The Wooden Boat Fest may be the economic engine that fuels the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum, but it was the visionaries who made maritime history for two centuries who gave rise to the new repository on the banks of the Tchefuncte River in Madisonville. Twentieth-century visionaries, recognizing the need to acknowledge these early achievements, have made the museum a reality.

The formative years

The seed for the museum first germinated when marine archeologist Allen Saltus of Prairieville received a grant to inventory the cultural resources on the bottom of the Tchefuncte River. The year was 1988.

“We need to know our history,” says Saltus. “What happened on the river relative to what happened on land. We need to collect, preserve and restore.” Saltus has recorded skiffs, bateaus, two-masted barges, schooners and steamers below the murky depths. Describing the vessels lying in the silt of the river, he says, “They are like rare books, untouched, because the river has been relatively stable, and hasn’t migrated or changed channels.”

Saltus walked and felt his way along the bottom of the Tchefuncte, where visibility was just six inches, about enough to read a tape measure and call up the size of the giant, submerged artifacts. In a small boat bobbing in the hot sun on the surface, Don Aucoin, amateur historian, served as tender. In later years, the two would re-measure the sunken treasures using a global positioning satellite.

“I retired so I could volunteer to be Allen’s assistant,” says a smiling Aucoin, former member of the Tourist Commission Board and active in the Civil War Roundtable.

It was at a meeting of the latter group that Aucoin learned of the three Confederate gunboats - the Oregon, the Carondolet, and the Bienville - that had been scuttled in the Bogue Falaya River to prevent them from being confiscated by the Union Navy. He began to speculate what else was in the murky waters of St. Tammany rivers. “We have a time capsule down there,” suggests Aucoin.

“I was with Allen when he brought up a canon ball from the Pearl River,” he recalls with awe. “We have a Spanish-era anchor.” Aucoin was president of the museum board for three years and later served as treasurer. Another founder was the late John Hunley, who came up with the name of the museum and wrote it on a napkin at a dinner meeting during those formative years.

Under the guidance of David Carambat, the museum’s creative director, the museum opened its first exhibit in January 2002. The building was completed in January 2001, financed by a $2 million grant from the state, and one-half million from the Wooden Boat Festivals. “We asked the state for three million. That’s why you see the slab out there. The research center will be out there,” says Carambat.

Interim executive director of the museum Nixon Adams, says, “We are on a hard scrabble budget.” The board now has insurance to cover the Boat Fest, after being severely hurt by two hurricanes. A major area foundation came to the rescue, but to avoid another such catastrophe, the festival is being pushed into October.

The museum’s broad purpose is to illustrate and explain the maritime tradition and related cultural history, such as the shipyards, brickyards and sawmills that lined the river. These and the railroad, the naval stores (tar, turpentine, pitch and rosin), the sand and shell dredge barges and the forests that provided the fuel are explored.

Madisonville’s
maritime history

The little town of Madisonville, where the museum is located, has quite a maritime history. It was from here that Andrew Jackson shipped out to New Orleans to meet the British. It was here the barge and keelboat men, who had floated down the Mississippi with their products and then sailed across Lake Pontchartrain, began their walk to the Natchez Trace and back home to Tennessee and Kentucky. They were called Kaintucks.

The earliest-known boat built in the riverside village was the Esperance, constructed about 1797 during the time Louisiana was under Spanish control. By 1814, Madisonville had two shipyards, including a U.S. Navy facility. It never finished the Tchifonta, a 22-gun ship, despite desperate pleas from Jackson and Gov. William Claiborne, who wanted to use it to defend New Orleans from the British.

Because the Tchefuncte and Lake Pontchartrain have shallow drafts and were not deep enough to handle the Navy vessels, “they were outfitted with life preservers,” says Carambat. “They actually strapped on so-called lifter barges to the hulls of the vessels and floated them out to the Gulf.”

German immigrant Fritz Jahncke sold cement in the late 1800s in New Orleans. He needed sand, so he made a deal to dredge the Tchefuncte River. He had a fleet of barges and tugs to haul the sand and shells to New Orleans, so he built his first shipyard on the river where he could repair them.

“People like Jahncke brought technology to the frontier,” suggests Carambat. “They had a strong work ethic and were industrious.” Carambat, a marine architect, is amazed as he uncovers the construction methodology of old water crafts.

“They used only practical knowledge, their hands and metal tools. Their designs were elegant. They would have been insulted if you called them woodworkers. Each boat had a personality, depending on the builder, who left telltale details.”

Amazement fills his voice as he describes how they created water stops and terminations. “Their scarfs, the angle of the joint, the way the wood met. It’s amazing. We build crudely today, by comparison. Their boats had a working life of 80 to 90 years. We’re lucky to get 20 years.”

The magnificent 22,000-square-foot maritime museum sits on the exact site of the Jahncke Shipyard, which employed 2,000 men during World War I and cranked out five wooden vessels, each weighing an average of 3,000 tons.

Exhibit highlights

Every museum strives to have one blockbuster exhibit. Carambat’s will be a replica of a Jahncke ship under construction. Because those ships were 300 feet long, it will only be the bow, towering up to the 24-foot ceiling.

A 35-foot, full-size replica of the three-man Civil War submarine, the Pioneer, is being built by Southeastern Louisiana University industrial science students for a display titled “Secret Weapon.” It will be interactive, with visitors able to enter the sub and turn the handle that propelled it. Genealogist John Hunley, one of the museum’s founders, researched the sub, which was surreptitiously built in a New Orleans blacksmith shop and tested in Lake Pontchartrain 17 years before Jules Verne wrote his famous book.

Waves splash and seagulls cry as visitors tread the wharf in the museum’s “Port Century” exhibit. “Our purpose is edutainment,” says Carambat. “It was Saltus who first used that word. We want to immerse the visitors in the time and culture, rather than have them look at boxed artifacts.”

Inside a replica of the sternwheeler Louisiana, which plied the waters of the Mississippi River, visitors view he national-award-winning film, “Treasures of the Tchefuncte.” The Louisiana belonged to J.J. Hill, who built a railroad through St. Tammany. The sailing barges were put out of business by the steamers, which were put out of business by the railroad.

The woods and the water that drove the local economy are interpreted through a video and scale models of Biloxi schooners and oyster luggers. Frontier life on the bayou is depicted in a diorama of the daily activities of Louisiana pioneers. It was created by Nelson Plaisance, who is designing an exhibit of the 28 Gulf lighthouses for the museum.

Outdoor sportsmen will find the collection of antique outboard motors fascinating, while children will be enthralled by the ‘gator who hisses.

Future plans

Partnering with Southeastern, the museum presents lectures and classes in history and boat building and envisions a research center and estuary aquarium in its future. Other plans include opening up the 165-year-old Madisonville lighthouse to visitors and providing guided tours of the river.

“This is the first layer as we peel back the onion of our heritage and history,” says Adams. The museum is not just about the Tchefuncte or Lake Pontchartrain. It’s Louisiana’s maritime museum.”

The Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum is located at 133 Mabel Drive, Madisonville, LA 70447. Hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. For more information, call (985) 845-9200 or visit them online at lpbmaritimemuseum.org.

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