Captain W. W. Withenbury's 1838–1842 "Red River Reminiscences"

23. Wright’s Landing

The Reminiscences  163 23  Wright’s Landing • Most of this letter is concerned with Travis Wright1 and Wright’s Landing in northwest Red River County, Texas, across from the mouth of the Kiamichi River. The first half provides a discussion of the earliest routes around the raft far downstream (Figure 9) as a prelude to the description of Wright’s flatboat and keelboat activities. Wright’s Landing had been a keelboat landing and was one of the three (along with Fulton and Roland) most important steamboat landings on the Upper Red River. Withenbury indicates in this letter that it was the upper limit of commercially feasible navigation and served Paris, Bonham, and Sherman and the whole of Lamar and Fannin counties. Claiborne Wright brought his family, including his sons George and Travis, from Tennessee to Pecan Point by keelboatin1816 .Georgehadtheheadrightinwhichthelanding with its mercantile facilities was located, as well as Kiomatia Plantation,2 where Travis also lived. Travis opened a store at Jonesboro around 1830 and another in Clarksville. In 1838, he married Mary Eliza Johnston at Jonesboro, and in 1839 acquired the Kiomatia property from his brother. He moved to Paris, Texas, in 1850, where he was president of the Memphis, El Paso & Pacific Railroad and participated in the formation of the Paris Exchange Bank. Withenbury indicates that he continued to operate the plantation and landing until his death at Kiomatia in 1875 at the age of 68.3 164  Red River Reminiscences Figure 9: Eastern Keelboat Routes  F ort Towson was established years before the waters of Upper Red River could be made available by steamboats for the transportation of supplies. This The Reminiscences  165 was owing to the existence of the “great raft,” which at the time Captain Shreve attacked it with his “Eradicator,” extended from near the mouth of Loggy Bayou 120 miles below Shreveport, to the Hurricane Bluffs, sixty miles above that point, thus rendering Red River for 180 miles entirely useless for all purposes of navigation. When Fort Towson was first organized, the ordinary head of navigation on Red River was at Natchitoches; but occasionally a venturesome steamboatman would go as far as Campte, twenty-eight miles by the river, but by land via Grand Ecore, only ten miles. At times, also, boats of a small class ventured as far as “Couchatta Chute,” some forty-five miles still further up; but none of those points afforded any facility for reaching Fort Towson, except by overland route. Accordingly a military road was constructed from Campte to Fort Towson, and the troops and supplies for the fort were for a long time sent over that route in wagons and on foot. There was a time, however, when keelboats could navigate the Upper Red River, and make the passage around the raft by entering the mouth of Willow Chute, which is about forty miles above Shreveport, and which was then above the head of the raft, and following its crooked course into Lake Bisteneau, thence across the lake to the head of Loggy Bayou, and down that dangerous little stream to the river, below the raft, from which point there was comparatively but little difficulty in reaching steamboat navigation and effecting an exchange of freights with steamers from New Orleans. By reference to the map of Louisiana it will be seen that the route which I have just in part described lies entirely on the northeastern side of Red River, and there was no possible way of getting around the raft on the other side, for notwithstanding there was a chain of water communication on the west side of the river, commencing at Bayou Pierre, two miles above Grand Ecore, and 166  Red River Reminiscences extending by an intricate network of lakes and bayous to within a few miles of Coats’ Bluff, (now Shreveport,) at that point the river washed the base of the hills, and thus the chain of communication was broken. The uninterrupted growth of the Red River Raft in time closed the mouth of Willow Chute, and so that keelboat route was lost forever; and then came the necessity for a new passage around the raft, and it was found by leaving Red River on the western side four miles above Shreveport, at Twelve mile Bayou; thence through Sodo Lake and Clear Lake, and up Black Bayou to Caddo prairie, where “Sewell’s canal” was cut and a connection formed with Red Bayou...