piece of paper found nailed to a tree, with these words-"Three feet beneath this ground lie human bones. Will the inhabitants of a Christian country dance over the graves of the aborigines of our country!" It had no effect on their mirth; with a few remarks on the person who wrote it, the dance went on. BIOGRAPHY.-Perhaps it may not be amiss to mention, under this head, one who has certainly contributed very much to the prosperity of the portion of the parish where he resided, who gave an impulse to business, encouragement to the new settlers, and was the founder of Waterproof, now a thriving village on the Mississippi, 21 miles from Natchez, numbering 200 in population-James Miller, (deceased.) He came to this country, with his brothers Ebenezer and Robert Miller, in 1808, when the banks of the Mississippi were lined with cane; VOL. XIV. 2 John Routh, Esq., has been for several years at the head of the Police Court in this parish; was the chief man in urging taxation to build levees, so important to rescue the parish from the disastrous effects of the overflow, which, by his influence and energy, he carried out. He is now a member of the legislature from this parish, where he was greatly instrumental in carrying out a system of taxation for levee purposes, in the two upper parishes and Catahoula, which were most concerned, and thereby making the cause a general one, as these parishes are dependent on each other for protection. Mr. Routh pays taxes on more than 30,000 acres of land in this parish, and makes near or quite 4,000 bales of cotton annually. Dr. Thos. Newell is known as having been the means of bringing to the use of the cotton region an excellent press, now called the "Newell Press," and of some machinery connected with a mill, used on Lake St. Joseph. He was formerly a practitioner of medicine, but having for several years relinquished the practice, except as a neighborly act, he has devoted himself to planting, in which he exhibits neatness and a due attention to the cultivation of the soil. RIVERS AND LAKES.-Lake St. Joseph lies in the northern part of the parish, is twenty-five miles long, and was named by Mr. Job Routh in honor of Joseph Vidal, commandant of the Concordia district, from whom he received a requetté of land. Lake Bruin lies a few miles back of the town of St. Joseph, and was named after Judge Bruin of Mississippi, who possibly owned land on its banks. It was formerly called Lake Peter, after Peter Walker, the father of our present governor, who was himself a land surveyor in this parish. Chactá Lake, Lake Easely, Tensas Lake, a part of the Tensas River, the river running through it, Saddletree Lake, and Bullus Lake. RIVERS.-Tensas River is near 300 miles long. It runs through the northern and western part of the parish. It rises |