University of Virginia Library

37. The Casket Girls in Louisiana
BY MONSIEUR DUMONT (1719)

ONE day there arrived at Dauphin Island a vessel sent from France loaded with young women, a necessary shipment, without which it was impossible to make any solid establishment in the country.[95] There were indeed on the island some married Canadians, who had children and even marriageable daughters, but they were old settlers, and looked upon as lords of the island. They had risen to wealth by trade either with Crozat's vessels or the Spaniards. One especially, named Trudeau, had a very pretty frame house, two stories high, covered with shingles.

As soon as the young women were landed they were lodged in the same house, with a sentinel at the door. Leave was given to see them by day and make a selection, but as soon as it was dark, entrance to the house was forbidden to all persons. These girls were not long in being provided for and married. We may say that this first cargo did not suffice for the number

of suitors who came forward. The one who was left to the last, had nearly given rise to a very serious dispute between two young men, who wished to fight for her, although this Helen was anything but pretty, having more the air of a guardsman[96] than of a girl. The dispute coming to the ears of the commandant, he made the two draw lots to settle their quarrel. In fact, had as many girls as there were soldiers and workmen arrived at the time on the island, not one would have remained without a husband.

After the first vessel loaded with young women several others arrived. All brought troops and mechanics, so that Dauphin Island soon became too small to hold all that were sent there. This induced the commandant, who had been very long in the province and knew better than any other the most suitable places, to select a wider and more spacious ground to form a new settlement.

This new post was a bluff or little mountain on the mainland, at a place to which the name "Old Biloxi" was given, because it had formerly been a village of Indians who bore that name.

While they were engaged in forming this new establishment three royal vessels arrived with a ship of the company's, called the Mutine. The last vessel, besides a cargo of goods and provisions, brought a troop of young women, sent against their will, except one, who was called the Damsel of Good-Will.

They were landed first on Dauphin Island, but the marrying mania had subsided, and there was no demand for them. Moreover, since the commandant had resolved soon to abandon the island, he put them all in boats and sent them over to Ship Island, thence to Old Biloxi, where most of them got married.

The colony was not yet planted on St. Louis River (Mississippi). This determined some of the newcomers to land all their people and effects at New Biloxi, where a Canadian had made a little establishment, which he had subsequently abandoned to go nearer the river. There each took a plot along the coast, cleared it, and raised cabins; but they had this disadvantage, that when they wished to go to Old Biloxi to see the commandant, they had to cross the water a good league.

An accident, which happened in the latter post about this time, delivered them from this inconvenience, and caused a new movement of the colony. There was at Old Biloxi a sergeant, who drank a little and then lay down, but took it into his head to light his pipe, as he did in fact with a stick from the fire. As he was lying on his bed, instead of getting up to put the stick back, he threw it unluckily not into the middle of his cabin, but against the posts that surrounded it. The wind, blowing through the posts, soon fanned a blaze, which in a moment caught the palisade of pine, a very resinous wood, and easily inflamed.

In an instant the fire spread to the next cabin, and from that to another. Though fortunately the wind was not high, the conflagration soon became so violent, that to check it and prevent its progress, they had to throw down two cabins on each side. The sergeant escaped as he was, without being able to take anything from his cabin. In all, eleven cabins were burned or thrown down. The commandant had no thought of restoring them, as he was already disposed to transport his colony once more, and make a third establishment.