Jim Bradshaw: Daughter saved father in steamboat disaster

A heroic daughter and a bale of cotton saved her father’s life when the steamboat Lessie Taylor sank just after leaving the busy St. Landry port at Washington on Feb. 3, 1878.
The boat had been running regularly to New Orleans for nearly a decade by then and was regarded as one of the better steamers operating on Bayou Courtableau before it ran into a streak of bad luck.
The late David Jasper McNicoll recalled in a memoir about Washington in the 1800s that the sinking was such a big deal that “folks used to mark time by that event.”
Max Kennison was the captain when the boat was introduced to the bayou in 1870.
It was advertised as newly built for the Courtableau trade, “with all modern improvements” and “extra inducements to passengers and shippers.”
The owners were Washington businessmen Elbert Gantt and Thomas C. Anderson. Gantt operated a sawmill on Bayou Courtableau and Anderson had been in the steamboat business since 1854.
An advertisement in 1872 noted that the steamer connected at Washington “with … [a] line of good barges … [that could reach] all points on Bayou Boeuf,” meaning that freight could be hauled almost to Alexandria, even  though the steamboats couldn’t go that far, and the Lessie Taylor was also popular with passengers.
In February 1877 the “Magnificent Passenger Steamer” advertised round-trip tickets for just $10 for an excursion to the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration.
That would be the Lessie Taylor’s last Mardi Gras. It had just left the Courtableau on its way to New Orleans when it struck a sunken log in the Atchafalaya River, “near Glover’s Bend.”
 According to the Opelousas Courier account, the boat left Washington as usual on Saturday evening, “with a good load of freight and a considerable number of passengers, among whom were four ladies.
"About 5 o’clock the next morning, when in the Atchafalaya about four miles from the mouth of the Courtableau, she struck a snag or sunken tree and sunk in about 20 minutes.
"Most of the passengers were asleep when the log ripped a hole in the hull, “and though the boat was landed as soon as possible … some of them were unable to leave her before she began to settle down … and were compelled to swim ashore.”
One of the four ladies, a “Miss Newell, of Elm Bayou, in this parish,” was one of those swimmers. The news account said she was “ universally praised for the great heroism she displayed on this trying occasion.”
The boat was already half submerged and sinking quickly when “she secured a bale of cotton and, placing her aged father upon it, managed to push her clumsy ‘craft’ with its precious load ashore.”
That was no easy task. A water-soaked bale of cotton could weigh 500 pounds or more.
“Miss Newell” may have been Elizabeth Newell, who would have been about 20 in 1878.
Her family was listed in St. Landry Parish in the 1870 census. Elm Bayou is now in Evangeline Parish, generally northeast of Turkey Creek.
If the daughter was Elizabeth Newell, her father. Robert, would have been 58, which, no matter the newspaper’s account, isn’t “aged” to me.
Miss Newell  had barely reached the river bank when the boat sank completely into deep water leaving “only a portion of her smoke-stacks visible.”
The boat, valued at $15,000, was a total loss, and lost freight brought the total damage to $60,000. That would be nearly $2 million today.   
The newspaper reported  that “most of the valuables, books, papers, &c., of the boat were saved, but very few of the passengers saved anything.”
The hull, engines, boilers, “and appurtenances” of the boat were later salvaged and sold, but not for nearly enough to recover the losses.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.