Terrebonne County Louisiana Archives News.....Fifty Years Ago No. 7 November 8, 1890
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The Thibodaux Sentinel November 8, 1890

The only means of transportation and travel was by water. Much of the early 
transportation and travel to and from New Orleans was by means of pirogues and 
small sailboats.

About 1825 a little steamboat, named the Eagle, was brought into the bayou by 
Capt. Ferdinand Streck, a German, who had been trading in that stream on a so-
called “chicken thief.”

This was a small affair, built as the early steamboats were, with her cabin on 
the lower deck. Insignificant as such a craft would appear today, it was 
considered something wonderful at the time. The captain soon exchanged her for a 
larger and better boat, called the Decatur. Captain Streck was a remarkable man. 
In his time, and down to 1850, no one who took passage on a steamboat at New 
Orleans could form any idea of the time he was going to leave that wharf. 
Steamboat captains would fire up, ring bells, and tell passengers that their 
boats would leave in half an hour, passengers were directed to bring their 
luggage and come aboard. This they would keep up all day and cool down fires at 
night, and after two or three days they would finally get away. In the meantime 
passengers were boarded on the boats free, and as the board was good in port so 
it was the reverse on the route. 

Capt. Streck astonished the people by advertising that his boat would leave at 
10 o'clock a.m. and the passenger, who was one minute later was left. Once the 
time of departure came when his wife and daughters were coming across the wharf. 
He halloed to them to get a carriage and drive up to Lafayette, them four miles 
above. He ran up there and landed, and waited for them.

His rule was to leave New Orleans every Saturday at 10 o’clock, run up to or 
near Donaldsonville, lay all night, on Sunday run down the bayou to Lockport, 
return to Thibodaux, on Monday, remain overnight, on Tuesday ascend the bayou to 
Donaldsonville, and then go to New Orleans on Wednesday. Steamboats did most of 
the mail business. They would land, take on a letter or package of money, 
deliver them in New Orleans and bring back the freight which the parties 
desired. 

They would throw off a daily paper to every customer, often distributing two or 
three hundred on each trip.

It is said that Captain Streck was once hailed by a person, who was on the levee 
with 11 eggs, who requested him to wait for the hen that was on the nest to lay 
another egg, to make the dozen which he did. 

The old captain was considered a fair drinker in his day, and did not require 
more than two dozen cocktails before breakfast.

His drinks, as I have often seen him take them, were always very light. Once he 
had leased his bar to a man, who was to supply the captain with his cocktails in 
lieu of the $75.00 per month usually paid for rent.

At the end of the first month the bar-keeper told the captain that he thought 
“he would prefer to pay the rent, and for him to pay his drinks,” which were 
only five cents each, as officers only paid half price.

“All right,” says the captain. At the end of the second month, as the boat was 
descending the river near Bonnet Carre, the bar keeper presented a bill to the 
captain, credited by one month’s rent, showing a balance of about $25.00. 
“What’s this?” the captain demanded in language peculiar to himself. The 
barkeeper explained.

He ordered the clerk to pay the bill, the pilot to land and the mate to put the 
bar-keeper ashore. He followed by the next boat when the old man gave him back 
his position.

Withal he was a good man, honest, charitable, kind, rough as it may be, but the 
roughness was that of the diamond. He was passionately fond of music, and often 
carried a brass band on his trips. Every spring he made a trip to the mouth of 
the bayou when the people had a chance to enjoy the sea breezes, a swim in the 
gulf, a feast of fishes, and oysters, and of forming a close acquaintanceship 
with the live healthy mosquitoes that held preemption rights on the lower 
Lafourche and gulf coasts. Capt. Streck built several boats for the trade, of 
which the most famous were the music, and Mr. F.M. Streck.

His family resided in Donaldsonville, but his home was on his boat. As age and 
exposure told upon him, his eyesight failed and when he had to abandon his 
boats, he, in an hour of despondency, drank some poison that ended his life, or, 
at least, was supposed to have done so.

No man ever had more friends than he, and none whose remains are resting beneath 
the sods of Louisiana were ever more sincerely regretted and mourned. He was 
buried in Donaldsonville, leaving several children, who with his wife, I think 
have all followed him to the unknown world. 


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