Jim Bradshaw: Franklin traveler reveled in Louisiana April

The little steamer Fairy carried the mail from Franklin to Lake Verret near Napoleonville in the 1850s, holding the contract because it could make the trip in only six hours when the wind blew wrong and a lot faster on a nice, quiet day.
The steamer met a mail coach that ran to the lake from Donaldsonville, putting Franklin within only 20 hours of New Orleans.
Spring was bursting out in April 1853, when the editor of the Planters’ Banner took “a quick and pleasurable trip on this little steamer” through “scenery in vestments of the richest verdure,”
“During our run thither, the wind was very high, and the firewood of poor quality, being water-soaked and otherwise objectionable for the purpose of raising steam, consequently we could form no correct estimate of her capabilities for traveling, as it took about six hours to make the run,” he reported.
“The following day, however, being fair, with but little wind stirring, and a plentiful supply of excellent wood having been procured … we had a fair opportunity to judge of what she can do in the way of traveling.”
He said the boat was  “skillfully commanded, ably officered, and neatly furnished,”  and that “nothing has been left undone  … that could in the slightest degree add to the comfort and convenience of travelers by this route.” The boat’s “machinery worked admirably,”  he said and it “glided through the water so smoothly as to create scarcely any perceptible motion.”
At Lake Verret the steamer’s owners had built “at considerable expense … a wharf from 500 to 600 feet in length, crossing the marsh … and running into the lake, so as to afford a good and secure landing at all stages of the water.”
On the return to Franklin, the Fairy started from Lake Verrett  after a coach from Donaldsonville delivered the mail just after noon, and arrived at  Patterson about 2:30  — “traveling a distance of some thirty miles in two hours and twenty minutes!”
The boat took on wood at Patterson, “so that it was five o’clock when she reached Franklin — making the whole trip from Lake Verret to Franklin in four hours and forty-five minutes, including the necessary stoppages for delivering and receiving the mail.”
This, in the editor’s opinion, was “first-rate running, the distances between the two places being in the neighborhood of fifty miles,”
The editor said he was well pleased with his little excursion. “The scenery …  was beautiful; the lakes and bayous … presented an unobstructed path over their glassy surface, no unsightly snags being visible to … offend the eye while scanning Nature in all her loveliness. To add to all this, the day was as fine as could be desired, and on every hand a luxuriant vegetation …  welcomed the joyous Spring.
“With such rejoicing scenes before us, who could fail to feel thankful and contented! There is something inspiring in such scenes, where all around appears harmonious, which makes one not only think well of himself, but all of mankind. So it was with us — and thus we felt quite at home in the ‘Fairy.’”
He predicted “ considerably increased travel by this route” during the coming summer.
“To those who place a proper value on time it must recommend itself as being more expeditious than any other, bringing Franklin within eighteen or twenty hours of New Orleans, and being the most economical at that season,” he wrote. “ The rates of passage by this route are at present $8 to New Orleans, $3 of which is the fare from Donaldsonville to the city, which in all probability will soon be reduced to $2 for all passengers by this line.”
Speed, economy, comfort, and lovely scenery — what more could a traveler want?
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.