Though this painting by J.L.G. Ferris, titled "The Capture of Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718," shows the pirate and his crew attacking at sea, a pirate known only as Captain Bunch made similar attacks on merchant vessels from a bend in the Mississippi River approaching Lake Providence.
PROVIDED IMAGE BY BETTMANN/CORBIS
Think about the fog that sometimes settles just above the Mississippi River's muddy water.
Sometimes it happens in the morning, other times in the evening, and in the early 1800s, it obscured evil lurking behind its thick curtain.
Now picture steady traffic of merchant boatmen on keelboats and flatboats transporting their 19th century wares downriver from Ohio and Pennsylvania. Their adrenal glands had to be working overtime, especially when floating past the infamously labeled Bunch's Bend in East Carroll Parish, named for a murderous pirate known as Captain Bunch and his gang.
Merchant boatmen traveled the Mississippi River on flatboats, foreground, and keelboats, also known as longboats, background, from Kentucky and the Ohio Valley. They filled their boats with merchandise and float it down the Mississippi River to sell in New Orleans.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Author Georgia Payne Durham Pinkston wrote in her 1977 book, "A Place to Remember: East Carroll Parish, La. 1832-1976," that Captain Bunch and his "cut-throats" hid out in the old river cut-off, now known as Bunch's Bend.
"He and his crew would lie in wait for flatboats going down the Mississippi River enroute to New Orleans," Pinkston wrote. "The pirates boarded the boats, killed the crewmen and took their boats and goods."
The boats were easy pickings, so the boatmen treaded lightly.
Bunch's Bend was located approximately 10 miles north of the town of Lake Providence. Reader Baker Boyd inquired about how the town, which stands across the river from Mississippi just below the Louisiana-Arkansas state line, got its name.
"My high school played basketball games in that area," the Baker reader said. "I've always been curious as to how the town got its name."
A safe haven
Chris Sanders, director of the East Carroll Parish Library branch in Lake Providence, says the town is named for God's divine protection.
"If the boatmen could make it through that part of the river alive and without being robbed, they knew they were safe," Sanders said. "So, they called that point in the river past the bend, 'Providence.'"
Lake Providence is located in the northeasternmost corner of Louisiana.
THE ADVOCATE
Pinkston's book points out that a trading post stood at Providence, where the boatmen could regroup. She adds that the merchants finally figured out a way to stop the slaughters.
"Eventually, a group of Kentucky flatboat crews tied their boats together and floated past the bend," the author writes. "When Bunch and his men boarded, the well-armed crews met them and slaughtered every pirate, making the river safe."
But as is the case with so many stories and legends, Pinkston points out a second story associated with the town's name.
Georgia Payne Durham Pinkston included this photo of Lake Providence's Lake Street in 1900 in her 1977 book, "A Place to Remember." Lake Providence was a safe haven for merchant boatment who managed to navigate the river without being attacked by river pirates.
PROVIDED PHOTO
"The other account relates that when settlers moving westward from the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi to homestead reached this beautiful lake abounding with all kinds of fish and the woods filled with fruits and animals for food, they gave thanks to Providence for this bountiful supply," she writes. "Many of them searched no further, but made their homes here."
Between the two stories, Pinkston admits in her writing that the pirates are more exciting. And Sanders sticks to that story at the library because, well, the pirate tale has roots. The bend in the river north of Lake Providence is still named for Captain Bunch, and the 18-mile road trail near the town also bears the pirate's name.
As for the boatmen transporting goods through the pirates' gauntlet, they often were the same travelers who took the 500-mile Natchez Trace north toward home, because their boats were built only to float downstream.
Noted photographer Marion Post Wolcott took this photo of Lake Providence's Main Street in 1940 while documenting the South for the Farm Security Administration.
PROVIDED PHOTO BY MARION POST WOLCOTT/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
They sold their boats for lumber in New Orleans, then hit the Natchez Trace by either foot or horseback, where they eventually faced a new set of bandits and criminals, which earned the route its nickname of "The Devil's Backbone."
But the boatmen were looking to God while on the river. They were grateful to reach Providence, which was the town's original name when its charter was adopted in 1812, the same year Louisiana became a state.
Yes, there was a Lake Providence, but that name applied only to the oxbow lake left formed when the Mississippi River changed course. The town, simply known as Providence, was forced to relocate more than a mile east from its original location bank in 1848 because of the river's flooding.
A boardwalk across lily-pad-filled Grant’s Canal, leading to Lake Providence in the town of the same name that is the seat of East Carroll Parish. The canal was dug by Union general Ulysses S. Grant during the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s, in order to connect two sides of a long oxbow loop of the Mississippi River in order to facilitate an attack on Confederate formations in nearby Vicksburg, Mississippi.
PROVIDED PHOTO BY CAROL M. HIGHSMITH/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
A postal mix-up
Its name became an issue with the postal service in the early 1900s when mail from Providence, Rhode Island, began getting mixed up with that of Providence, Louisiana.
So, Providence, Louisiana, became Lake Providence.
Still, residents referred to the town by both names. According to Pinkston, state Rep. J. Martian Hamley sponsored a bill in the Louisiana Legislature in 1935 to officially rebrand the town's name to conform with that on the Post Office: Lake Providence.
Another interesting story about the town happened in 1863, when Gen. Ulysses S. Grant brought his Union Army for a visit to dig a canal to rejoin the oxbow lake to the Mississippi River. This story is documented by a Louisiana state historical marker on the town's Levee Road. Grant's troops occupied the town, using it as a supply depot and base during the Vicksburg Campaign in 1862 and 1863.
The Louisiana State Historical Marker for the canal Gen. Ulysses S. Grant attempted to dig connecting Lake Providence's oxbow lake to the Mississippi River in a plan to bypass Confederate troops in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
PROVIDED PHOTO BY MARK HILTON/HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE
Though Lake Providence is actually more than 40 miles upriver from Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant developed what he thought would be a perfect strategy for bypassing Confederate troops on the opposite side of the Mississippi River.
Grant's canal
He "ordered the digging of a canal here to connect the Mississippi and Lake Providence," Pinkston writes. "Grant planned to take the Federal gunboats through the Tensas (River) and other streams and bypass the guns of Vicksburg and approach the city from below."
Troops worked under the direction of Gen. James McPherson from January to March 1863, when they breached the levee. The canal was 100 feet long and only 5 feet wide by that time. The Mississippi's waters rushed in with such fury that it flooded the town, and McPherson immediately evacuated his troops to higher ground.
"Grant's canal remained an open ditch and a breeding ground for mosquitoes until 1953," Pinkston writes. "Sen. Russell Long, son of Huey P. Long, went to Congress at the urging of local people and introduced a bill to have the government fill up the canal. According to a report, Sen. Long remarked, 'Since the federal government dug it, it's only fitting that the federal government fill it up.'"
Lake Providence's port along the Missississppi River during low-water days in 2012. Merchant boatmen considered the community a safe haven along the river.
FILE PHOTO
The United States government complied, filling all but about 1,000 feet of the original canal, which can still be seen today from an elevated boardwalk and observation pier across Lake Street from the Byerley House Visitor Center.
The boardwalk also includes interpretive markers that tell the story of the area and provides a picturesque view of the oxbow lake.