by Webb Williams

Some 29 years ago, when I was building Beau Swamp, my tin roof Acadian cottage in an undeveloped subdivision called Hidden Acres, the headline of the Sunday local paper read, “Mandeville Gets New Traffic Light.” I knew I was in the right place. No matter what else might have been happening in the world, the top news headline was about the new traffic light at Highway 22 and Causeway. This really was the special spot for my family home. Mine was the second home in the area. I fondly recall how driving Highway 22 then was like going through a green canyon, with trees from both sides of the road stretching up to touch the clouds. I often wondered about what life was like in this lovely place years ago.

At the time, many maps still showed “Houltonville” to be a community on the east side of the Tchefuncte River across from Madisonville. I was curious, because there was no sign proclaiming Houltonville as a town-nor were there any businesses referring to the name. There was a quaint old chapel in great disrepair off the two-lane Highway 22 on Penn’s Chapel Road. The area showed a lot of character-thick woods with beautiful pine, wild magnolia, and oaks of every variety. In addition to its character, it also had a lot of characters, I would find.

One of the first folks I met was my Mr. Sheridan, whose U-Call, We Haul garbage business serviced our neighborhood. Mr. Sheridan. Reverend Frank Sheridan, to be sure. When I donated clothes and appliances for his congregation, he fussed at me to load it all in his pickup truck. When I suggested that he pick up my garbage once a week for half the cost of twice weekly, he scoffed and said he could pick it up once a week, alright-but at the twice-weekly fee. He was probably one of the most cantankerous men I’d ever met. I later found out he was a highly respected leader in the Houltonville black community, and I was glad I’d given this grouchy fellow the benefit of the doubt. Sure enough, his gruff façade belied a genuinely kindhearted soul. He told me stories about the area’s past; I’ve since done some research with quite a few other old timers, and found some interesting local history.

Jay’s sawmill

Around the turn of the 19th century, the lumber business was as popular as the restaurant business seems to be today in western St. Tammany. Times were a whole lot tougher, however, and work was a whole lot rougher. Men would saw timber by hand-often rock-hard cypress-and live on steam-powered flatboats that doubled as floating mills. Danger abounded, including the very engines that powered the boats. They tended to explode if not operated properly. The men worked the marshes for 11 hours a day, wearing coveralls and long sleeves even in blistering summer heat to avoid the relentless swamp mosquitoes. Even worse, working the marsh often involved surprise encounters with deadly water moccasins and fierce, hungry alligators.

From 1885 through 1906, the community slightly upriver and across from Madisonville was known as Jayville, named for the sawmill built by entrepreneur W.T. Jay. Virgin cypress and yellow pine were milled, and a booming shipping business that ferried the goods across Lake Pontchartrain supplied lumber to the bustling market in New Orleans. The growing company built a logging railroad from Madisonville to the town of Uneedus in Tangipahoa Parish. The developing communities along the gulf coast were among the other markets for the valuable lumber goods. Massive steam boilers ran the sawmill, shingle mill, and planing mill. Pilings for utility poles were a very lucrative part of the business. Soon new sash, door and blind manufacturing operations were added to the thriving enterprise.

Jay built his home near the mill. The splendid mansion was later called the Fairview House and is today’s Otis House at Fairview Riverside State Park. Raw timber was brought right in front of the elegant home and processed to finished lumber, with drying docks all along the river. More than 300 workers were employed, settling with their families in the surrounding community.

The lumber business was booming. Excitement and opportunity were in the air.

The Houlton
Lumber Company

In 1906, Charles and William Houlton of Duluth, Minn. bought the lumber company and mansion from Jay. Charles, the elder brother, was a distinguished businessman-charming, articulate, clear thinking and shrewd. It was said he could prepare a contract better than most attorneys. He was 5 feet 10 inches tall, stocky, and loved cigars.

William Houlton was over 6 feet tall, quite thin, and smoked a pipe. He was the quiet one who preferred the outdoors. He’d stroll around the lumber operations in his boots and plaid shirt, often with a copy of Thoreau in his back pocket. He was married briefly, but the marriage ended bitterly. He once reflected, “Yes, I once was wed, but do not wish it ever again.” William was not frugal like his brother. In fact, he’s quoted as believing the old adage, “Money is like manure; not much value in itself unless it is spread around.”

The Houlton Lumber Company was a sprawling operation, probably extending from where Salty’s Marina is today to Fairview Riverside State Park. A massive three-story pavilion and other imposing structures supported the business and provided community goods and services for the workers. The pavilion, built over the water, housed a store, a barroom, and a dancehall. Prizefights were held there on occasion. Several thousand feet of docks made the location the most valuable in St. Tammany Parish for water and rail shipments.

By this time, virgin long leaf yellow pine lumber was king, as most of the other timber had been depleted. The company’s annual yield was 20 million board feet of lumber, and it boasted that its sawmill featured the “latest improvements in sawmill machinery.” The company owned and operated 20 miles of logging railroads; it had timber holdings of more than 35,000 acres. Business was so good, the company even considered operating the mill 24 hours a day to increase production.

The days were long, the work was hard, and the pay was low. Shouts of “Timmm-berrrr!” were familiar around Houltonville in those bygone days. Singing and chanting helped to ease the workload, and often mixed with the sound of two-man saws cutting near hand-axed notches.

Wages at the Houlton Lumber Company? $1.75 a day! And keep in mind that a day’s work was 11 hours long. Skilled laborers earned a whopping $2.50 a day. Workers were paid in company scrip instead of legal tender, while the company conveniently sold everything the employees needed or wanted. Even gambling was a company operation! Seventy percent of the all-male work force was black. Five children, ages 16-18, were on the payroll. All workers were covered by Workman’s Comp. Injuries were especially dangerous; those requiring a hospital or doctor’s care had to take a slow boat across Lake Pontchartrain for emergency treatment in New Orleans.

William Houlton may have been a tall and quiet gent who enjoyed peace, but a story has it that he feared no man. When called to a remote, secret rail car meeting with some local hooligans who threatened the brothers to stop them from employing blacks, William stood up to them-unarmed-and won them over. His bravery and refusal to yield to threats of violence quashed the dispute. One of his adversaries ended it, remarking in favor of “a man who would not only come to meet with us-but would come to meet us without a gun.”

Elegant parties were held at the mansion. In the 1920s, the brothers remodeled the lodge in the antebellum style with columns, stucco and portico. Charles and William entertained lady friends from as far away as Chicago, and guests from New Orleans would flock to elaborate parties in horse and buggy carriages-and horseless carriages-by boat across Lake Pontchartrain. It was sort of like “Gone With The Wind,” but without the Civil War.

(In 1936, Frank Griffith Otis, the world’s largest mahogany manufacturer, bought the Houlton mansion and property, consisting of one hundred acres, for $4,550. Otis renovated the home and lived there until 1962, when he bequeathed the Otis House, its lavish furnishings and the surrounding acreage to the State of Louisiana with the condition that it be used as a park. Fairview Riverside State Park is considered one of the most beautiful parks in the state, and has been the location for many motion pictures and television productions.

The Houltonville that was

Houltonville eventually had a general store, a United States Post Office, a schoolhouse and three churches.

A savvy merchant by the name of Andrew J. Johnston teamed with the Houlton brothers to form the Houlton & Johnston General Store. Canned goods, hams, flour, sugar, shoes, fabric, hats, hardware and all other varieties of merchandise were available to the workers and citizens of the area. This provided for the needs of the employees and their families-and managed to get the workers’ wages back into the company coffers. Mr. Johnston also provided meals and lodging for a fee.

Up the road from my home, Penn’s Chapel A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) was built through a community barn-raising type effort in 1904. The neighborhood’s men built the chapel while the ladies cooked the food. Local resident Peyton Penn sold the property to the congregation for one dollar.

lourishing as a church and school for years, it declined during World War II, becoming more a school than a church. After years of neglect and vandalism it was turned and moved a bit farther off Penn’s Chapel Road. To the relief and delight of many of us who revered the old chapel, a thorough reconstruction was completed two years ago, thanks to developers Kelly McHugh and Gary Intravia, with former partner Ross Levee. It is the focal point of our neighborhoods, Penn’s Chapel Place, Penn’s Chapel Estates and Hidden Acres.

The small building that was the Houltonville Post Office now sits beside the Otis House at Fairview Riverside State Park. Don’t go there for stamps, though. It’s been converted to restrooms for visitors to the museum and park grounds.

Unquestionably the most beautiful postmistress Houltonville ever had was Bianca Oliver Chatellier, who served from 1906-1910. Her daughter Laura Mae (now a sprightly 85) recounts that her mother was also the bookkeeper for the Houlton & Johnston General Store. Laura Mae’s father worked at the Jahncke shipyards, building incredibly large ships used in World War I. Times were hard when Laura Mae and her brother were growing up, but Bianca helped by playing piano at the silent movies, which wowed local audiences in those days. The family milked their seven cows, tended their poultry, picked strawberries, sweet potatoes, and anything else they grew. “Times were hard, but life was good.”

Mr. William Maylie, now 91 years old and residing in Mandeville, remembers how life was in old Houltonville. “Before Highway 22 was built, the road used to go through where Beau Chêne, Wedgewood Farm and Del Oaks are now and proceed right along the riverbank to a ferry landing-where the Madisonville bridge is today. Cypress logs were stacked everywhere. It cost a nickel to cross the ferry boat, which could accommodate about four to five cars.”

As a teenager, former mayor of Madisonville (1960-1976) Eddie Badeaux, now 85, operated the Houltonville ferry for his father. His memory is as incredible as his painting skills. He’s created a lively gallery of paintings vividly reflecting life as it was along the Tchefuncte River in the 20s, 30s and 40s, with a keen eye for historic detail and a talent for portraying architectural accuracy.

“My father bought a barge and fitted it with a one-horsepower Fairbanks-Morse engine,” Badeaux recalls with a grin. “I operated it and lived in a little house that we built on the Houltonville side. I had chickens and a garden, and I remember folks shouting my name from the riverbank when they wanted a ride across.” With a sense of family pride he recounts, “Though the fare was five cents, my dad told me I could let those who couldn’t afford it ride across at no charge. We were a close community during the great depression years. We had to help each other survive.”

One of Mr. Badeaux’s historical recollection paintings shows a tugboat pulling barges filled with shells dredged from the lake at the mouth of the Tchefuncte. To me, the lighthouse on the western shore looked too close to the eastern shore. “That was the original course of the river,” Badeaux explains. “It’s eroded over the years to its present course.” He chuckles. “That’s why so many newcomers to boating get stuck in the shallows. They don’t know how to read the markers to hug the channel to the right, and it’s like a sand bar there in the middle.” He tells how, some years back, a guy used to hang out and actually charge boaters to tow them to deep water. “Takes all kinds, I guess.”

Tragedies

I asked Mr. Badeaux about a grave in the front corner of the Madisonville cemetery that puzzled me. A 29-year old mother, Leona Heughan Rousseau, daughters Agnes (10), Muriel (8), and son Rodney (4 mos.) all died on the same day, March 19, 1933. “It was a most horrible tragedy,” Badeaux sighs. “She drove the car onto the ferry, but didn’t stop in time. The car with the momma and three children busted through the metal barricades and plunged into the river. It was terrible, terrible.” Valiant efforts to save them were for naught.

Mr. Badeaux also recalls the hurricane of 1947, which wreaked havoc with a monstrous force, worse than any storm in his memory. “I was on the bridge at the time, scared to death, when suddenly the eye passed over and there was total calm-as if nothing had happened moments before.” Then he looked toward the site of the then-abandoned Jahncke shipyard, where many ship hulls and relics were abruptly lifted by a huge wall of water that “smashed the east half and the middle section of the Madisonville bridge to smithereens. I got off the bridge just in time,” he remembers.

The Riverside
Lumber Company

George Mire operated a lumbemill in partnership with Thomas Hayden. The two were old friends who had disinguished themselves as decorated U.S. Marine pilots in World War I. Hayden handled the sales and business end while Mire ran the operation.

According to local lore, Mire was a tough taskmaster known to challenge problem laborers to a round of fisticuffs to settle differences. He usually won the fight and always told the defeated to “get back to work.” One time he lost a fight that resulted in his arm being broken, but Mire never gave up-or gave in. He told the laborer not to quit, but rather to go back to work and they would square off again once his broken arm mended. The arm finally healed. The rematch resulted in Mire winning the fight-by knocking his employee opponent down decisively. Mire pronounced the dispute over and, quietly but firmly, told the man to “get back to work.” The two men worked together in peace and harmony for years thereafter.

Harrie Ulysses Hayden, the father of Mire’s partner Thomas, was an interesting Houltonville character, too-but for entirely different reasons. He was a wealthy Connecticut Yankee who loved the Tchefuncte River and sailed his family yacht along the banks of Pineland Park. No, not the Pineland Park of 2002, but the name applied to a place that is now the western section of Beau Chêne. Hayden bought that property in 1905, planning to run it as a resort. During the Great Depression, he lost the land, which was later owned by Louisiana Governor Dick Leche, his crony Seymour Weiss, and other members of the Huey Long bunch.

Governor Leche purportedly hurried the funding and building of Highway 22 and the Madisonville/ Houltonville bridge for easier access to his property in what today is Beau Chêne. Leche and many of his pals were subsequently convicted of a variety of federal charges, serving serious jail sentences.

Hayden had staying power, though, and was a prominent Houltonville citizen for years. He had lived in the Jay/Houlton mansion and had run the general store and post office.

His son Thomas Hayden finally took his own floating sawmill operation to Pass Manchac and then to Bayou St. John in New Orleans. He kept the name Riverside Lumber Company, after the Fairview Riverside area he left forever. Specializing in fine cypress and western red cedar, the business has done quite well since its founding in old Houltonville. Many Hayden family descendants still operate the company on Morrison Road in New Orleans East today.

The lumber business had just about run its course in Houltonville by the 40s and 50s.

The “Mayor of Houltonville”

My personal search for Houltonville really hit home when I interviewed my crotchety old friend, Reverend Frank Sheridan (71) and his brother Joseph (77). We met for our talk at the Magnolia Baptist Church on Fairview Drive, the road leading to Fairview Riverside State Park. The 110-year-old church was originally called the Eagle Eye Baptist Church, then later the Love and Charity Baptist Church. Sheridan’s father, Frank Sr., was the church’s pastor in the early 1900s. The acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

The Sheridan brothers’ faces lit up when I showed them a large aerial photo of Houltonville taken in 1936 that I had unearthed in my research. They were like kids on Christmas morning, pointing out friends’ and relatives’ houses and recalling memories of their youth.

Families who lived nearby farmed most of the area, the Sheridan brothers say. Most of the men worked at the lumber mills or picked strawberries, but farmed for their families as well. (Mayor Badeaux told me that we should have been the Strawberry Capital instead of Ponchatoula.) Strawberry fields abounded and folks grew or raised most everything else they ate. Cattle and oxen grazed where my home is now, and the men would hunt for wild pigs, wild turkeys, deer, rabbit, squirrels, raccoons and anything else to feed not only their own family-but their neighbors as well. The brothers say their dad often hunted on horseback; he was a good hunter and a good provider.

“Saturday night was always extra special.” (Reverend Frank and his brother Joe alternate talking at this point.) “The Saturday night fish fry got the whole community together at somebody’s house.” “A different house each week.” “Always had plenty to eat.” “Homebrew for the grownups, homemade root beer for the kids.” “And music-either live with a bass and washtub drums or on a windup Victrola.” Mama locked the Victrola up on Sunday and the rest of the week.

“Did we think life was tough? Guess we thought so, but now I know it wasn’t so.” Joseph shook his head. “No, sir. We never had dope or crime problems like the city has today. Heck, we kids had marbles, spinnin’ tops, kites, fishin’ holes, and when things got dull, we’d hitch a goat to a wagon and take off!”
Reverend Sheridan recalls going to the highway as kids and marveling at the automobiles. “If we saw six or seven in a day we thought it was really something.”

Last June, on the occasion of Houltonville’s Reverend Frank Sheridan’s 20th anniversary and the annual Homecoming Celebration of the Magnolia Baptist Church, the Rev’s wife invited my wife and me to attend. Church members came from all over the country, reuniting again at the place where they found their spiritual home. It was like a magnificent time warp, where all was well and hope abided. The preaching was inspired, the gospel singing, heaven-sent.

Asked to testify, I presented Reverend Frank Sheridan with a special calligraphy certificate, attesting to his moral and spiritual leadership in the community and proclaiming to all the world that he was now “Mayor of Houltonville.”

He beamed.

Heartfelt thanks for helping with this labor of love neighborhood quest to: Rev. Frank and Joseph Sheridan, Ann Durel, Eddie Badeaux, Laura Mae Zuber, Allan Saltus, Jeanne Gewalt, Colleen Collier, Peter Gitz, William Maylie, Kristin Nelson, Tommy Hayden, George Mire, Jr., Ned Wilson, John and Myra Robertson, the St. Tammany Historical Society Gazette Madisonville, and my precious wife, Kathy.