The Mobile River , livre ebook

T HE M OBILE R IVER

THE

M OBILE R IVER
John S. Sledge
© 2015 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
Frontispiece illustration from Peter J. Hamilton, Artwork of Mobile and Vicinity (Chicago, 1894).
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/
ISBN: 978-1-61117-485-4 (cloth) ISBN: 978-1-61117-487-8 (slipcase edition) ISBN: 978-1-61117-486-1 (ebook)
Mobile River and Delta map © Nicholas Holmes III
Front Cover Illustration: Fishing along the Wharves, 1905, Mobile, Ala., courtesy of John Hunter
Published through the generosity of the A. S. Mitchell Foundation, Mobile, Alabama
For mom, Jeanne Arceneaux Sledge Always interested, supportive, and loving
C ONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Prologue: Downriver with Cap’n Joe
Introduction: “A fine, large river”
Part 1. Coming Ahead
1. Indian Stream to Entrada Española
2. Colonial Days and Ways
3. American Dawn
4. Calliope Song
5. Rebel River
6. Rebel Defeat
7. “Mobile Harbor: What shall we do with it?”
8. Modern Port, Beleaguered River
Part 2. Currents
9. “Everything down there’s big enough to kill you”
10. Pleasure and Peril
11. Diverse Legacies
Epilogue: Elegy for a Small Shipyard
ABBREVIATIONS
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
I LLUSTRATIONS
Map of Mobile Bay by Nicholas H. Holmes, 1937
Map of Mobile River and Delta by Nicholas H. Holmes III
Aerial view of the harbor, 1949
Rising tide
Busy Mobile River
Choctaw Indians
Pittman map, circa 1768
Plan of the Bay and Island of Mobile, 1763
Andrew Ellicott
Grand Mobile, circa 1835
Wrestling cotton
Mobile Harbor, 1851
Timothy Meaher
Admiral Franklin Buchanan
Hunley sketch by Alexander
CSS Florida
USS Hartford , circa 1900
Front Street, circa 1895
Dry dock, circa 1895
Mobile map, 1874
Wharf scene, 1887
Rooftop harbor view, 1896
Steamer John Quill
Launching SS Selma City , April 2, 1921
Sawmill at One Mile Creek
Alabama State Docks Commission tour
Aerial view Alabama State Docks, 1950
Cochrane Bridge, 1983
Gulf Shipbuilding aerial view, 1939
Ferry Alabama , January 1935
Mobile harbor dredging, 1988
ADDSCO diver
Lone sailor from aloft
Longshoreman, circa 1960
Officers line the rail of a Norwegian fruiter, circa 1895
Worker, banana docks, 1937
Sawmill advertisement, 1884
Shipbuilding
Chastang swimming pool
Duncan Place, 1906
Storm damage, 1916
Creole girls at play, 1951
Geronimo at Mount Vernon
Following page 162
Port of Mobile magazine cover, 1964
Map of Southeast, 1690
Henri de Tonti
Mobile town plan, 1702
Detail of David Taitt’s 1771 West Florida map
Mobile, 1842 , by William Bennett
Lighthouse at Mobile
The Confederate ram Baltic
Hunley—The Beginning , by Paul Bender
Map of the Defenses of the City of Mobile
Detail of the magazine explosion aftermath at Mobile
Albert Stein
Mobile Waterfront, 1895 , by William L. Challoner
City of Mobile , by R. D. Wilcox
Alabama State Docks postcard
Bankhead Tunnel under construction by Roderick MacKenzie
Cudjo Lewis
Mobile waterfront, 1984, painted by Lee Hoffman
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
By far the greatest pleasure of writing this book has been the many wonderful people who helped me along the way. First and foremost, I must thank Joseph Meaher, who has long had an interest in this project. Joe knows the Mobile River “like any familiar thing” (as was once said of one of his forebears), and he helped me to know it as well through two boat trips and numerous queries answered. Joe encouraged me to seek the assistance of the A. S. Mitchell Foundation in underwriting the book’s production costs, and, happily, trustees Augustine Meaher III, David Dukes, Frank Vinson, and Kenneth Vinson agreed. I am indebted to all of them.
Second, I am profoundly grateful to the History Museum of Mobile for its commitment to this project at many levels, from acting as a pass-through for the subvention to scanning photographs and copying documents free of charge. Director David Alsobrook and staffers Scotty Kirkland, Jacqlyn Kirkland, Charles Torrey, Jacob Laurence, Sheila Flanagan, Ellie Skinner, Israel Lewis, and Kathlyn Scott never flagged and, in the process, have become like a second family to me. Quite simply, this book would not have been possible without their involvement.
Many other individuals at numerous local institutions and companies also provided vital and valuable assistance. They include Coll’ette King at Mobile County Probate Court; Jane Daugherty and Amy Beach at the Local History and Genealogy Branch of the Mobile Public Library; Edward (“Ned”) Harkins, Zennia Calhoun, Pamela Major, and Jane Pate at Mobile Municipal Archives; Carol Ellis, Chris Burroughs, Nick Beeson, Ben Lang, and Barbara Asmus at the University of South Alabama’s Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Greg Waselkov, Bonnie Gums, and Sarah Mattics at the University of South Alabama Department of Anthropology, Sociology and Social Work; Cartledge Blackwell at the Mobile Historic Development Commission; Rhonda Davis, formerly at the Historic Mobile Preservation Society; Judith Adams, Sheri Reid, Jimmy Orum, and James Lyons at the Alabama State Port Authority; Captain Terry D. Gilbreath, harbormaster; Shirley Lampley and Alvin Campbell of the Alabama Department of Transportation; William Harrison III of Harrison Brothers Dry Dock and Shipbuilding; John Hunter of Dockside Services; Patrick J. Wilson and Cap’n Joe Ollinger of the Mobile Bar Pilots; Casi Callaway of Mobile Baykeeper; Jocko Potts, Judy Culbreth, and Lawren Largue at Mobile Bay magazine; and Joan Gardner and David Cooper of Cooper/T. Smith Corporation. All of these folks lead busy professional lives but were unfailingly courteous when I came calling.
Other people were helpful on particular aspects of the Mobile’s sprawling history. They include Sidney Schell and John Ellis on the Confederate navy, David Smithweck on lighthouses, Sam Hodges and Bill Finch on the delta, Sylviane Diouf on African Town, David Bagwell on water lots, Hudson McDonald on Plateau, Melissa Mutert on the railroad tracks riverside, and Richard Chastang, Noel Andry Sr., Henry Andry, Robert Curtis Andry, and Rudolph Andry on the upriver Creoles.
Others provided help or friendship during the long grind. They include Joey Guess and John Harper at the Promised Land; Anna Guess, who sent fantastic preserves after my river trips; and E. C. LeVert, Tom McGehee, Roy Hoffman, Douglas Kearley, David Newell, Hardy Jackson, Spencer Callahan, Ken Niemeyer, Debby Stearns, Nicholas Holmes Jr., Malcolm Steves, and Ken McElhaney. Special thanks are due Nicholas Holmes III for his fabulous Mobile River Delta map. When I began this project, I knew that I wanted to engage Nick to produce such a map as an accompaniment to the classic Mobile Bay chart his grandfather drew back in 1937, itself never before published in a book. To my great joy, Nick accepted the task, even though I could only pay him for a fraction of his time. Over the course of a long year we compared notes and progress as I composed and he drew, and the collaboration proved one of the most rewarding of my life.
This is now my second book with the University of South Carolina Press, and I appreciate the staff’s professionalism and thoroughness more than ever. To Walter Edgar, thanks for introducing them to me, and heartfelt gratitude to Director Jonathan Haupt, Marketing Director Suzanne Axland, Assistant Director for Operations Linda Haines Fogle, and Managing Editor Bill Adams for their marvelous care and skill.
Last, as ever, my family has been my rock. My lovely wife Lynn edited this monster with her usual grace and eagle eye. Our children Matthew and Elena, both out of the nest, used Facebook to express their support and interest from afar. My mother Jeanne Arceneaux Sledge was this book’s first reader, and her enthusiastic, early, and continued encouragement has meant a great deal. Though she is my mother, she insists that she knows a good book when she sees it, and so I dedicate this volume to her. Of course, any errors of fact herein are to be laid solely at my door.

Mobile Bay by Nicholas H. Holmes, 1937

Mobile River and Delta by Nicholas Holmes III, 2013
Prologue
D OWNRIVER WITH C AP ’ N J OE
Joe Meaher is something of a legend on the Mobile River. His family history has unfolded along its banks, upstream and down, in country, swamp, and city. A descendent of the controversial Timothy Meaher—Mainer, sawmill owner, boat builder, steamboat captain, filibuster financier, slave runner, blockade-runner, and businessman—Joe is a vigorous seventy, deeply versed in river incident and lore and extensively involved in managing his family’s timber, farming, and real estate interests. No complete narrative of the underappreciated and fascinating waterway on which he lives is possible without his participation.
Our families go way back. My grandfather and father hunted with his father in the 1930s, 40s, and later when CapR