The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1879-04-05
THE PEARL RIVER COUNTRY.
ITS RESOURCES AND IT'S CITIZENS.



NAToHEz, March 27, 1879.
o. To the Editor Of the Comet:
, Inotice in your paper that the steam
q COL Hooker has occasioned qnite sens
ton in Jackson and all over the country.
take the more interest in this, because th
boat, its owner and master, its officers an
| crew, are all "home institutions belon
& to Hancock county.
The Hooker was built at the saw-mill AM
ship-yard of Capt. VIM. ]. Poitevent, a
Gainesville, our old county site, out 0
. Hancock county live oak, white ASH cypres
and yellow pine, and she was caulked witt
tar and pitch made on the premises. Their
is nothing foreign about her but the pain
and the iron, and they would not have beer
bought if there had been any of the raw
materials in Hancock to make them.
Capt VIM. J. Pointevent, still active and
energetic, is the pioneer of bodybuilding
and aw-milling on lower Pearl river, and
has done more than any other man to de-
velop its various resources. He is North
Corolinian, born on tide-water, and came
with his father and colony of North Car
olinians, to the Yallobusha country over 40
years ago. But he soon drifted down to
salt water, and has been there ever since.
He has built, perhaps, dozen steamers and
schooners, and has usually kept boat
running between Columbia and New
Orleans. Pearl river sometimes gets very
low, and is obstructed by sand-bars, but it
is said that the Poitevent boats can travel
wherever catfish can
He is not ouly most enterprising, useful
and sagacious man himself, of extraerdi-
nary business abilities, but he has raised
family Of sons quite equal to himself.
Capt. Junius Poitevent, a we'll known
steamboat owner on Pearl river, on the
Lake, and in Texas, has amassed a fortune;
now resides at Ocean Springs, and is i'm
proving beautiful property in Hancock
county, near Grand Plain station, where he
Will SOOu udNO oO,OoO blOCot
to ship the crop to New Orleans, Chicago,
st Louis, Cincinnati etc. Capt. John
Poitevent, in connection with his enterpris.
ing partner, J. B. Favre Esq, has been in
the lumber business at Pearlington several
years, and has inauqurated an extensive
commerce with Texas, Havana, Tampico,
T Ana
They ship many cargoes to the eastern cities,
and most of the up-river steamers carry as
sorted lumber from their mill. They have
Just completed the finest saw>mill in the |
South, at cost of $4,000. They have
furnished large portion of the lumber and |
pling (much of it from my land) for the
jetties, and have now $780, 200 order for
gravel.
Several other sons are of the same stamp,
and you have sample of them in the young
captain of the Hooker. He will not only
run that boat up to Carthage, but will take
her up to the forks, and whistle the citizens
of Kosciusko and Philadelphia up to break
fast some hne morning.
Maj Harper, of the Gazette, suggests
that it is now in order to have steamer on
Big Black. If the Major will drop note
to Capt Poitevant, Sr., he will build boat
this summer, and one of his younger sons
will have her there in time for the growing
crop. Send your orders for lumber, dress
ed or ,undressed, mortised or beveled, for
houses, the celebrated Carre
cabins, for rosin, tar and turpentine, for
wool in the raw or manufactured into
beautiful cassimeres, jeans, plaid-, linseys
blankets, for sea-island cotton, oranges,
grapes, rice, cane and sorghum syrup,
perique or Cuba tobacco, fish, fresh and
cured, oysters in the shell or in cans, shrimp
aud crabs ditto, ard wine both sparkling
and still, not surpassed by any imported,
and Hancock will supply whatever may be
called for, aud we will send them up Pearl
river on the Hooker, or by rail.
In referring to the old and much respects
ed pioneer of enterprise and steam naviga-
tion in South Mississippi, and to his sons,
must not forget to remind you that he is
the father, and they are the brothers of Mrs. (
e. ]. Nicholson, of the Picayune-OWr
" Pearl Rivers"-Mississippi's bright par
ticuIar star, songress whose melodies, re>
cited in all our households, are in tune
with the sweetness of her disposition and |
the purity of her soul.
Pearl river is not only our great central
watershed, draining the country into the
on one side, and into the Chick
asaha on the other, and capable of being
made navignble two-thirds of the year, but
it is historic stream. 1t was first discov-
cred by Bienville in 1899. The French had
Just founded their colony at Biloxi. DTber-
vile sent his brother BienVille on an ex-
ploring expedition up the lake. have
before me, the Ms. journal of one of his
officers from which 1 quote: ''Next day
we came to a river, falling into the lake,
which the Indians called Taleatcha, or river
of Pearls. Here are found the shells used
by the Indians, to scraps out their pirogues
after they have followed them with fire.
and in their bivalves beautiful pearls are
sometimes found
The most extensive prehistoric fortifica-
ton in the State may still be traced on the old
Daniel platantiOn, the first highland above
ths mouth Of the river, wall thirty feet at