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ALONG THE BEACH FRONT
115
In 1814 the Sound'south of the Bay was the scene of the misnamed Battle of-Pass Christian (see SHIFTING SANDS).	,
BAY ST. LOUIS, 64.6 m. (21 alt, 3,724 pop.) (see BAY ST. LOUIS).
Points of Interest. St. Stanislaus College, Church of Our Lady of the Gulf, Shrine of Our Lady of the Woods, and others.
Left from Bay St. Louis on the Hancock County sea wall drive is WAVELAND, 2 m. (15 alt, 663 pop., gTeatly increased in summer). When the weather grows hot, many business men establish their families in the cottages and bungalows that dot Waveland’s beach, and commute to New Orleans. The community, however, has few amusement places, and life has a charming simplicity and ease; from June until Labor Day a bathing suit is the only necessary article of clothing, and no sport is engaged in more arduous than crabbing, swimming, or sailing.
The PIRATE’S HOUSE, 2.6 m., was bailt in 1802 by a New Orleans business man who, visitors are encouraged to believe, was the overlord of the Gulf Coast pirates. The house has a brick ground floor and outside walls covered with white stucco. A broad gallery, enclosed by grillwork balustrades with square wooden columns, extends on three sides. Slender comers project from the hipped roof. At one time,, legend says, a secret tunnel led from the house to the waterfront. The house is said to be the Vernon Plantation Home, described by Maurice Thompson in King of Honey Island.
Three doors beyond the Pirate’s House is the NICHOLSON COTTAGE (R), a story-and-a-half white frame cottage, with green roof, dormers, and broad screened porches. Here once lived Eliza Jane Poitevent, pioneer newspaper woman and poet, born in Gainesville in 1849. Writing under the pen name “Pearl Rivers,” she first appeared in print in the 1860’s with some verses published in the New York Home Journal. Her best known work was Lyrics. In 1867 Miss Poitevent married Col. Alva Morris Holbrook, owner of the New Orleans Picayune, who died shortly, leaving his property heavily mortgaged. His widow, frail, young, and inexperienced, undertook the management of the paper. Gathering about her a talented staff she soon had the paper on a paying basis and, moreover, anticipated some of the features that are now a part of leading dailies. She helped develop the Sunday newspaper as a medium of entertainment for the family, and she launched Dorothy Dix (see PASS CHRISTIAN) on her successful career as a syndicate writer. In 1884 she was elected president of the Woman’s National Press Association, and later she became the first honorary member of the New York Woman’s Press Club. Her second marriage was to George Nicholson in 1878. Several years after her death in 1896 the Picayune and Times-Democrat were merged, her sons, Leonard and Yorke Nicholson, becoming managers of the Times-Pic-ayune.
GULFSIDE, 5.5 m. (R), a school comprising several frame buildings and 'an assembly ground for Negroes, extends for a mile


BSL 1930 To 1949 MS Gulf Coast WPA American Guide Series (8)
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