Good Old Days On The Lake

 In 1970 an article appeared in the St. Tammany Farmer telling about one person's recollections of excursion boats crossing Lake Pontchartrain back and forth to New Orleans. Here is that article. Click on the images to make them larger and more readable. 

Here is the text from the article:

Good Days On The Lake Recalled

C. Allen Favrot, a resident of Covington and New Orleans, nostaglically recalls the good old days when paddlewheel steamers made excursion trips daily between New Orleans, Mandeville, and Madisonville. Recently he brought The Farmer an article about the SS Camellia, also known as the SS New Camellia. written in September. 1937.

The article says the vessel., a famous fun boat, along with others of her era. "share a common quiet grave in the Tchefuncte river near' Madisonville. Their grave is marked dramatically.

Sticking out of the water near the tree-shaded west bank of the Tchefuncte is what is lett of the boat: a leaning wooden walking beam , support, and parts of a piston, smoke stack and paddle wheel. "Below the surface can be seen shadows of the outline of the deck. At low water, a person in a boat can lean out, put one arm into the water, and touch the deck."

This ship was identified as the New Camellia, and the site is just south of Jahncke shipyard at Madisonville. However, a spokesman at Jahncke said the ship was picked up and moved six- or eight years ago.

The Camellia was renamed the New Camellia when it was rebuilt shortly before 1880. Originally, the paddlewheeler was built in Wilmington, Del. in 1852 and christened the Zephyr. It is estimated she was brought South in 1862, during the War Between the States.

After the war, she was purchased by a New Orleans cotton merchant, August Bone, and renamed the Camellia. Under that name, she was active in Gulf and Lake Pontchartrain trade. After being rebuilt in about 1879, she became one of the most famous of the lake excursion boats.

Damaged by a 1915 hurricane, she was still in service as late as 1917.

Tied up at a Madisonville pier after she was taken out of service because of old age, she quietly and unobtrusively sank one day in 1920. While docked at Madisonville, the New Camellia was utilized to accommodate shipyard workers, that business having started booming with World War I. As she grew more decrepit with age. the "boarders" abandoned ship, and a short time later, the New Camellia slipped gradually down into the river.

Another excursion boat, the SS Pleasure Bay, caught fire at Madisonville, was towed away from the wharf, and sank, sometime back in the 1920's.

Madisonville Mayor Eddie Badeaux, when a youngster, worked aboard the SS Madisonville, an excursion steamer. It went out of service here in 1935, he recalls, and was taken to New York City, where, according to Badeaux, it was still in use as a sightseeing boat a few years ago. He does not know if it still exists. The SS Madisonville was originally named the Hanover.

The boats had large dining rooms, spacious dance halls and top orchestras. They carried hundreds of passengers to St. Tammany beaches and woodlands for picnics, outings. swimming parties. etc. The departures from New Orleans were usually from Milneburg or Spanish Fort.

Other lake-faring boats included the Southland, Charles Dolive, Minnie 13, Margaret and Susquehanna. The lake crossings started early in the 19th century, and ended sometime in the mid or late 1920's. And with that ending went a delightful era of light-hearted fun and gaity, when the livin' was easy. and geared to the tempo and speed of the paddlewheelers.

It must he recalled that automobiles were fairly scarce in the 1920's, and there were no bridges connecting the Orleans side of the lake to the north side. Slow-moving ferries operated at Rigolets and Chef Menteur connecting poorly constructed roads. The old Watson-Williams bridge at Slidell was only a dream and the Causeway was an "impossibility" folk didn't dare dream of.

Following the steamboat excursions came the old NOGNRR's week-end pleasure junkets to all St. Tammany points, from Slidell to Folsom, carrying hundreds of passengers at special round trip rates.

That, too, eventually ended, along with all other train passenger service.

So the era of the passenger trains, like that of the lake and river steamboats, passed into limbo. Which recalls the present fight to save the SS Delta Queen Mississippi river paddlewheeler running from Cincinnati to New Orleans as a passenger vessel. It has been outlawed because it's wooden super-structure is considered a fire hazard.

St. Tammany Farmer Newspaper

August 1, 1970

For more information see these links:

The Life and Death of the New Camelia Lake Steamer

Former Mandeville Resident Recalls Early Days

Canoe Outing For Dozens of Women

 Remember this canoe trip on the Bogue Falaya River  52 years ago?

Captain Weaver - A Covington Legend

Captain Henry Thomas Weaver was one of Covington's most revered citizens for it was through his efforts to build and maintain the area's access across the lake to New Orleans, both for passengers and cargo, that Covington became a major trade center. His life story, his family, his business enterprises, and his dogged determination to serve the Covington and Madisonville areas is told in the following account, provided by the St. Tammany Historical Society.  

In the mid-1990's the St. Tammany Historical Society awarded a grant to Russell Barnes of Biloxi, MS, for research involving the history of the lake trade on Lake Pontchartrain and along the Gulf Coast. In 1999, some 24 years ago, the results of that research was published in the society's "The Millennial Gazette." Here is the article that was published, accompanied by its photographs.

Pontchartrain Lake Trade and the Steamboat Josie

By Russell Barnes

Covington's heritage is deeply rooted in the maritime freight trade that once supported its economy and way of life. The schooners and steamboats that regularly called at Covington's Old Landing were the backbone of the lake trade that once functioned as an important socio-economic connection between St. Tammany Parish and the rest of Lake Pontchartrain.

In the 1880s, a local observer said that St. Tammany Parish was "naturally a water route. The towns are easily and quickly reached by steamers from the city."' Indeed, the schooners and steamboats brought not only food and supplies, but also visitors, news and mail to the various communities around Lake Pontchartrain. The schooners and the men who sailed the lake helped to weld the cultural links between their communities and the larger world around them.

Maritime Legacy: Captain Weaver

Standing tall amidst this relatively small and rather exclusive cadre of sailors was a schooner captain named Henry Thomas Grace Weaver of Covington. Weaver was one of the most notable sailors on the North Shore during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. He was the contemporary of veteran schooner captains such as Victor Fauria and John Milloit, both of whom were also experienced North Shore schooner masters in their own right.

Although his birthplace is unknown, Captain Weaver was born in 1850. By the early 1880s, he was a regular participant in the lake trade between Covington and New Orleans. Not much is known of Weaver's personal life during this time, except that he maintained a constant presence on the Lake, while he and his wife Mary lived with their children in a house in Covington, overlooking the Bogue Falaya river. Mary Weaver died on February 26, 1888, leaving captain Weaver with two children, Charles and Rebecca.'

Schooner Two Sons

The earliest evidence of Weaver's presence in the lake trade is in the early 1880s. On October 27, 1881, Captain Weaver bought the schooner Two Sons, a six year old lake schooner originally built in Madisonville by Louis Baham. She measured almost 60 feet in length  and 27 tons. He bought the schooner from a man named Bartholome Farragut.

For ten years, Weaver mastered the Two Sons, making regular voyages from the Old Landing at Covington to the canals at New Orleans. She carried sand and bricks from the Tchefuncte and Bayou Lacombe, as well as cotton, sand and bricks from Covington.

She made weekly trips to New Orleans with these cargos, returning with groceries, dry goods and finished goods for various stores and customers along the way.

The Two Sons left Covington every Friday at 4 p.m. and left the New Basin canal at New Orleans every Wednesday afternoon at 2 p.m. to return to Covington. Weaver charged the standard freight rates: 30 cents per bale of cotton, 15 cents per dry barrel and 10 cents per sack of produce. Until the fall of 1886, she made stops at Mandeville, but thereafter Weaver concentrated his trade at the rapidly growing town of Madisonville.

Although the lake trade flourished during the 1880's, the year1889 marked a new beginning for Captain Weaver. He survived the personal tragedy of his first wife's passing and began looking forward to the future.

In December 1889, he married his second wife, Josie Frederick, of Covington. His new found marital bliss was the perfect backdrop for his most ambitious business endeavor to date.

Schooner Josie Weaver

In the summer of 1891, Weaver contracted with Madisonville boat builder Louis Cardone for the construction of a new freight schooner of 40 tons. She was nearly 70 feet long on deck and measured 5 feet deep in her cargo hold.5 In early August 1891, the new schooner was ready for launching. 

Named for his new bride, Josie Weaver, the new schooner was built at a cost of $2,500. To help pay for the new schooner, Weaver signed over the aging Two Sons to Louis Cardone. Although he gave up the Two Sons, the deal was a good one. Throughout the 1890s, the Josie Weaver became one of the most recognized sights on the lake, making weekly journeys from Covington to New Orleans.

During the 1890s, the Josie Weaver sailed exclusively between Covington and New Orleans, carrying cargos of sand, cotton, tar, rosin, turpentine and clay to New Orleans. On one trip to New Orleans in November 1899, she carried 52 bales of cotton, 126 barrels of rosin, 26 barrels of turpentine, 250 barrels of sand and 25 barrels of clay. On her return voyages to Covington, she carried anything that could be loaded onto a schooner.

Among her freight carrying contemporaries were the Lake veterans F.M. Pippo, the Rosa A., owned by Jones & Pickett of Covington; the J.R. O'Rourke owned by L.P. Delcroix; and the St. Bartolomeo. Each of these schooners carried the same kinds of cargos as the Josie Weaver. Likewise, they charged much the same freight rates, 30 cents per bale of cotton, 15 cents per dry barrel and 10 cents per sack of produce.

Captain Weaver's home life flourished during the 1890s along with his freight business. His wife gave birth to three children during the period. His son Dudley was born in 1892, Harold was born in 1894 and daughter Norma, the apple of her father's eye, was born in 1896. During this time the family lived happily in a new house not far from the Weaver's first residence. Their prosperity allowed them to employ a servant who cooked and cleaned, and helped to take care of the children.'

Second Schooner Josie Weaver

Tragedy befell Captain Weaver's freight business around the turn of the century when the Josie Weaver burned and became a total loss. Undaunted, Captain Weaver decided to build a new schooner. He asked well-known and respected boat builder Valerian Baham to build a new schooner that was to be a "great improvement over her predecessor,-being larger in every-way," and "as trim and staunch as possible." 

The new schooner was built at a cost of $4,000 and was launched on May 11, 1901. The occasion was celebrated with the Covington brass band playing as the new schooner was christened at 2 o'clock by Miss Amanda Doerr, who broke the traditional jug of wine on the glistening bow just as she glided down the ways into the river, and said, "I christen thee Josie Weaver" Everyone toasted the new owners health and prosperity.

Just as Weaver wanted, the new Josie Weaver was larger, measuring over 75 feet in length and 50 tons. During the early 1900s, the Josie Weaver sailed out of Covington every Wednesday at 12 noon, and left the New Basin canal every Saturday at 3:30 p.m. to return to Covington.

During the early 1900s, the Weavers enjoyed a good life. Their freight business was steady and their rising prosperity enabled the family to cultivate a wide circle of friends and enjoy a lifestyle full of leisure. When his schedule permitted, Captain Weaver took his family and friends down to a camping area near the mouth of the Tchefuncte River called the "point." Here they would pass several days and sometimes weeks enjoying the quiet of the natural surroundings.

Steamer Josie

In 1908, Weaver made a daring investment. He contracted with the Oulliber Brothers Shipyard in Madisonville for a new steamboat. In early July 1908, the new steamer was finished, and shortly thereafter, she was ready for the lake trade. The new steamboat measured almost 90 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 80 tons. 

The steamboat Josie was built at a cost of $12,000. Rather than operate two boats, he got out of the schooner freight trade, selling the schooner Josie Weaver to Peter Cordona on August 14, 1908." Although she was intended to carry passengers, the Josie carried freight as well.

 From 1908 through the early 1920s, she plowed the Lake, using her 96 horsepower steam engine and eleven man crew to make weekly trips to the New Basin canal at New Orleans carrying sand, rosin, turpentine, lumber, rice, hides and other assorted farm produce. In the mid 1920s, she left the lake trade when she was sold to the Daphne Boat Co. of Daphne, AL.

Schooner William Martin

Captain Henry Thomas Grace Weaver died in 1914 at the age of 64. He left his freight business in the hands of his son Dudley Weaver, who continued to use the schooners in the lake trade through the early 1930s. The last schooner known to have been owned by the Weavers was the freight schooner William Martin, which was purchased in 1930. Dudley Weaver sold the William Martin in 1939 to Hebert Frederick of Covington.

For Henry Thomas Grace Weaver, there is a lasting historical legacy to be found in the cities and towns of St. Tammany Parish. Because maritime trade constituted the heart and soul of the economy of many communities along the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, it is to men like Captain Henry Thomas Weaver to whom we owe our greatest debt of gratitude for the economic and social links they helped to forge across the lake.

About The Author

Russell Barnes lives in Biloxi where he began his research into Gulf Coast maritime history in 1994. In 1997, he received a Master's degree in History from the University of Southern Mississippi. His master's thesis was titled "The Impact of Industrialization on Work and Culture in Biloxi Boat Building. He spent two years researching the coastal "lake trade" under a grant from the St. Tammany Historical Society.

Click on the images to make them larger. 

See also:

The Steamer Josie

Work Boats Central

 St. Tammany's connections with the oil field workboat industry spans several decades. Several shipyards in Madisonville, Lacombe and Slidell have built a large variety of vessels over the past 100 years:  cargo ships, workboats, crewboats, tugboats and barges. Once launched these would fan out around the globe.

Harry L. Peace ran Peace Publications out of offices just south of Covington for many years, and he published Workboat Magazine and a few other titles that served the worldwide boat industry. His efforts included an annual international workboat exposition in New Orleans. 

I interviewed Peace back in the 1980's, and his operation was quite extensive even then. It has only grown more so over the years as it strove to keep up with the rapidly diversifying and now computer-intensive work boat industry. 

Then there's the Maritime Pilots  Institute in downtown Covington that teaches boat captains and waterway pilots from around the world how to navigate, maneuver and dock all kinds of workboats, including those of considerable size.

The MPI facilities not only include sophisticated computer simulations for navigating ships, but also an outdoor lake where scaled-down versions of vessels are used to provide real-time controls feedback. Its Covington location was formerly occupied by the Goodwill Industries store and Deluxe Theater on New Hampshire Street. 

Maritime Pilots Institute

In Mandeville a company called "C-Innovation" provides subsea oilfield operations services around the world. The company offers a wide variety of complex equipment that assists in the operation, repair and improvement of petrochemical installations and watercraft. Using highly-advanced technology, it provides remote operated vehicles (ROVs) for underwater exploration and pipeline work.

See also:

https://maritimepilotsinstitute.org/

https://www.workboatshow.com/

C-Innovation Assists Oil Industry Worldwide

Pleasure Bay Boat Service Resumes After WWI

 In October of 1921, after more than three years without passenger boat service between New Orleans and points in St. Tammany Parish, the old Lake Pontchartrain route was re-established. For many years the boat service established long ago on the lake prospered and meant prosperity to the "little towns over the lake" and "pleasure to hundreds of Orleanians," a newspaper account of the time stated. 

Apparently the need for boats during World War I caused the lake service to cease in 1917. In 1921, the Association of Commerce took up the matter of re-establishing the service and with the aid of St. Tammany citizens, was able to interest a company in the project.

According to the Times Picayune, the boat service resumed on Sunday, October 23, "and the resting places of Mandeville and Madisonville will again come within easy reach of Orleanians."

The Pleasure Bay Packet Company was providing the boat, a big steamer, with a capacity of 500 passengers and 15 automobiles. The boat itself measured 150 feet long and 45 feet wide. It had two decks.

  

"Until a few months ago it was in passenger services on Mobile Bay," an article stated, "but recently was taken from service for rebuilding." After it was returned to service, it began running between New Orleans and the "attractive little resorts on the opposite side of the lake."

The Pleasure Bay Packet Company was a Mobile firm. Captain Bebok will be in charge of the Pleasure Bay and Captain Charles Olsen will be the pilot, the article went on to say.

On the return trip. the steamer was to leave Mandeville at 4 p.m., Madisonville at 5 p.m. and reach West End in New Orleans at 7 p.m. "Automobiles with passengers will be charged $7 to $10, one way with a half fare for the return voyage," it was said. 

Click on the images to make them larger.  

 

 

 

Octoher 24, 1921

 

 

December 3, 1921

 

 

December 5, 1921

 

 

Salesmen's Cars Given Special Rate

 

 

 

 

 

May 19, 1922 

 

 May 20, 1922

 

 

May 21, 1922

 

Boat Destroyed by Fire

 

Unfortunately the Pleasure Bay Packet Company's boat caught on fire in June of 1922 and was destroyed. Residents of both New Orleans and St. Tammany were dismayed by the turn of events, and anxiously sought another boat to take its place.  

On July 6, 1922, an article in the Times Picayune shared the following information:

"Better Lake Boat Service Favored; Opportunity Seen for Rich Returns at Parley in Covington.

"Covington, LA July 5 - The Dubus brothers and their advisor of New Orleans, owners of the lake boat Reverie, conferred at Covington Monday night with representatives of Abita Springs, Madisonville, and Covington relative to boat schedules, rates and the operation of a jitney service to connect the boat with inland towns.

"The conference was under the auspices of the Covington Association of Commerce, Judge T. H. Burns, chairman, and W. E. Minckler, secretary, presiding.

"It was asserted that the public demands require a boat of 350 to 600 passenger capacity, a speedy boat, reasonable fares for passengers and automobiles, a dependable schedule, commuters' rates that compare with rail rates, and an efficient jitney overland service.

"It was declared that a boat meeting these requirements would provide an accommodation which the traveling public of New Orleans and St. Tammany Parish is anxious to have, and would liberally patronize.

"As evidence, it was pointed out that the Pleasure Bay Packet, prior to its untimely destruction by fire a few weeks ago, made a gross return from passengers and autos of $2000 in three days. The passenger capacity of the Reverie last Sunday was overtaxed, and many persons were refused transportation.

"Suggestions for keeping the crew and boat at work between the passenger trips including the handling of freight, the transportation and marketing of wood, the sale of restaurant concessions, on sight-seeing trips from West End and occasionally from the north shore points.

"The boat representatives announced their present inability to meet the requirements for  a larger boat. Their present boat is a luxuriously appointed and speedy yacht, with a passenger capacity of 150 but no automobile accommodations. To offset this they proposed to put into service as an adjunct to the Reverie a boat designed for passengers, automobiles, and freight.

"This boat is slow, but will appeal to a certain class of trade by offering reduced passenger rates. This, they believe, will satisfy the demand for an automobile and freight service, and take care of the excess passenger list that overtaxes the Reverie Saturdays and Sundays.

"This proposition did not win approval of the parish conferees, as it was deemed that the overhead expenses incident to the operation of two boats would make the venture unprofitable, but they tendered their support to the operators, and both sides expressed the hope that improvements would be initiated at an early date.

"It has been rumored that a large boat building corporation is planning to put in the lake service a boat that will meet the requirements of the trade."
"

 

 

 

July 6, 1922

 

 

 

Old Landing

 In the early days of Covington, before the roads were in good shape and before the train tracks were built, river traffic on the Bogue Falaya River was paramount. Boats coming up the Tchefuncte River from Madisonville needed a dock to discharge passengers from New Orleans and take on cargo from areas north of Covington (to bring back to New Orleans). So a major landing was developed on the point of land south of Covington at the confluence of the Bogue Falaya and Tchefuncte Rivers.

A postcard showing the New Camelia at Old Landing
Click on the images to make them larger

This was the landing where your grandparents and great grandparents would disembark from the lake schooners and steamboats, hop aboard a horse and buggy and head up Old Landing Road (Jahncke Avenue) two and a half miles to downtown Covington.

Land records show that Old Landing was owned by the Badon Family based on an early settlement land grant to Henry Badon. It was this landing that played a pivotal role in the development of early Covington, and it was quite popular, especially since it was also a ferry crossing, according to one time parish archivist, the late Bertha Neff. This was in the early to mid 1800’s.

Mrs. Amos Neff’s Notes on the Ferry Crossing

Text from the above notes:

Henry Badon in 1806 acquired the land opposite his mother's estate between the Tchefuncte and Bogue Falaya Rivers, and here was located one of the first ferries, long referred to as "Old Landing," Jahncke Avenue, which brought the east and west banks of these two rivers together.

An early land grant map

The dotted line seen at the middle bottom may have indicated a horse trail or footpath, and where the dotted line crossed the Tchefuncte River would have been a good place for a ferry. On an adjacent map, the dotted line continues southward, crossing the Charles Parent land grant, and goes down to Madisonville.  

Meanwhile, over on the Bogue Falaya River, the river was wide enough and deep enough to accommodate the larger vessels turning around and docking. North of where the Bogue Falaya River passes the Abita River, the Bogue Falaya becomes shallower and with sharper turns, so Badon Landing south of the Abita River intersection was well situated to accommodate the larger vessels, sailing schooners and the steamboats when they came up the river.

Once the Bogue Falaya River passed the Abita River, it gets  narrower and with sharp turns and sandbars

Old Landing was three miles from the center of Covington, so there were taxi (hack) services that provided transfer of passengers and cargo up Old Landing Road all  the way up to Covington and points beyond.

John Wharton Collins and Badon Landing

According to Collins family historian Thomas Wharton Collens, who gave a speech to the St. Tammany Historical Society in 1988,  the first of the Collins family to come to Louisiana was William Wharton Collins, who was an experienced sea captain. Jack Terry, who helped research this article, said, “Badon Landing may have been where William Collins docked when he delivered mail to North Shore.”  William Collins had a post office contract to bring mail back and forth across Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans, stopping at Madisonville and probably further upriver at Old Landing.

Thomas Wharton Collens also told the historical society that William's brother John Wharton Collins came to New Orleans in 1800 at the age of 18, and in 1811, John Wharton Collins was working as a grocer on Levee Street in New Orleans. Two years later he purchased the Jacques Drieux property and this is what became what we now know as Covington, according to the 1988 speech by his great great grandson.

So Old Landing played a key part in Collins family history.

As Covington grew in size and commercial activity, the landing became more important. Covington developed as the southern end of major trade routes from Columbia and Holmesville, Mississippi, and when river dredging became available, the channel all the way up to Covington was deepened so that more boats could make it up to Columbia Landing. This was preferred since it was only a block from downtown Covington where all the major hotels, boarding houses and restaurants were located.

 

A dredge boat working on the Bogue Falaya

At some point Badon Landing became the Old Landing, and is referred to as such over the years. Several other river landings were along the river, with Columbia Landing being the northernmost.  

In this 1939 USGS topographical map, the "head of navigation" on the Bogue Falaya River was shown at approximately where the Chimes Restaurant is today. That was with regular dredging, however. As the dredging came to a stop, the river silted up and getting deep draft vessels to Columbia Landing became next to impossible.

 

 

A picture of the New Camelia at Old Landing
Click on the image to make it larger. 

The New Camelia was one of the boats that was too large to make it all the way upriver to Columbia Landing, so it had to use Old Landing.

According to Jack Terry, “From 1878 through about 1906 it appears that the New Camelia was docking  at Old Landing.  But after that it appears to be docking at Madisonville and Mandeville, and people used the train to get from Covington to Mandeville to connect to the New Camelia.” In 1909 and afterwards Covington folks could have easily hopped on the motor car trolley and rode down to Mandeville lakefront to board any one of several New Orleans bound steamboats.

Another picture of the New Camelia at Old Landing

 

Some interesting newspaper clippings:

 

 

 

1879 

Text from the above newspaper item:

     The Steamer Heroine came sailing up to the Old Landing last Monday evening, just as if she had been accustomed to coming there "all her life." She experienced no difficulty whatever in ascending the river, but glided gracefully around the bends with perfect ease. Doubtless much praise is due to Capt. Miller, who possesses a thorough knowledge of the river. He has the entire confidence of our citizens, and we frequently hear the expression: "what Capt. Miller don't know about our river ain't worth knowin'."

 

 

 

Text from the above newspaper item:

 

     The steamer New Camelia has been purchased by Mr. W. G. Coyle of New Orleans, owner of the fleet and handsome steamer Heroine. The New Camelia will hereafter leave Old Landing at five o'clock in the morning instead of six.

On Saturday evenings she will come through direct to Madisonville and Old Landing.

     The Heroine will run to Madisonville on non-mail days. We learn that it is the intention of Mr. Coyle to have the trips of both vessels extend as far up as Old Landing, which will necessitate a slight change in the rudder of the Heroine, to enable her to make the short bends in the river.

     With these two fine vessels in the Lake trade, we will have greatly increased facilities for business with the city, and the people of New Orleans may now prepare to "exode" into the piney woods at any time and in any number, being sure of a pleasant passage and a quick trip. 

(Note: the word "exode" means to make an exodus out of one place into another place)

  

 

1880

Text from the above newspaper item:

Mardi Gras Excursion To The City - The large and handsome Lake Steamer New Camelia will make an excursion trip to the city, for the benefit of those who desire to attend Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans. The excursionists will start from the Old Landing on Monday morning, February 9, at 7 o'clock. Fare for the round trip, one dollar. The tickets will be good for one week, and excursionists can return either on Thursday or Saturday night.

 

1881 

 

 

1919

The dredging of the Bogue Falaya River up to Columbia Landing became more and more of a challenge, as silting of the river bottom caused more boats to run aground over the years. When the trains came, the shipping of cargo from Covington to New Orleans starting using the railroad more, and Columbia Landing lost some of its business. 

 

 

The periodic dredging of the Bogue Falaya River from Columbia Landing (shown above) down the river to the Tchefuncte River became more costly and less justifiable. 

 

 Over the years, the name "Old Landing" began to refer to the residential community in the area between the two rivers, served by Old Landing Road. 

 

 

1920 

Old Landing Road Postcard

As to the location of Old Landing, several people recall seeing a number of pilings in the river at the end of Lucie Drive, off Old Landing Road, prompting them to think that being the likely location of Old Landing. Longtime residents of Covington sometimes differ on what location they remember labelled as "old landing." Since there were several landings along the river, it may be hard to pinpoint which old landing was THE Old Landing. 

The map below points out a river bend location that would match up with previous photographs of "Old Landing," and that point is where relatively high ground starts right next to the river. It would have been a good spot for a dock, a wharf, and a road going up to Covington.

Thanks goes to Pat Clanton, Jack Terry, Mark Johnson and Dorothy Frederick for their information regarding the location of Old Landing.

See also:

River Landings Map 

H. J. Smith's Sons General Merchandise Store 

Excursion Boat Memories 

The Life and Death of the New Camelia Lake Steamer 

The Steamer Camelia 

The Steamer Josie 

Dredging of Bogue Falaya River

Madisonville Steamer

The steamboat "Madisonville" began serving the Madisonville to New Orleans route in 1927. Here is the text from an April 30th newspaper article from that year that describes the "maiden voyage" of the vessel. 

New Lake Service, Madisonville-West End, To-day

Lake Steamer Madisonville In Service Today

Maiden Passenger Trip from West End at 3:00 p.m. Saturday, April 30, 1927

Boyhood Dream of the Designer

Plan to Make Special Trip for Accommodation of Theater Parties

Madisonville, LA., April 28 - The "Madisonville," a huge lake transit passenger and freight service steamer constructed here at the yard of Madisonville Industries, Inc., effected its trial trip across Lake Pontchartrain to West End Saturday, April 23, in two hours and twenty minutes -- against unfavorable weather conditions.

According to authentic reports, the time will be lessened to two hours and less, when the engines have limbered up and are in good running order.

Launch

The boat was launched some time ago with Miss Evelyn Dendinger as sponsor, and formed a pretty picture as the boat, with majestic splendor, gracefully slide from her cradle into the waters of the Tchefuncte River.

With a comfortable carry capacity of 350 passengers and 25 automobiles, the "Madisonville" has every possible convenience. It is 125 feet long and is equipped with two 180 horsepower Diesel engines, and costs approximately $85,000.

Local Designer

She was designed by E.V. Heughan, a Madisonvillian, whose ambition as a mere boy was to draw the plans for just such a craft to operate between here and New Orleans. In the realization of his boyhood dream, Mr. Heughan has given the general public in this section of St. Tammany parish a beautiful and well as serviceable boat in design, and the Dendingers, who made Madisonville, made possible the realization.

The "Madisonville" will be put in service at once across Lake Pontchartrain, under the piloting of Captain H. N. Chatellier and D. W. Cooper, and will probably run a schedule of two trips daily between Madisonville and the West End.

Maiden Trip

The big steamer left the local docks yesterday for New Orleans and will undergo final inspection this morning. At 2:00 o'clock this afternoon, the boat will make her maiden trip across Lake Pontchartrain from West End to Madisonville. She will remain here over night and Sunday will leave here at 6 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Returning from New Orleans boat leaves West End at 8:30 am. and 7:30 p.m.

We are informed by Mr. Theo. Dendinger that within the next few weeks the steamer will arrange trips to New Orleans for theater parties, leaving Madisonville in the evening and returning after the show that night. The hours of departure have not as yet been decided upon.

St. Tammany Farmer, April 30, 1927

 

 

Following her service to the community of Madisonville for several years, the steamboat was moved to New York City and became a tour boat to the Statue of Liberty.