Bonfouca.Org
Dedicated to the History, Past, Present and Future of Bonfouca La.
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Finally after months of work, here is the new
Bonfouca.Org website. I am excited by the new nature videos in the Environment section. I can
safely promise there are more videos coming here and on YouTube.
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Childhood Home on Bayou Liberty
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Another new feature it the Pichon Pirogue Museum.
Thanks to the efforts of Michael Pichon, son of Armand Pichon Jr., many family heirloom tools and documents were rescued from
the ravages of Katrina.
Mike's efforts included a heroic dive into rising water to save
a dugout canoe from floating off, at the height of Katrina's maelstrom.
The family's collection of pirogues is extensive. Many are in pristine
condition.
While recording these piroges the idea for the Pichon Museum took root.
So now we have a virtual museum, hopefully its a step towards a real museum.
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Bonfouca
is located across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. Situated on
Bayou Liberty, Bonfouca (bon foo ka, rimes with America) was one of the first Creole
settlements after the founding of New Orleans. Bonfouca is a
Creole French Choctaw word meaning 'Good People'.
However, Indian shell middens
dating over 2000 years old are found up and down the bayous of
Bonfouca. Acolapissa were living in Bonfouca when the first Frenchmen
arrived, but the Choctaw moved to the area and absorbed them.
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The Chacta, as the Choctaw called themselves, lived peacefully with the Whitemen, taking food, tobacco and woven baskets of every description across the lake on schooners, to the Indian Market in New Orleans .
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Along
with Bayou Lacombe to the west, these two settlements provide
building material for the new city. First with tar and lumber, then
with bricks. Later dozens of shipyards sprang up to build the
schooners that transported goods across the lake. Early Bonfouca was a
potpourri of peoples: French, Spanish and Choctaw Indians, as well as
freemen and slaves of African descent. Together they created a major
industrial complex on the North Shore.
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Bonfouca was a strong
Confederate stronghold and was repeatedly invaded by Union gunboats.
The plantation owners that pledged their fortunes to the South ended up
with little more than their land. Many gave land to their freed slaves,
who continued to work for them and took their family name.
Bonfouca has been very
fortunate that on of its citizens, Sidoine Pichon kept a diary from
1848 to 1886. Sidoine was a ships caulker by trade, but his diary shows
he was forced to farm and hunt to put food on the table for his large
family and slaves.
Month by month, Sidoine lists his jobs, the places he travelled and the
ships that he worked on. Every month he stoically listed those friends,
neighbors and relatives that died due mostly to mosquito borne disease.
It is very interesting and available in
Slidell, La from Dudley Smith Printers.
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Until the end of WW I, Bonfouca served as a summer haven for people from New Orleans escaping from the mosquito borne plagues. Before the Civil War they would flee in schooners and steam ferries, crossing the lake to the Ozone Woods. After the railroad bridge was built across the lake, Bonfouca lost its economic competitiveness.
Bonfouca dwindled as the years past, becoming the sleepy little fishing village that I grew up in.
After WWII Bonfouca grew
because of the Baby Boomer families and an increase of commuters who
liked the tranquility and beauty of Bonfouca, but worked in New
Orleans.
Katrina changed everything, but the story of Bonfouca continues.
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