DESCRIPTION: Rare post civil war shipping document, a "Bill of Lading", for the steamboat Belle Ida to transport items from New Orleans, Louisiana to Valence Plantation, along Bayou Lafourche, in Assumption Parish. Valence Plantation was most likely located near the current-day town of Supreme, just a few miles south of the well-known Madewood Plantation and Naploeonville, Louisiana. Dated within to February 9th, 1866. The bill of lading was filled in by hand at time of shipping and is addressed to J.B. Savage, Valence Plantation, Bayou Lafourche.
Bayou Lafourche has not been navigable from the Mississippi River since 1905 when a dam was built at Donaldsonville, La. but prior to that time the waterway served as an important commercial artery.
The Belle Ida was likely a stern-wheel steamboat built in 1861 (Wooldridge Steamboat List. Internet ). With a stock logo of a side-wheel steamboat by T. Fitzwilliam, Stationer and Printer, 76 Camp Street, N.O.
Symonds, Courtney and Co. were Tobacco Factors and General Forwarding and Commission Merchants located at No. 35 Natchez Street, New Orleans, LA. With a glued 2 cent stamp within. Addressed on verso.
The items shipped from New Orleans by Symonds Courtney and Co. included:
- 1 sack of harnesses
- 1 bundle of bridles
- 5 cases of sundries
- 10 head of mules
- 1 horse
The military detail on the map explains why civilian efforts depended so heavily on accurate local knowledge. Notes of Rebel picket lines, rifle pits, skirmishes, and shelling mark areas where Confederate forces remained active from January to July, 1862 and where movement involved real risk. The map therefore captures a moment when military necessity and civilian reconstruction were inseparable. Rather than illustrating a single engagement, it records how Northerners navigated, defended, and reorganized a newly occupied landscape while attempting, imperfectly, to replace slavery with paid labor, schooling, and basic civil order at the very beginning of Reconstruction.
The map is executed in pen and ink, with areas of water and terrain shaded in graphite. The graphite shading appears to have been produced using a textured aid beneath the paper, a method consistent with known mid-19th-century drafting practice for creating uniform tonal effects efficiently.
PUBLICATION DATE: 1866
GEOGRAPHIC AREA: United States
BODY OF WATER: Bayou Lafourche
CONDITION: Good.
Folded, originally for the U.S. Mail.
COLORING: None
ENGRAVER:
SIZE: 11
" x
8 "
ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION: 1
PRICE: $500
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