This account of the activities of the infamous pirate Pierre Rameau was written by Edwina Grace Damonte Fredricks nearly 100 years ago. It was found in the Louisiana Digital Archives as a transcription project of the Works Progress Administration.
Pierre Rameau "The King of Honey Island" Emerges From the Dim Past
By Edwina Fredricks
The domain of the king of Honey Island has been until recently a hideout for fugitives from the law. Few know what its depths contain. A man who wished to disappear could lose himself in the Honey Island swamp as completely as if he had journeyed to the Brazilian jungle. With a gun, a fishing pole, a pirogue and a dog he could lead a primitive existence and be able to protect himself from the panther, bobcat, wild hog, Louisiana brown bear and snakes which inhabit this great swamp.
But the swamp awakens at nightfall, and the fear-ridden man who seeks concealment there will wish himself back in his prison cell or even stretched at the end of a rope. Strange cries will assail his ears- the screech owl, the specter-like query of the hoot owl, the croak of the bullfrog and tree frog and the blood-chilling scream of the panther.
Now, as in the old days, sections along the river and certain spots of high land are inhabited, but with this difference: The inhabitants of today are industrious and honest folk who fish, hunt and raise live stock for a living.
A white ribbon of concrete highway cuts through the center of the swamp, further violating one of the last great havens for wildlife still existing in Louisiana. Motorists, hurrying to and from the Gulf Coast along this highway, give scarcely a thought to the mystery that lies beyond their vision, and few realize that within this swamp once flourished one of the most daring and successful robber bands that ever operated in America.
The Best Known Pirates
Who has not heard of Jean and Pierre Lafitte, their daring piracy, the price put upon their heads by Governor Claiborne, and their subsequent pardon, granted for their assistance in the defense of New Orleans against Sir Edward Packenham's British soldiers? The Lafittes had many historians and as a consequence few people realize that the Lafittes formed but a small part of the number of daring, cruel, lawless men who operated in and around New Orleans in the 1800s.
Pierre Rameau, one of the most daring and colorful robbers in the history of American outlawry, flourished in the same years that the Lafittes were accomplishing their successful depredations on ships in the Gulf of Mexico.
Had the engagement between the forces of General Andrew Jackson and General Edward Packenham resulted in a British victory, the name of Rameau would have outshone that of the Lafittes in dark luster; for Rameau rendered the same type of service to the British that the Lafitte furnished Jackson.
Born In Scotland
A dashing, handsome fellow, born Kirk McCullough in Scotland, Rameau practiced his profession of robber and slave thief in Mississippi, Alabama and the Carolinas, bringing his lot into New Orleans for disposal. His base of operations and hide-out was on Honey Island and his band was known as the Chats-Huants (the Screech Owls).
In the swamps and along the lonely trails he was Pierre Rameau, but to the wealthy merchants and politicians in now Orleans he was "Colonel Loring," a cultured gentleman and soldier whose mysterious comings and goings were not investigated so long as their dealings with him were so profitable. He danced at the most exclusive balls of the wealthy Creoles and many a timid heart fluttered at the attentions of the handsome officer 'just home from a trip to his mines in Mexico!"
Louisiana, at this time, was a fledgling state, and the victim of a malady recurrent in its history. Lawlessness had insinuated itself into business and government. Anglo-Americans were cordially despised by the Latin Creoles, and four men cared to help the Americans fight their war with the British.
It was not until General Andrew Jackson, a typical Anglo-American came to rule the city with his rough, resolute and imperious will, that the heyday of the pirate and robber drew to a close, and the male populace of New Orleans was fused, in the host of defensive battle, into a city of American patriots.
Battle of New Orleans Challenges The Pirates
The careers of Rameau and the Lafittes reached their zenith in the decade prior to the Battle of New Orleans. In this historic event, Rameau met dishonor and death; Jean Lafitte and his band were honored as patriots. But, professionally, all found the ways to easy wealth closed or unprofitable and vanished from the American scene.
From Barataria Bay on one side to Honey Island on the other, New Orleans was hedged in with a cordon of outlaws. Rameau and the Lafittes divided the coast between them; to the westward of the Mississippi were the slave baracoons and outposts of the Lafittes. Eastward, along the bay of Saint Louis, Pearl River and in the heart of Honey Island, the mysterious Rameau operated.
Unlike the Lafittes, who never pretended to be anything better than dealers in stolen goods, Rameau sought the society of persons of influence and culture, and played the part of a fine gentleman so well that he became a great favorite at balls and soirees.
Swamp Trails The Most Dangerous
We must remember that in those days there were no roads, no trains. A traveler came to New Orleans along narrow trails; or, if he lived along the Gulf coast, he made the trip by sailboat through Lakes Borgne and Pontchartrain. The best defined trail led from the west shore of the Bay of Saint Louis in a direction somewhat west of North through a wild country to the wilder region of the upper Pearl River.
This trail, which was known as the Blackwolf trail, had been a highway for the Indians as far back as tradition went, a road which led from their hunting grounds to tho breezy bluffs of the gulf, where they spent the hot season bathing, fishing, eating, smoking. But since the coming of the white man, the highway had been put to other uses: soldiers, horses and cannon; caravans of settlers, oxen, mules.
Little trails, meandering and less distinct, came into the Blackwolf trail on its way to the gulf, and he was an alert and experienced woodsman who could go among those entangling paths without bewilderment. In those days all of the ways of the wood were ways of danger.
Self-reliant freebooters rode beneath the pines and wide-sproading oaks. Treacherous and savage as were the Indians, they feared the "riders" and were glad to slink away whenever these cavaliers made their appearance.
Pearl River, as far up as Honey Island, afforded a waterway by which vessels could bear the plunder of the "riders" to New Orleans, by way of the Rigolets and Lake Pontchartrain. No small part of the traffic of the city at that time of lax government and corrupted politicians came from this and similar sources.
New Orleans Surrounded by Pirates
With the Lafittes on one side and the confreres of Pierre Rameau on the other, New Orleans was fed by streams of ill-gotten wealth.
Scrutiny of Rameau's methods reveals that he and his Chats-Haunts did their boldest and most remunerative work at a long distance from their headquarters on Honey Island. While it is true that no traveler or settler was entirely safe in its vicinity, this band obtained the greater part of their booty and slaves from Alabama, Tennessee and the Carolinas.
This policy greatly aided wealthy and influential men in New Orleans to offer Rameau protection so long as the civil and military government was almost paralyzed in Louisiana, and those very protectors controlled, directly or indirectly, the government itself.
Politically powerful friends of Pierre Rameau exerted themselves to have "Colonel Loring" attached to Jackson's staff when that officer prepared for the defense of New Orleans against the British, and fortified their recommendation with the statement that "Loring" knew the whole country as a sailor-pilot knows his chart and was, besides, an officer of varied and successful experience in the service. General Jackson denied the request, and Rameau, returning to New Orleans from no one knows where, was just in time to be informed of Jackson's peremptory refusal.
"I do not need more staff officers or more officers of any kind," said the general. "If 'Colonel Loring' desires to fight for New Orleans, let him report to me at once with a gun."
Learning of the Lafitte's rejection of the British general's offer of pay to lead the attacking force to a strategic position against Jackson's army, Rameau communicated with the enemy and found no difficulty in obtaining the favor of General Packenham, who recognized him as one who had done him a great and dangerous service years before. Moreover Rameau brought with him perfect maps and drawing of all American defenses and full descriptions and reports of all the troops under Jackson and the probable order of their distribution.
Wounded During the Battle
Rameau was critically wounded in the Battle of New Orleans and fled the battlefield. Wounded in the body and in both arms, he still had the use of his feet and made his way to the nearby plantation home of a Creole friend whose wife and family had been sent there for safekeeping in the erroneous belief that the British would attack from another direction.
There Rameau was pursued by a former associate named Vasseur, who had suffered at his hand in earlier days and who left the pursuit of the fleeing British to others and bent his steps in the direction taken by Rameau to settle his personal grudge.
Entering the parlor of the plantation home where Rameau was being attended by the ladies, Vasseur, in his wild wrath, draw a dagger and sprang at Rameau, shrieking, "Die, Pierre Rameau, die, die!" But Pierre Rameau had heard such commands before.
"Fool," was all he said; and raising with the promptness of a steel spring, he kicked the little man through the open doorway.
Vasseur arose, put his hands to his crushed chest, tottered for a few paces and sank to the earth, still in death. Rameau turned and passed through the house without a word and was soon lost in the depths of the wood.
There his body was discovered and brought to New Orleans by one of his Creole associates and interred in a heavy brick tomb under a spreading oak. His grave for a time bore a tablet with a simple description, the words with which this article began:
"The domain of
the king of Honey Island has been until recently a hideout for fugitives
from the law. Few know what its depths contain. A man who wished to
disappear could lose himself in the Honey Island swamp as completely as
if he had journeyed to the Brazilian jungle. With a gun, a fishing pole,
a pirogue and a dog he could lead a primitive existence and be able to
protect himself from the panther, bobcat, wild hog, Louisiana brown bear
and snakes which inhabit this great swamp.
"But the swamp awakens
at nightfall, and the fear-ridden man who seeks concealment there will
wish himself back in his prison cell or even stretched at the end of a
rope. Strange cries will assail his ears- the screech owl, the
specter-like query of the hoot owl, the croak of the bullfrog and
tree frog and the blood-chilling scream of the panther.
"Now, as
in the old days, sections along the river and certain spots of high land
are inhabited, but with this difference: The inhabitants of today are
industrious and honest folk who fish, hunt and raise live stock for a
living.
"A white ribbon of concrete highway cuts through the
center of the swamp, further violating one of the last great havens for
wildlife still existing in Louisiana. Motorists, hurrying to and from
the Gulf Coast along this highway, give scarcely a thought to the
mystery that lies beyond their vision, and few realize that within this
swamp once flourished one of the most daring and successful robber bands
that ever operated in America.
End of Fredricks Article
Mechanix Illustrated Article
Legends are many of the Bayou state’s buried treasure but facts prove it’s there, waiting to be taken out.
By William L. Rivers
THERE are so many legends of buried gold in Louisiana that it would seem all the would-be treasure hunter had to do was pick up a shovel and start to dig. Sadly enough all these tales aren’t true. If they were, there wouldn’t be room beneath the Bayou State for much else.
But the encouraging fact is that at least some of the many buried treasure tales are fact. Perhaps 30 all told. The problem is which 30 are worth investigating?
For example: Who can say with any degree of certainty that Jean Lafitte, pirate king of kings who made his headquarters at Grand Isle off the Gulf Coast, didn’t leave much of his loot there or along the Mississippi bluffs near Baton Rouge?
Lafitte had three islands that are still believed to be the best locales for a serious search. Besides Grand Isle (also a base for Henry Morgan) Lafitte often landed at Coca Island and $1,000,000 in gold is said to be buried on Kelso’s Island. The pirate is also believed to have left at least $11,000,000 in gold along the South Louisiana coast and in the Mississippi bluffs.
Rumors have been persistent for decades that all these would be good sites for a treasure hunt. And when author Ben Luien Burman went into the South Louisiana swamps to write a fur-trapping story, two men at Barataria Bay were pointed out to him as discoverers of part of Lafitte’s loot.
“Ain’t done a lick of work in their lives. Everybody knows it’s because they found where Lafitte’s money was buried,” Burman was told.
However, like most of the other tales, the story of Lafitte’s caches in the levees and swamps are hard to track down—largely because treasure finders are a notoriously close-mouthed lot.
But the stories can’t be dismissed easily. Lafitte wasn’t in the pirate business just to wear a cutlass and swagger. Even if it is possible that most of his loot has been discovered, scores of other finds have been made in Louisiana.
George Maher, Jr., and his father for example, are reported to have found more than $200,000 in old coins, jewelry and silverware in Louisiana with a patented machine they call the Ground Radio.
This device, an invention of the father-son team, operates via the variable induction of a magnetic field and has a strange affinity for locating buried treasure, the Mahers claim.
A farmer in Avoyelles Parish (county) who was plowing in his fields one day stumbled on an iron pot filled with 1,000 gold pieces.
In 1929, 21 Spanish doubloons were found in a load of gravel at the Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad tracks in Baton Rouge.
And a farmer named John Skinner, who lived near Ruston in North Louisiana, fell over a box which yielded nearly 1,000 gold coins while plowing his fields.
The second largest find in Louisiana history was made at Gretna by a group of men who were searching for treasure, not farming. They unearthed $65,000.
A vocal minority of Louisiana treasure seekers believed another pirate, Pierre Rameau, whose operating base on Honey Island has already paid off handsomely, is still the best locale for a search. Bordering Louisiana and Mississippi on the Pearl River, “Rameau’s Kingdom” yielded an iron chest filled with $1,000 worth of coins.
Connoisseurs of treasure tales also rank Honey Island high because latter-day pirates, fugitives from the law during the 1880′s, found the island an ideal out-of-the-way place.
In 1929, one of the richest treasure strikes in history was made on the dry bed of the Calcasieu River. The take was $75,000 in coins.
The lost world of Louisiana in Tensas Parish, pre-Civil War home of Col. Norman Frisbee on the Tensas River, is a prime inland treasure-hunting site now being explored again.
Frisbee, who lived vividly and died violently in a knife fight, laid the foundations and built the walls and pillars of a magnificent mansion eight miles up-river from Flower’s Landing. He was one of the world’s great landowners, with 52 miles of river-front and 12,000 acres planted in cotton.
When the plantation baron died, he left only the memory of a day shortly before Union soldiers came when he went into the forests near his home with two slaves and wagonload of gold.
The slaves who accompanied Frisbee were killed and none of the Tensas treasure has ever been found. Descendants of the Tensas king have scanned maps over the years. Four years ago, two young Frisbees led an expedition to the old plantation but the party was ill-equipped and only scratched the surface.
The residents of Natchitoches Parish in Northwest Louisiana haven’t been so casual about the search for a trove that is estimated at $9,000,000 to $30,000,000. For more than 30 years, fortune seekers have been sinking holes in the ground at points near old Camp Salubrity, a bivouac area during the Civil War.
Unlike Florida, which has a complicated system of permits, Louisiana is easy-going, perhaps because treasure-hunters rarely bother to let state officials know they’re looking for buried and sunken wealth on the lands and in the waters of Louisiana.
For permission to search on state lands and information about state property, the treasure-hunter should work through the office of Register of the State Land Office, Ellen By ran Moore, in Baton Rouge. General information on maps, histories of the plantations and pirates can be obtained from the Louisiana Department of Commerce and Industry in Baton Rouge.
The law that sets forth the rights of property owners runs: “Although a treasure be not of the number of things which are lost or abandoned or which never belonged to anybody, yet he who finds it on his own land or on land belonging to nobody acquires the entire ownership of it; and should such treasure be found on the land of another, one-half of it shall belong to the finder and the other half to the owner of the soil.”
At least 1,000 possible treasure sites have been rumored in Louisiana and even scholarly state historians agree that several locales offer excellent possibilities for treasure-seekers.
Where are the best sites to look for treasure ?
A planter near Hubbardville buried his money and silver plate outside the town before the Civil War; the ruins of the old fort at Barataria yielded a box containing doubloons and earrings; $300,000 is believed to have been buried at Parlange Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish; last summer, two Tulane students took a mine detector to the barren site of Fort de la Boulaye 38 miles down the Mississippi from New Orleans—and what they found led them to believe French gold would be discovered there.
The old bed of the Red River near Dixie, the “Lost Mine of Wyndham Creek,” an Indian mound near the highway between Convent and Lutcher—all might pay dividends to anyone who makes an all-out effort to tap the fabulous buried treasure of the Bayou State.
See also:
Pirates in St. Tammany
