Transportation, Early to Mid-1800s

from Sicily Island:  A Partial History, compiled by Mickie Smith:

Keelboat

Since there were no roads, and the only inland travel was by the Indian trails, the early settlers settled close to the waterways in order to have transportation.  

 

Though keelboats, rafts and flatboats had come into Bayou Louis, the first steamboat to venture from the Ouachita River into this bayou and up to the head of Lake Louis, was the "Independence" in 1820-21.  Due to the Catahoula Shoals or rapids, most of the boats could only run on the river during the winter and spring months while the water was high. 

  

Steamboat

The next boat was the "Leopard", in 1822-23.  Dr. A. R. Kilpatrick described this boat in De Bow's Review, vol. 12, 1852:

This boat was rather an ungainly piece of work, with a wooden main-shaft.  She ran as far as Camden, and made about two trips of a season, and seldom made the distance from New Orleans up to Harrisonburg in less than twelve days.  Some of the old folks say, on her upward trips, they could get out and walk along the bank of the Mississippi River and keep far ahead of her.  Sometimes they would get off and dance all night at a French ball on the coast, and mount horses the next morning and soon overtake her.

Even as late as 1836, there were but two boats in the Ouachita trade, and they were grumbling because of the competition, saying the business was overdone.  There was much maneuvering in order to secure the Sicily Island business, as it was by far the most profitable.  The freights of those days were quite high.  Cabin passage to New Orleans was $30, and $35 coming back.  Then, if the nights were dark, or the least squally, they lay by all night.

In 1851, Dr. A. R. Kilpatrick says:

At this time there are, during the winter and spring, as many as thirteen boats in this trade, and the amount of business done on the Ouachita is so very considerable that during the present fall, while the river has been so low as to prevent shipments, the merchants in New Orleans have seriously felt the want of the produce.  Freight on cotton bales, during low water, this past fall, was $1.25; the general price is 75 cents, and sometimes as low as 50 cents from Trinity.  Cabin passage to New Orleans, generally, $5, sometimes, $6, and the same back.

At this time, Lee Bayou, fed from the Tensas River, was a waterway deep enough for boats to enter and travel, but has been falling through the years from natural causes, and is only a shallow bayou now.  River traffic continued brisk until around the turn of the century, when the railroad began to erode the trade.

Ouachita River at Sicily Island Hills

(Ouachita River photos are from LGS Publication, Geology of Catahoula and Concordia Parishes)