Terrebonne County Louisiana Archives News.....Fifty Years Ago No. 6 October 25, 1890
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Savanna King savanna18king@gmail.com August 11, 2023, 12:35 am

The Thibodaux Sentinel October 25, 1890
The canal that now divides Thibodaux diagonally was first cut about the year 
1825. Bayou Terrebonne had its source, and once flowed from Bayou Lafourche just 
above the saw mill above town.

The canal was designed to connect Bayou Lafourche with Bayou Terrebonne at the 
foot of Jackson street, and by dredging that bayou navigation was secured for 
the people of Terrebonne, by which they transported their produce to Thibodaux, 
to be reshipped by way of Bayou Lafourche to New Orleans, and through the same 
means transported machinery, merchandise and such other necessities as their 
circumstances demanded. Originally, there were locks made at the intersection of 
the canal and the Lafourche, but they were soon dispensed with.

The amount of trade that annually passed through this canal was very large, as 
all the trade of a great part of the Parish of Terrebonne had no other mode of 
transportation, unless by wagons and carts. It was not unusual to witness wagon 
trains of ten to twenty in number coming up from Terrebonne loaded with sugar, 
molasses and other products and return with the goods and supplies required by 
the inhabitants of the interior.

The merchants of Thibodaux supplied the people with nearly everything that was 
necessary for their use and comfort, and did a thriving business. They received 
their goods, not as they now do, every day, as their demand calls, but generally 
laid in their supplies twice a year, and consequently often had immense stocks 
on hand.

In the winter a large trade was conducted by western men who bought flat boats 
down the river loaded with corn, meat, potatoes, apples, whiskey, flour &c., 
which were sold to the planters, and took sugar and molasses in exchange for 
their merchandise.

These boats commonly called “broad horns” came principally out of the Ohio 
river. Some of them would dispose of their loads, tow their boats to 
Donaldsonville, where they would reload them with produce brought by steamboats 
to that town, and thus dispose of two or three loads in one session. The late 
Benjamin F. Holden, who built the Franklin Hotel, first came to Thibodaux as a 
captain of a “broadhorn” which he floated from Ripley, Ohio, some fifty miles 
above Cincinnati. Subsequently he settled in Thibodaux and became a useful and 
prominent citizen. 

A man by the name of Miller came regularly for many years with boats from Rising 
Sun, Indiana; besides many other transient traders came in the bayou to sell 
their loads, or remnants of loads. The people bought their empty flatboats, 
changed them into packets with which they carried out sugar and molasses to 
Donaldsonville, in low water, and brought back merchandise for planters and 
merchants.

An extensive trade was carried on, also, by small schooners or boats, known 
generally under the euphonious name of “chicken thieves.” They were fitted to 
carry groceries and dry goods, and stopping in front of the residences, obtained 
a good trade, exchanging their goods for chickens and eggs which they took to 
New Orleans for sale when they went to that city to replenish their stock.

They were moved, either by the current, wind, or the cordelle which the sailors 
themselves pulled.


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