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icn the army was training dogs on Cat Island during World War II, s is the way it looked from the air. In the central cleared area were kennels for the 400 dogs, with the operational buildings housing the 9 hundred military dog trainers and staff at the top of the picture.
Where she is pointing are the still visible handmade brick remains of the historic camp of the Swiss Mercenaries, perhaps a baking oven.
This sivamp area, with high grow oyi both sides, indicates how C Island is corrugated from east west with its ridges and loivlav.i
Cat Island
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When the British — shattered and beaten — came back to their base at Ship Island they released Jean Couevas before sailing home, obviously not realizing how his one man resistance had contributed to their defeat.
Jean, of course, went back to his family and his beloved Cat Island to live to the ripe old age of 87. As was proper the Couevas clan continued to prosper and multiply. As late as 1844 there were accounts of the huge feasts the Couevas family used to prepare for their mainland friends — when whole beeves, hogs, deer, wild turkeys, ducks and geese, were barbecued by the dozen in the great brick pits — when food bent the table and wine flowed freely and relays of musicians played for continuous dancing that often lasted for three
Owner Nathan ISoddie and intrepid Mrs. Browning, carctakcr icith her husband of Cat Island for 35 years, inspect a rac-cooon that she is preparing to skin.
days or more.
Jean Couevas in his latter years (1837) sold the island to Judah P. Benjamin, who later was Attorney General of the Confederate Government, with the stipulation that he and his wife be allowed to remain and reside on Cat Island for the remainder of his lifetime.
Today, all that is left of the Couevas era on Cat Island is the clearing where once stood the old Couevas homestead built around 1812 and which survived for well over a century before it accidentally burned down in the 1930’s.
SMUGGLERS COVE
Then there were the pirates!
This generation growing up has been thrilled by the revival of the movie “The Buccaneer” depicting the exploits of Jean Lafitte and his Baratarian smugglers, privateers or pirates (take your choice — they were called all three) who looted ships and laughed at the law for ten long years between 1804 and the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.
They were finally pardoned for all their previous crimes of piracy, actual or accused, by a grateful U. S. government in recognition of their patriotism and fighting prowess in that famous battle.
But while they were at the height of their piratical fame under the able leadership of Lafitte, they had depots for the disposal of their contraband and slaves all along the Coast from New Orleans to Pensacola.
One of these depots was the still standing Pirate House at Waveland just west of Bay St. Louis on the Beach Drive. It was built early in the 1800’s
by a New Orleans businessman to cloak his activities as financial backer and fence for Lafitte. There is a secret tunnel and slave cell in the house that once connected with the waterfront where a skiff would carry Lafitte to or from nearby Cat Island, the western end of which is almost opposite Bay St. Louis.
Smugglers Cove (see map) was so named for the boats of Lafitte that often lay hidden there while contraband or slaves were being transferred or Jean was doing business with his Coast agent. Ever since the days of Lafitte there have been reports of buried treasure on Cat Island and optimistic persons have now and then hopefully dug for it.
SEMINOLE INDIANS
Around the middle of the last century an Alabama contractor made an agreement with the U. S. government to transport the Indians from the Alabama-Georgia area to the Territory of Oklahoma.
In order to do this with the least expense he hit upon the idea of carrying them by barge down the rivers of Alabama into the Gulf and on into Lake Pontchartrain. There they were marched from the Lake to the Mississippi River, and again transported upstream to Scotts Bluff or some other Arkansas landing place and from there marched on foot to Oklahoma territory.
This, however, was a long, trying journey—so he decided to make Cat Island a staging area or halfway stop on the route. On one of his trips with the Seminole Indians sickness broke out suddenly while they were at Cat Island, and many of the Seminoles died.