Terrebonne County Louisiana Archives News.....Last Island (part 2) August 23, 1890
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Savanna King savanna18king@gmail.com August 11, 2023, 12:32 am

The Thibodaux Sentinel August 23, 1890
(Continued from the issue of Aug. 9th.)

Mr. Arthur Foley, partly paralyzed, then an old man, with his wife, by some 
means kept together and got upon the roof of a cabin, upon which they held and 
supported themselves all night, Mrs. Foley badly wounding her arm, upon the 
sharp crest of the floating raft. They were blown into the marshes near where 
Rochelle was found. They subsisted on an occasional snail that they found, as 
their sole food. Fortunately, from falling rains they obtained a sufficiency of 
water to drink. They had become so weak that they could not rise or sit up.

Hearing voices they hoisted a white cloth on a reed which they had only strength 
to hold up for a moment of time. A sailor, who had climbed to the top of the 
mast, discovered the signal. The old people were found, brought away and lived 
many years afterwards.

Messrs. E.O. Melancon, who still lives in New Orleans, Estave Lacontois and 
Desire LeBlanc all of Napoleonville, when they were forced to quit the hotel ran 
into a small outhouse; almost at the same instance, the roof was carried away 
and then the weather-boarding followed, but the posts were so deeply embedded in 
the sand that they withstood the tempest, and the men held to them during the 
night.

Mr. W.W. Pugh, now an octogenarian of Assumption was there with his wife and 
younger children, and with the assistance of A. Franklin Pugh sustained 
themselves during that fearful night by clinging to a large cistern full of 
water. His babe and nurse were drowned. The morning finally came, when the water 
had disappeared from the crest of the island, more than half of which had been 
swept away. 

Only wrecks and dead bodies were to be seen by the survivors. It was two or 
three days ere any relief reached the island, during which time hunger had begun 
to tell, as nearly everything in the shape of food had been destroyed.

I was at Paincourtville on the morning of August 10, 1856. At sunrise the water 
began to show a current unusually strong for the stage of water. I noticed that 
the water was rising rapidly, and in the course of the day, it rose four feet, 
this was caused by the tide coming up the Mississippi River, and then flowing 
down the bayou. White sea birds filled the air, an extraordinary sight far from 
the sea, and a sure indication of a storm along the gulf. 

Towards night the storm came and all night raged with great violence and fury, 
many sugar houses were damaged, fences blown down, the marks of destruction 
visible everywhere. On Monday night an ordinary painted water bucket, left 
exposed was full the next morning from the effect of a rainfall all the night 
long. The next morning I stood upon the levee, in front of Paincourtville and 
from its foot no land was to be seen, the town and the public road were 
submerged. 

The bayou at Thibodaux rose five or six feet; a flat boat moored in front of the 
town was found ten miles above. 

Then the news came in uncertain rumors that the islands in the gulf had been 
overflowed. Then men were galloping to and fro, inquiring and searching for 
news.

Many citizens of Assumption were known to be at Last Island. Anxiety was upon 
every face. Nothing definite was known until Wednesday and Thursday, and that 
was only the fact that a great storm had destroyed Last Island, who were saved, 
and who were lost? On Thursday some of the survivors reached home, but they 
could only tell of a few who were saved.

Time however revealed the loss and whilst it brought sorrow and desolation into 
many a household, a great burden of grief was lifted from the hearts of the 
families of the saved.

The venerable Henry Landry, the young and excellent Ulysse Simoneau of 
Paincourtville, and some others in that vicinity were lost. 

Mr. Cyprien Barrilleau, a popular and rising young lawyer of Napoleonville was 
lost; and Madam Bordis whom he had accompanied to the Island perished with him. 
When last seen they were together in the waves, and he probably perished in an 
endeavor to save the wife of his friend.

Some two or three weeks later Mr. F. Barrilleau, now residing at Lockport, 
whilst sailing over the bay in an effort to find his cousin’s body, discovered a 
dozen or more corpses some 20 miles from Last Island on a bar that was only 
uncovered in low tide, among them was one of the children of Mr. John C. Beatty. 
Lafourche mourned the loss of Mr. J.C. Beatty’s and wife, who was a daughter of 
Mr. Arthur Foley so miraculously preserved, and four children.

Terrebonne lost only one citizen, but the Attakapas and river parishes suffered 
heavily.

Such a week of anxiety, mourning and sadness has never been witnessed on bayou 
Lafourche. How many people perished on that terrible night no one knows; the 
hotel register was lost. 

There were many strangers there, whose friends perhaps never knew their fate, 
and still wonder if they be living or dead.

There are not many survivors of that awful night, most of those who will read 
these lines have been born since that fatal day.

But those who do survive, have the memories of that terrible night, 34 years 
ago, so deeply buried into their hearts that death alone can ever efface them.

In 1890 the anniversary of this fearful day falls on Sunday as it did in 1856.

The survivors subsequently presented Mr. Ellis with an elegant gold watch as a 
testimonial of the appreciation they had of his heroism on that night.



File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/terrebonne/newspapers/lastisla737gnw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/lafiles/

File size: 6.0 Kb