The first settler who had the hardihood to enter these solitudes was named Maximilian Roussel.  He purchased a small tract of land from the government, and in the year 1824 shouldered his axe and camping-utensils, and started for his new domain.  He soon built a hut, and at once began the laborious task of clearing his land, which was located in a dense cypress swamp, alive with wild beasts and alligators.  A rough house was completed at the end of a year, and into it Roussel moved his family, consisting of a wife and four children.  Here “he lived till he died,” as it has been expressively said.

Octave and Louis, two of his sons, and both now grandfathers, still live on the old place, and are highly respected.  Only a few years ago the old homestead echoed to the voices of five of Roussel’s sons, with their families; but death has taken two, one has removed, and two only now remain to relate the history of the almost unimaginable hardships encountered by the old and hardy pioneer.

There are at present nineteen families in the settlement, and they are all engaged in the cultivation of perique tobacco.  An average farm on Grant Point consists of eight acres, and the average yield of manufactured tobacco is four hundred pounds to the acre.  These simple-hearted people seem to be very happy and content.  They have no saloons or stores of any kind, but their place is well filled with a neat Catholic church and a substantial school-house.  Every man, woman, and child is a devout Roman Catholic, and in their daily intercourse with each other the stranger among them hears a patois something like the French language.  The whole of the land cultivated by these people would not make more than an average farm in the north, while compared with the vast sugar estates on every side of it the dimensions are infinitesimal.

Villages were now picturesquely grouped along the shores, the most conspicuous feature in each being the large Catholic church, showing the religious belief of the people.  Curious little stores were perched behind the now high banks of the levee.  The signs over the doors bore such inscriptions as, “The Red Store,” “The White Store,” “St. John’s Store,” “Poor Family Store,” &c.  Busy life was seen on every side, but here, as elsewhere in the south, men seemed always to have time to give a civil answer to any necessary inquiries.

Only a month after I had descended this part of the river, Captain Boyton, clothed in his famous swimming-suit, paddled his way down the current from Bayou Goula to New Orleans, a distance of one hundred miles.  The incidents of this curious voyage are now a part of the river’s history, and this seems the place for the brave captain to tell his story.  He says: