Duckport, Louisiana

Last updated

Duckport
Duck Port, Duckport Landing, Sparta, Sparta Landing
Plantation and Boat landing
2018 100 image access full Map of the Mississippi, from Haines' Bluff to below Grand Gulf, showing the theatre of Gen. Grant's and Admiral Farragut's operations, etc.jpg
Duckport was located near Paw Paw Island, also known as "My Wife's Island"
USA Louisiana location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Duckport
Location within Louisiana
Coordinates: 32°23′33″N91°00′50″W / 32.39250°N 91.01389°W / 32.39250; -91.01389
CountryUnited States
State Louisiana
Parish Madison
Settledby 1817
Founded byEarly settlers (notably Judge Lindsey)
Named after Ducks in the area (assumed), Sparta (alternate name)
Population
 • Total
~150 families (1,869 post office application)
Time zone UTC-6 (CST)
 • Summer (DST) UTC-5 (CDT)
GNIS feature ID549223
Listed in 19th-century maps and USGS as Duck Port (historical)

Duckport (also Duck Port or Duckport Landing) was a plantation and Mississippi River boat landing in Madison Parish, Louisiana, United States, listed by the USGS as "Duck Port (historical)." [1] Duckport is primarily remembered today for having been one of the endpoints of the unsuccessful Duckport Canal project during the American Civil War. An alternate or related name for Duckport was Sparta or Sparta Landing. [2] As of 1890, the two placenames, Duckport and Sparta, were sited about 300 yards (270 m) apart on the Mississippi River, with Sparta preferred in high water, and Duckport preferred in low. [3]

Contents

Location

Duckport (also called Sparta or Sparta Landing) stood on the Louisiana bank of the Mississippi River between Paw Paw Island (also known historically as "My Wife's Island" or Island No. 103) and Young's Point. The Mississippi River Commission's 1883 mileage tables list the site as "Sparta or Duckport Landing" at 589.7 miles above Head of Passes. [4] [5] Modern mapping still shows "Duckport Landing" and "Sparta Landing" labels in the area on the USGS 7.5-minute Ashly, Louisiana quadrangle. [6] The GNIS records "Duck Port (historical)" at approximately 32°23′33″N91°00′50″W / 32.39250°N 91.01389°W / 32.39250; -91.01389 . [7] [8]

History

Pre-Civil War

In the early 19th century, the settlement was known as Sparta and was described in Zadok Cramer's Navigator in 1817: [9]

"Good landing on the left side opposite [My Wife's Island], along a willow shore. The river bends to the right. This island is about 3 miles long. Opposite the head of No. 103 on the left shore, the old bed of the river formerly ran across to the Yazoo, and entered that river two miles above its present mouth. This tract is marked by the young willows with which it is now filled. Just below No. 103, on the right side, and in a right hand bend, is a considerable settlement, called SPARTA, on which resides judge Lindsey, below whose farm the river bears hard against the right hand bank, and it requires some pulling to keep out from among the fallen trees and snags near the shore. The bank having given way considerably in one place, an eddy is formed, but it presents no danger if you ply the oars well and keep pretty well out." [9]

My Wife's Island, also known as Paw Paw Island, was described as a particular river navigation hazard (where ships were prone to major hull damage from underwater snags and sawyers), along with "Plum Point, Turkey Island, Dogtooth Bend, Riddle's Point, Number Ten, Devil's Island, Hull's Left Leg, Elk Island, Number Twenty-One, Devil's Backbone, Devil's Tea Table, Hanging Dog's Island, Devil's Elbow, Tyawapita...Shirt-tail Bend, Grand Chain, Goose Island, and the Grave Yard." [10] Sparta Plantation was said to have been "one of the first cotton estates in Louisiana." [11]

Duckport Landing was located between Paw Paw Island and Young's Point along the Mississippi River. [12] There was a boat landing at Duckport that was used by mail packet steamboats beginning sometime before 1852. [13]

Civil War: Duckport Canal (1863)

On March 31, 1863, Union engineers began cutting a canal from Duckport Landing into Walnut Bayou to create a water route for supplies and troop movement on the west side of the Mississippi. About 3,500 soldiers under Col. George G. Pride (the project was nicknamed "Pride's Ditch") and six companies of Col. Josiah Bissell's Engineer Regiment of the West worked to excavate a channel roughly 3 miles (4.8 km) long, 7 feet (2.1 m) deep, and 40 feet (12 m) wide to Cooper's Plantation on Walnut Bayou. The levee was cut on April 13 and steam dredges entered, but falling river stages left the bayou chain too shallow. Work was abandoned by May 4, with two dredges and 20 barges stranded in the canal–bayou; only the tug Victor reached New Carthage. [14] [15]

Post-Civil War

In 1869, the application for a Duck Port post office stated there were about 150 families in the vicinity who would be served by the station. [16] There was a series of suspicious fires at Duckport in 1885–86 that totaled a home at Sparta Landing, a storehouse, and a lumber warehouse. [17]

20th century to present

In the 20th century, the sternwheel packet boat Ben Hur burned and sank at Duckport in March 1916. [18] Duckport was flooded in spring 1922. [19] There was an illegal 150-gallon still in operation near Duckport during Prohibition. [20] A fragment of the civil war-era canal was still visible in 1933 from a gravel road that ran from Thomaston to Duckport. [21] [22] (Thomaston Road had been the "center of wealth" in the area before the war and had once been lined with plantation houses.) [23] By the 21st century, all that was left of the canal was "a small indentation because area farmers tried to plow it down." [23]

The Duckport Plantation encompassed about 1,800 acres (730 ha) as of the 1990s. [24] Duckport Landing no longer exists and has disappeared under the Mississippi River. [25]

Historic mapping shows Duckport and Sparta landings in use through the late 19th and early 20th centuries; for example, the 1909 Milliken's Bend quadrangle and later USGS mapping depict "Duckport Landing" and "Sparta Landing." [26] [27] Modern accounts note the landing site has been lost to channel migration, with on-land interpretation shifted to nearby markers for the Duckport Canal and related Vicksburg Campaign sites. [28]

Contemporary and later sources used the variant names "Sparta," "Sparta Landing," and "Duckport Landing." The Mississippi River Commission's mileage table listed the site as "Sparta or Duckport Landing, La., 589.7 AHP," with nearby entries for Milliken's Bend (581.0 AHP), Young's Point (593.4 AHP), and Vicksburg (599.3 AHP). [29] [30]

Additional images

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Duck Port (historical)". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
  2. ↑ "Mississippi River. Table of distances from Cairo to the passes. Comp. from the surveys of the Mississippi River Commission, 1883". HathiTrust. p. 10. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  3. ↑ "Until Further Notice". The Daily Commercial Herald. 1890-01-30. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-12-16.
  4. ↑ "Mississippi River. Table of distances from Cairo to the passes (1883)" (PDF). Mississippi River Commission. p. 11. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  5. ↑ "Historic Names and Places on the Lower Mississippi River (USACE/MRC, 1977)". U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi River Commission. 1977. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  6. ↑ "US Topo: Ashly, Louisiana (2012)" (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey. April 19, 2012. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  7. ↑ "Losing Ground: Removed Place Names in Louisiana (GNIS entry summary)". Academia.edu (compiled from GNIS). p. 6. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  8. ↑ "Duck Port (historical)". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
  9. 1 2 "The navigator, containing directions for navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers : with an ample account of these much admired ..." HathiTrust. p. 184. Retrieved 2024-12-15.
  10. ↑ "Last Snag and Sawyer Convention". The Times-Picayune. 1852-02-22. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-12-16.
  11. ↑ "Plantation and slaves for sale". The Times-Picayune. 1860-02-11. p. 2. Retrieved 2025-11-03.
  12. ↑ "Historic names and places on the lower Mississippi River / by Marion Bragg". HathiTrust. p. 155. hdl:2027/uc1.$c32669 . Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  13. ↑ "Vicksburg-area packet boats". The New Orleans Crescent. 1852-09-29. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  14. ↑ "Duckport Canal, March 31 – May 4, 1863". Vicksburg National Military Park. National Park Service. April 14, 2015. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  15. ↑ "The Engineers at Vicksburg, Part 12: Duckport Canal and the March on Vicksburg". U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (USACE). November 22, 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  16. ↑ U.S. Post Office Department, "Louisiana: La Salle–Morehouse Parishes (Roll 243)", M1126: Post Office Department Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950, Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, film images 676–683 of 901, NAID 68406066 – via archives.gov
  17. ↑ "Fire at Duckport". Weekly Commercial Herald. 1886-02-26. p. 5. Retrieved 2024-12-16.
  18. ↑ "Ben Hur (Packet, 1887–1916)". UWDC - UW-Madison Libraries. Retrieved 2024-08-06.
  19. ↑ "The Swollen Mississippi". Slate Magazine. 2011-05-20. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  20. ↑ "As Time Goes By". The Madison Journal. 1993-01-06. p. 7. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  21. ↑ "Know Louisiana; a tourist guide to points of general and historic interest. Issued for free distribution in connection with Louisiana highway commission ..." HathiTrust. pp. 27–28. hdl:2027/uiug.30112099802081 . Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  22. ↑ "Louisiana place-names of Indian origin no.2". HathiTrust. p. 22. hdl:2027/mdp.39015030547643 . Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  23. 1 2 "Who we are". The News-Star. 2002-06-30. p. 143. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  24. ↑ "Legals". Tensas Gazette. 1991-09-11. p. 13. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  25. ↑ "Civil War markers erected". The Madison Journal. 1994-04-27. p. 5. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  26. ↑ "Milliken's Bend, LA–MS (1909), Perry–Castañeda Library Map Collection". University of Texas Libraries. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  27. ↑ "US Topo: Ashly, Louisiana (2012)" (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey. April 19, 2012. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  28. ↑ "Historical Markers — Madison Parish (Duckport Canal; Grant's March)". Madison Parish Tourism Commission. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  29. ↑ "Mississippi River. Table of distances from Cairo to the passes (1883)" (PDF). Mississippi River Commission. p. 11–12. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
  30. ↑ "Historic Names and Places on the Lower Mississippi River (USACE/MRC)". USACE via LA GenWeb. Retrieved November 2, 2025.

32°23′33″N91°00′50″W / 32.39250°N 91.01389°W / 32.39250; -91.01389

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.