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10
The Progress of the Races
mark when he died in New Orleans about twenty years ago, calked on this dry-dock. Usan Vaughn and Sylvester Marchand, though slaves, worked as carpenters on this dry-dock.
New Orleans first supplied the carry-log for the timber-getter of Louisiana and Mississippi. The carry-log wheels originally had a narrow tread about four inches wide, but was improved by Usan Vaughn, a colored slave owned by Nezan Favre, at Pearlington. Vaughn’s improvement expanded the tread on the carry-log wheels to 8 and 10 inches, and increased the height or diameter, which enabled the timber-men to haul any size log or stick of timber of the yellow pine that grew so large and abundantly on Pearl River in antebellum days. For every pair of carry-log wheels Vaughn’s master received $100, exclusive of the axle, tongue and tackle. He supplied all of the timber-getters on Pearl River with these wheels, and the carry-log on this wise continued in use in Louisiana and Mississippi until the log truck was invented.
Vaughn bought his wife, Annie, from her master while he remained a sla^e, but the martyred President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation set him free, and he had the pleasure of enjoying freedom with his beloved wife a few years before their decease.
Sylvester Marchand was owned by the same master as Vaughn, but was sold to a man at Bay Saint Louis, who owned many houses that he rented on the coast of Mississippi and in New Orleans.
Marchand, being a splendid carpenter, his new master assigned him the job of building and keeping his houses in repair, alternating between the coast of Mississippi and New Orleans. These colored men were constructive geniuses, even in slave time. It is interesting to note also that the first ship built in America was built by Negroes on the coast of North Carolina.
The Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company was organized at Pearlington shortly after the Civil War, with Captain John Poitevent, president, and Captain Joseph A. Favre, vice-president. Captain Poitevent and Captain Favre, as brothers-in-law, worked together harmoniously and built up a lumber business that was second to none in the State of Mississippi. They supplied lumber, crossties and timber to build the Chattanooga Railroad (now Louisville and Nashville), which was completed in 1872; lumber and piling, brick and sand to jetty the mouth of the Mississippi River, contracted by Captain J. B. Eads, for the United States Government; lumber to build the New Orleans Exposition, which opened in December, 1884, and closed in May, 1885. In filling the latter contract, Captain John Poitevent achieved the name of “Lumber King” of the South. Besides, this company carried on a large business of shipping lumber and timber to New Orleans, Ship Island, Horn Island and Gulfport, until they discontinued business at Pearlington in 1906.
In the passing of Captain John Poitevent in March, 1899, Captain J. A. Favre succeeded him as president of the company for a brief period. He later sold out all of his interest in the Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company to Frank B. Haynes, the son-in-law of Captain Poitevent, who became president of the company, and W. J. Poitevent, the eldest son of Captain Poitevent, vice-president, who chiefly ran the business with his three brothers, John Poitevent, Jr., Eads Poitevent and June Poitevent. Mr. Haynes, the president, was a cotton broker in New Orleans, and gave the most of his time to that business.
The Progress of the Races
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The Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company owned three sawmills at Pearlington, the first and second were destroyed by fires in December, 1879, and in April, 1889, respectively, and the third was torn down by The H. Weston Lumber Company, in 1917, and shipped away. They owned the East Louisiana Railroad in Saint Tammany Parish, which carried passengers and supplied the mills with logs, dumping them into West Pearl River, a few miles from Floranville, La., where they drifted with the current to the great boom they kept on Middle River, a mile from Pearlington, then towed to the mills through Jug Bayou flowing into Middle River, through the half-mile log canal, dug in 1879, connecting Jug Bayou with Pearl River, where the mills were located.
They also owned a lot of schooners, steamboats, barges and deep water vessels. It is gratifying to state that these schooners and boats were chiefly manned by colored captains and crews.
The Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company were the first on Pearl River to employ colored captains and engineers on their schooners and boats, first to have colored sawyers in their mills, and as contractors and stevedores. As early as 1869 they began to favor colored employees in this way, and the precedent set by this company has been followed by all of the lumbermen on Pearl River, and by some on the coast of Mississippi and in Louisiana.
About 1901, Captain J. A. Favre and his two sons, Joseph J. Favre and Simon Favre, organized the J. A. Favre Lumber Company and started business at Favreport, first building a brick-yard and then a fine sawmill and a railroad that supplied the mills with logs. They owned schooners, steamboats and barges and carried on a good business. They employed colored men as captains and engineers on these vessels and as foremen and contractors in their brick-yard and lumber-yard. The mill having been destroyed by fire in 1908, they discontinued business at Favreport, and built a mill on White’s Bayou. Operating there a few years they finally sold out to the H. Weston Lumber Company at Logtown, and likewise, the Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company.
There have been seventeen sawmills in and within a radius of ten miles of Pearlington, four being at Pearlington, owned by Mr. Hursey, and the Poitevent & Favre Lumber Company, one just above Pearlington, one across the river opposite Pearlington, one on Brown’s Island, all three owned by Mr. Brown; one at Favreport, and one on White’s Bayou, both owned by the J. A. Favre Lumber Company; one near the head of Mulatto Bayou, known as Captain John Richardson’s mill; four at Logtown, owned by Carrie and Wingate, Henry Carrie, E. C. Goddard Lumber Company, and all of them finally owned by the H. Weston Lumber Company; two at Gainesville, owned by Captain William Poitevent and Mr. Peterman, and one at the mouth of Mike’s River, owned by Captain Adolph Poitevent.
The two large sawmills, one at Pearlington and the other at Favreport (located about a mile apart), after failing, left Pearlington in quite a business depression, so much so that the town is nearly depopulated and demolished. It is a sad picture when we remember that Pearlington was once one of the most thriving towns in South Mississippi. Being situated on Pearl River, where vessels of large burden can enter, and almost in a direct