THE SEAFOOD INDUSTRY AT OCEAN SPRINGS

      If the past could find a present voice, the chronology of the seafood industry at Ocean Springs could best be told by the souls, which lie at eternal rest in the Bellande Cemetery on Dewey Avenue.  For it is here in our oldest cemetery that the men and women who harvested and processed seafood for many decades now lie.  It was the pioneer families of Beaugez, Bellande, Bellman, Benezue, Boes, Catchot, Cox, Dick, Dolbear, Friar, Kendall, Ladnier, Mathieu, Mon, Ryan, Seymour, and Vancourt that provided the labor, knowledge, and occasionally the capital to develop the oyster beds and shrimping grounds of the Bay of Biloxi and environs.
      Other important pioneer Jackson County fishing families who lived along Bayou Porteaux and the north shore of the Bay of Biloxi were: Alley, Bellais, Boney, Caldwell, Cannette, Carco, Fayard, Fountain, Groue, Letort, Manuel, Suarez, Rodriguez, Tiblier, and Trochesset.
      Since these hearty people are no longer with us, the following is an interpretation of our seafood history from their descendants, newspapers, books, and the land deed records of the Jackson County Chancery Court.

Colonial times
       For many centuries before European explorers and colonists arrived in this area, the native Americans took advantage of the abundance of seafood in the local waters.  Archaeologist have discovered their tools, projectile points, harpoon points, bone hooks, and fish bones which remain in the many shell middens along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and islands.
When Pierre Le Moyne sieur d'Iberville (1661-1706) set foot on the Mississippi coast on February 13, 1699, at present day Biloxi, one of his first observations about the fauna and flora was "some rather good oysters".  Further explorations in the coming months by the French resulted in the discovery of the quiet waters of the Bay of Biloxi.  They immediately found that abundant seafood, consisting of shrimp, crabs, oysters, fish, and turtles, could be caught here with relative ease.  Fort Maurepas garrison ordered nets from France.
      The early French and French Canadian explorers and settlers found the fish and oysters of the Mississippi coast to be comparable to those at home.  Charles Franquet de Chaville, an engineer, under Le Blond de la Tour, the royal engineer of the Louisiana Colony, when arriving at Vieux Biloxy (Ocean Springs) in 1720, commented that, "the fish which is caught in the bay is called red fish and is the very best.  It is larger than a large carp and its flesh is very firm."
      Antoine Simon Le Page Du Pratz (1695-1775), another Frenchman who lived in the Louisiana Colony from 1718 to 1734, arrived at Nouveau Biloxy (Biloxi) circa 1721.  He wrote that, "the great plenty of oysters, found upon the coast, saved the lives of some of them (new arrivals from France)".

19th Century
      With the departure of the French Colonial government from the area to New Orleans in the early 1720s, the colonists who remained made a livelihood from the sea.  It wasn't until Dr. William Glover Austin (1814-1894) built the Ocean Springs Hotel in 1853, one of the incipient efforts to commence a tourist industry here, that a market for local seafood was created.
Indigenous oystermen and fisherman, in addition to feeding their families, sold their excess catch to the local populous as well as providing the many hotels and tourist homes, which developed along Jackson and Washington Avenues with seafood.  The steam packets, which landed at the foot of Jackson Avenue, also provided a vehicle for shipping less perishable seafood to New Orleans.
      An anecdotal story survives from local barber, Arthur Westbrook (1884-1945), thru J.K. Lemon which tells of Edmond Mon (1843-1920), a local fish vendor, who sold his daily catch of crab and mullet to the housewives and local hotels around the turn of the Century.  As old Mon made his way up Washington Avenue from the beach towards the Shanahan Hotel, he would shout, "I sell my mullet a dime a bunch, crabs 15 cents a dozen.  Crabs, fresh crabs, fresh mullet!"
      Palmetto fronds were used to string up mullet and trout.  Four to six mullet were sufficient to load a frond.  These were called "bunches", and one bunch was enough for a family meal.  Edmond Mon recorded his daily sales by notching a stick.  Two notches indicated that he sold a particular customer two dozen crabs or mullet.  He collected his money or Friday for the week’s seafood sales.
      The 1850 U.S. Census (Jackson County) indicates that Joseph Bellande (1819-1907), Louis Kendall (1822-1894), Benito Mon (b. 1820-1872+) and August Ryan (1826-1873) were sailors and fishermen at Ocean Springs, in the early years preceding the hotel era.
      By 1880, Antonio Catchot (1826-1885), Thomas Catchot (b. 1824), Joseph Catchot (1824-1900), Arnaud Catchot (1834-1910), Pablo Cox (1867-1942), Thomas Pons (b. 1839), Antonio Ryan (1846-1908), Beauregard Ryan (1860-1928), Calvin Ryan (1853-1893), John Ryan (1856-1920), Louis Ryan (1837-1909), Henry Seymour (1844-1900+), and Richard White (1849-1981) had joined the local brotherhood of fishermen.

Ice Plants
      Since seafood is highly perishable, it didn't develop into a commercial industry until ice plants and canneries came to the area.  Although fishermen in southeast Louisiana were replacing the wells in their fishing smacks with ice boxes as early as 1866, the Mississippi coast didn't get an ice plant until the Biloxi Artesian Ice Company was built in 1887.  It was located just east of the L&N depot, and had an initial capacity of five tons of ice per day.  By 1895, the ice plant was producing twenty-two tons per day.  Also in 1895, the Hygeia Ice Works was operating at Biloxi west of the railroad depot.
      Ocean Springs had an ice plant as early as 1899.  It was owned by Henry B. Gottshe (1875-1905) and druggist, Herman Nill (1863-1904), and located on the north side of the railroad tracks near the L&N depot.(1)  Two Van Court brothers, John Norman Van Court (1864-1927) and Maurice Kirby Van Court, were also in the ice business here at this time.  It is believed that they delivered ice to the railroad.  John J. Starks (1857-1920) was another local ice dealer at the turn of the Century.
      It wasn't until 1903, that the Ocean Springs Electric Light & Ice Company began operating on the Bay of Biloxi south of the L&N railroad tracks.  The Ocean Springs Electric Light & Ice Company was formed by Sidney J. Anderson (1867-1917) and Louis A. Lundy (1876-1941).  On November 14, 1902, they purchased a four acre tract from J.W. Stewart for $4500.(1)  It was north and west of the A.G. Tebo estate called "Bayview".  The parcel belonged to Joseph B. Walker of New Orleans from 1854 until 1891.  There was a Mississippi born, Edward M. Walker (1848-1900+), operating at Ocean Springs in 1900, as an oyster shipper.  His relationship to Joseph B. Walker is presently unknown.
      It appears that an agreement was struck between ice plant operators at Ocean Springs and Biloxi to sell ice only to boats of their respective towns.  In June 1909, this alleged pact was violated as a Biloxi factory began retailing ice at Ocean Springs for $.40 per hundred pounds.  Biloxi operators claimed that the Ocean Springs ice plant was selling ice to Biloxi boats, a direct violation of their agreement.  It is not known how long the "ice war" lasted!(The Ocean Springs News, June 5, 1909)
      Sidney J. Anderson, the owner of the Artesian House, a small hostel on Jackson Avenue, was the president of the Ocean Springs Electric Light & Ice Company in March 1910, when an agreement was consummated with the L&N to run a 500-foot spur track from the main line to the ice plant.(2)  On Bluff Creek at Vancleave, Anderson also owned a large mercantile store and several charcoal schooners which he operated out of his native New Orleans.
      In July 1926, H.F. Russell (1858-1940), president and L.A. Lundy (1876-1941), treasurer, sold the Ocean Springs Electric Light & Ice Company to Richard R. Guice (1893-1980) of Gulfport for $15,000.(3)  Guice was the general manager of Mississippi Ice & Utilities, Inc. and vice-president of Desporte Packing.
       By September 1927, the ice plant, boilers, condensers, ice tanks, and two Ford delivery trucks were owned by Edgar P. Guice (1899-1971).(4)  E.P. Guice built an ice house in February-March 1927, on Jackson Avenue north of Porter.  It was called the Ocean Springs Ice & Coal Company.  The old ice plant was discontinued and by June 1927, the plant on Jackson Avenue was in full operation with the capacity of making 9 tons of ice per day.  E.P. Guice also owned the Home Ice & Coal Company at Biloxi.

The Catboat (1909)

      The Catboat was the work boast of the Ocean Springs fisherman until it was gradually phased out by the motorized shrimp trawler in the second decade of the 20th Century.  This watercraft carried a single gaff-sail, had a centerboard and was up to

twenty-five feet in length with a nine-foot beam.  Ocean Springs was renown for its fast catboats and skilled skippers who competed in the annual Biloxi Regatta.

Fishing Fleet
      Long before the motorized shrimp trawler came upon the local scene circa 1915, the single, gaff-sail powered catboat and seine skiff were the workboats of the local shrimp fleet.  This fleet worked the waters of the Bay of Biloxi and the marshes and bayous from Pointe Aux Chenes to the west.  Local historian, C.E. Schmidt (1904-1988), described seine fishing as follows:

      With the first breaking of dawn they would begin throwing the brail nets to locate the shrimp school.  When the indications were favorable, two men would go overboard in about five feet of water with one end of the seine tied to an arm pole.  The other two men would pay out the seine from the skiff until the 140 or 150 fathoms were floating on the cork line.  With two men on each end, they would begin the strenuous haul towards the beach, converging so as to close the seine, and by continued hauling they would force the catch into the central bag of the seine from which it was transferred to the skiff and cat boat.

      It was common in these early days to catch six to eight barrels of shrimp (210 pounds per barrel) per haul with the seine.  Outstanding hauls of fifty or more barrels have been reported.  The shrimper got $3.00 per barrel of shrimp for his efforts.  Compare this with $3 to $4 per pound that shrimp bring today at the Ocean Springs Harbor.
      In August 1883, The Pascagoula Democrat-Star reported that Arnaud Catchot fishing off the east end of Deer Island, caught over two-thousand red fish in one haul.  The fish ranged from seventeen to twenty-five pounds apiece.(The Pascagoula Democrat-Star, August 10, 1883, p. 3)
      These men who farmed the sea off Pointe aux Chenes had to bring the catch to the shrimp factories on Point Cadet at Biloxi for remuneration.  The first catboat crew to the docks at Biloxi got the best price for their daily efforts.  This incentive created a daily race from the shrimping grounds to Biloxi Pass.  This competition honed the skills of early Ocean Springs sailors, and some of them like George Seymour (1868-1950), John "Coco" Ryan (1859-1920), Clement Bellande (1850-1918), Charles “Caville” Ryan, and Jack Beaugez (1885-1962) were in demand to skipper racing boats in regattas at Biloxi, Pass Christian, and Bay St. Louis.

Catboat Racing
      In August 1901, a match race was held at Ocean Springs between two of the fastest catboats on the Mississippi coast.  The Davis Brothers, owned by Clement Bellande was pitted against the Royal Flush, owned by Orey Young (1868-1938).  Local merchants had put up a cash prize of $700 for the race, and the afternoon that the event was held was declared a general holiday.  The Royal Flush won by two minutes and one second.  It avenged an earlier loss to the Davis Brothers at the 1901 Biloxi Regatta in the Third Class Fleet (16-19 foot boats).  Orey Young once said that, "the Royal Flush, if loaded with all the prize money she has won, would certainly sink".
      Gordon Staples Case (1890-1927), the grandson of Dr. Don Carlos Case (1819-1886), owned the catboat, Royal Flush, in 1917, when it was sailed by Jack Beaugez.  The Elizardi family later owned the boat for many years.
      Some of the boat builders who resided at Ocean Springs at this time were George L. Friar (1869-1924), Alphonse "Manny" Beaugez (1887-1945), and Joseph "Dode" Schrieber (1873-1951).  The boat yards and lumber yards were located on Fort Bayou.  In June 1909, Beaugez and Schrieber opened a new yard near present day Anthony's Restaurant.  John Ryan (1837-1907), who probably lived in the Bayou Porteaux area, was also a ship carpenter of this generation.
      Dode Schrieber's daughter, Lurline S. Hall, recalls her father building boxes to ship oysters.  They were 12" square and held a gallon oyster can.  Ice put on top of boxes for shipment.
      George L. Friar learned carpentry from his father, Thomas R. Friar, who was an excellent small boat builder.  George Friar once advertised as a "builder of power, sail, and row boats, skiffs, etc.".  By 1915, he was a dealer in cypress and pine lumber.  His uncle, Louis L. Dolbear (1855-1918), owned the schooner, Mystery, and operated a lumberyard on Fort Bayou in 1893, where he sold lumber, laths, pickets, shingles, and brick.
     Although Ocean Springs was never known as a schooner, building center, it is believed that several of these craft may have been built here, probably on Fort Bayou for the charcoal trade.  Biloxi schooner historian, Rusty Barnes, records the following vessels that were constructed at Ocean Springs:  Lady Alfred (1880), Hortense (1881), Orita A. (1886), S.J. Dickson (1886), Young American (1892), Alpha (1901), Ramsay Brothers (1901), Ox (1902), and the Iduma (1905).  The Iduma was built by John Ramsay.  Wesley Knox Ramsay formerly of Ocean Springs married Iduma Walker of Saucier in August 1904.
      Until canning methods, ice plants, and rail service were developed, most seafood had to be consumed locally.  With ice plants and canning factories arriving on the Mississippi coast at Biloxi in the 1880s, this city became the leader of the seafood industry.  Ocean Springs because of its small population and paucity of commercial waterfront acreage due to ownership by wealthy bay front landowners from New Orleans and the Midwest, never developed a large commercial seafood industry.  It did become a small, but well known shipper of quality oysters shortly after the New Orleans, Mobile & Texas Railroad was completed in 1870.  Later the Southern Express Company operated at the depot in conjunction with the L&N Railroad and shipped local sea- food, including sea turtles, to the Midwest and east coast..
 
Oysters
      The oyster is nearly a perfect food.  It is low in calories and provides vitamins, trace elements, and all the essential amino acids.  It has long been associated as an amatory food.  As some of the early French colonists discovered, the raw oyster is a survival nutrient.
      Our oyster is a bivalve mollusk that lives from southern Canada to southern Mexico and the Caribbean.  It is called the Virginia oyster (Crassostrea virginica) by the marine scientists who study it.  Crassostrea means "thick-shelled" which describes its heavy dense shell.
      The Virginia oyster thrives in low salinity and muddy waters of bays and estuaries.  It grows in large thick reefs which develop from the younger organisms depositing itself on older shells and growing upward.  Many times this vertical growth process is essential for its life as the environment of deposition that the oyster lives in would bury it in mud and silt and kill it.
The Ocean Springs oysterman went to the reefs in large skiffs.  The reefs were located primarily in the Bay of Biloxi directly off front beach, at Marsh Point, off Fort Point, the area west of the L&N railroad bridge, and Deer Island.
      Along the beach front, riparian rights, protected by the laws of the State of Mississippi, granted land owners whose lots bordered on the Gulf of Mexico the liberty of building piers, bath houses, and oyster planting privileges for a distance of 1500 feet into the water and a width coincidental with the frontage of the lot.  Boundary lines between contiguous leases were established on the water and marked with pine poles driven into the bottom.
      Riparian rights were legated usually to close family members as evidenced by recorded wills.  In the Will of Julia Catchot (1823-1903), she wrote, "I give, devise, and bequeath, unto my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Florence Victoria Catchot (1862-1933), all my oyster planting ground, in Jackson County, Mississippi situated in front of the Charles W. Ziegler property in the Town of Ocean Springs".(5)  The devisee was the wife of A.J. Catchot (1864-1954) who may have been born on the W.B. Schmidt Estate, which was east of the Ziegler place, called Lake View.
      Charles W. Ziegler (1865-1936) was the son of Francis M. Ziegler (1818-1901), the business partner of W.B. Schmidt (1823-1900).  Their firm, Schmidt & Ziegler, was a very successful wholesale grocery business located at New Orleans.
The Julia Catchot legation precipitated two legal actions in the Jackson County Chancery Court, "Ziegler v. Catchot"-Cause No. 1480, January 1906, and "Purington v. Catchot"-Cause No. 1863, May 1910.  Dillworth Purington (1841-1914) was a native of Sydney, Maine.  After the Civil War, he went to Chicago and worked in the lumber and brick business.  Purington was president of the Purington Paving Brick Company at Galesburg, Illinois from 1890 to 1909.  He bought the Ziegler place, Lakeview, in February 1906.(6)  Purington changed the name of his home to Wyndillhurst.  This property at present day 221 Front Beach.
      In the law suit against Catchot, Judge T.A. Wood ruled that, "Purington was the sole and exclusive owner of the right and privilege of planting oysters and using the riparian and aquatic rights as provided in the statue".(7)
      It is not known what the basis of the Catchot claim to the Ziegler-Purington riparian rights was, but most likely F.M. Ziegler verbally awarded them to Joseph Catchot (1824-1900) for services rendered or on a sharing basis.
      Occasionally oyster leases were granted by the Board of Supervisors.  In July 1887, a petition to plant oysters on a certain sand bar in the Bay of Biloxi, in front of the land and home of Eugene Tiblier was made by George Melvin, M. Caldwell, and Eugene Tiblier.  In June 1901, when M. Caldwell (probably George Madison Caldwell (1877-1965) sold his one-third "rights in a bar which to bank, plant, and cultivate oysters granted at the Board of Supervisors meeting of Jackson County, Mississippi in July 1887" to I.P. Carver, E.M. Walker, and George W. Bervard, the property was described as near the L&N railroad bridge in the Back Bay beginning at 4 1/2 feet of water on the east boundary and running west to 1 1/2 feet of water thence north to the channel.(8)
      There is a high degree of certitude that the 1892 discovery of a sunken French freighter near the site of Fort Maurepas (1699-1702), by Eugene Tiblier, Jr. was made on the oyster lease of his father described above.  Many colonial artifacts were taken from this vessel.  The best known are the four cannon situated near the Santa Maria del Mar Apartments on the beach at Biloxi.  It is interesting to note that two of Eugene Tibliers great grandsons, Lionel and Charles Eleuterius, are both marine scientists.  They have made valuable contributions in botany and physical oceanography while studying the estuarine waters of coastal Mississippi and the more saline habitat of the Gulf of Mexico.
      Using rakes and tongs, the oysters were manually gathered by the oystermen and brought to the skiff.  In the early days, the mollusks were opened at the reef, and their shells returned to the bottom to preserve the substrate for future oyster development.  Health regulations later dictated that the oyster be brought to a processing plant to be opened.
      Conservation has long been practiced in the oyster industry.  The Mississippi Oyster Commission was organized in 1902, when the state legislature passed the Bowers Oyster Bill to protect and preserve natural oyster reefs and bedding grounds in the coastal waters of Mississippi.
      Appointments to this body were made by the Governor.  Ocean Springs was first represented on the Mississippi Oyster Commission by John Duncan Minor (1863-1920).  In 1928, the Oyster Commission oversaw that 250,000 barrels of seed oysters and shells were planted.  In several years, this crop was expected to generate a million barrels of mollusks.
      Here in the oyster sheds along the beachfront, shuckers with oyster knives penetrated the bivalves and removed the succulent mollusks placing them in sizing pales.  Oysters were graded in size from small to very large.  Small oyster are called counters, and increase in size to select, extra select, and plants.  Plants are very large oyster and can be up to one-foot in length.
      In the 1920s, the oyster dealer sold selects for $.25 per hundred while plants commanded a price of .50 per hundred.  A sack of oyster cost the consumer $1.00.  Today, the oysterman is receiving $13 to $20 per sack.
     In the oyster shops, the succulent mollusks were packed into five-gallon cans or smaller vessels and placed in wooden crates for shipment usually in the baggage cars of the railway express.  The mollusks were iced at various points on their journey to the Midwest or eastern markets.  In the larger canning operations at Biloxi, oysters were dredged from the deeper reefs as well as tonged or nipped from the shallower reefs.  Dredging occurs when the water depth exceeds fourteen feet over the reef.
     At the Biloxi factories, the steam stock oysters were steamed and opened by shuckers, placed in oyster cups (a metal container to measure the amount opened by the individual) and then canned for shipment.  Large shell mounds called, "Biloxi mountains", grew outside the factory as the empty oyster shells were dumped there.  The spent shells were used for landfill, street paving, cesspool drains, shell grit, and building blocks.  About half of the shells were returned to the reefs to form a substrate upon which the larval shell or spat could attach and develop into a mature oyster.
      At Ocean Springs, Parker Earle (1831-1917), a horticulturist and entrepreneur who developed the refrigerated rail car while growing fruit at southern Illinois, is credited with undertaking the initial shelling of streets here.  Earle resided on Fort Point (Lovers Lane) from about 1888-1892, where he developed the Earle Farm (later called Rose Farm and Money Farm) north of Fort Bayou.
      In the Minute Books of the City of Ocean Springs, it is common to find the city purchasing oyster shells from various operators from 1892 into the 1930s.  The city paid 5 to 8 cents per barrel for the shells.  Some of the local families who sold shells to the city were: Beaugez, Bellman, Carver, Catchot, Friar, Kuppersmith, Maxwell, Ryan, Seymour, Tiblier, and Van Court.  The C.B. Foster Packing Company (Biloxi) and the Ocean Springs Packing Company were two of the canneries who vended their spent shells to the city for road repairs and fill.
     

Narcisse Seymour Oyster Shop (Washington Avenue view)

Narcisse Seymour Oyster Shop (water view)

(situated at the foot of Washington Avenue, this site was use for many years by Narcisse Seymour and John R. Seymour, his son, as the location of their oyster and fish houses.  The buildings were cheaply built because they were very susceptible to destruction by fierce storms and hurricanes).

The oyster shop

       The precursor to a seafood factory at Ocean Springs was called an oyster house or fish house.  These small, tin, shed-like structures were erected on pilings in the bay at the foot of Washington, Jackson, and Martin Avenues.
      Antonio Catchot (1828-1885), an immigrant from Menorca in the Balearic Islands, developed the first oyster house at the foot of Jackson Avenue in the late 1850s.  This property remained in the Catchot family for many decades until his son, Antonio "Toy" Catchot (1868-1952), sold it to the Purity Seafood Company in 1941.  It survives today as the Ocean Springs Seafood Company operated by the Earl Fayard family.
       The individuals and families who built the seafood industry at Ocean Springs will be discussed in the time framework in which they existed.  The period following the Civil War until the late 1960s will be explored in varying detail.

1870-1900

      With the coming of the railroad in 1870, small operators like Peter A. Pons and Antonio Catchot were shipping oysters to New Orleans and Mobile as early as 1872.  By 1900, two prominent seafood shipping families, the Seymours and Friars, were operating at the foot of Washington Avenue.  Narcisse Seymour (1849-1931) and Thomas R. Friar (1845-1918) were the leaders of these families.  Smaller operators such as, Joe Tony Catchot (1858-1919) and John Johnson (1859-1921), were also active.  Catchot was shucking oysters at the foot of Jackson Avenue while John Johnson, the son-in-law of seafood pioneer, Peter A. Pons, had a seafood operation at the foot of Martin Avenue.

A. CATCHOT & COMPANY

Antonio Catchot's Oyster Shop: Some History at the Foot of Jackson Avenue

     To understand the genesis of the present day seafood factory at the foot of Jackson Avenue, one has to trek backward into the past approximately one hundred and forty odd years.  In or about the year 1850, Antonio Catchot (1828-1885), a Spanish immigrant from the island of Minorca off the southwest coast of Spain in the Balearic Islands, settled at Ocean Springs.  Catchot was the son of Jose Catchot and Eulalia Derany.

Archival records from the Parish of Santa Maria at the city of Mahon, on the southwest coast of Minorca, indicate that the Catchot family reached Minorca in the second half of the 18th Century, during the second English occupation.  They came from the island of Malta in particularly, the Parish of the Virgin of the Victory.  Malta is about 600 miles to the southwest of Minorca and near the island of Sicily.  Antonio Catchot and Teresa Andrevet of Malta were the progenitors of the Menorcan Catchots.

The Bishops of Mahon, when exposed to the foreign name, Catchot, which was rare to them, became confused.  They came to write Catchot in eight different spellings:  Cachot, Cachote, Cacioto, Catxot, Catxoto, Catxoto, Caxatolo, and finally Catchot.

The first Catchot from Malta was Francisco Catchot.  He married Jeronima Neto at Mahon on May 5, 1781.  Their fifth child was Jose Catchot, the father of our Antonio Catchot, and his brothers, Jose (1823-1900) and Arnaldo (1836-1910), who also settled at Ocean Springs.  Their mother, Eulalia Derany, was the daughter of Juan Derany (also Darany and Daran) and Juana Balduch.  In Church documents Juan Derany states that he was from Venice, Corsica, and Trieste.

The three Catchot brothers from Menorca, Jose, Antonio, and Arnaldo, are the forefathers of the large Catchot family of Ocean Springs.  After Jeronima died on June 28, 1795, Francisco Catchot married Margarita Morla on August 6, 1795.

Spanish immigrant, Joseph "Jassie" Catchot (1848-1913) who married Marie Fayard (b. 1853), at Bay St. Louis in 1870, was probably a cousin.  They started the Biloxi Catchot clan.

In 1854, Antonio Catchot moved on and took possession of a tract of land at the foot of Jackson Avenue.  This tract was below the high water mark and was described as follows: 

Commence at a point 87 feet more or less south of the northeast corner of Jackson Avenue and Beach Street and run west 60 feet to the line of the Ocean Springs Hotel.  Then run south 60 feet, then east 60 feet, then north 60 feet to the point of origin.

Antonio Catchot, a fisherman, built an oyster shop on this tract.  An oyster shop was a small building about 20 feet square on pilings, which was utilized as a site for selling raw oysters.  He also built a wharf to allow the landing of small oyster boats.  The wharf extended from the shore to a point about 230 feet into the Bay of Biloxi.  From 1854 until his death in 1885, Antonio Catchot occupied the tract and during that time through the accretion of oyster shells and other natural materials, the tract became a solid piece of ground.  He was shipping oysters from Ocean Springs as early as 1879.(The Pascagoula Democrat-Star, November 14, 1879, p. 3)

Antonio Catchot married a German woman, Elizabeth Hoffen (1838-1916), who was born at Bremen.  She had emigrated to the United States in 1853, and probably married Antonio in early 1854, as their first child, Elizabeth Camba Dunn (1854-1927), was born in 1854.  Their other children were Joseph S. (1858-1919), called Joe Tony, Mary Anne Bellande (1861-1931), and Antonio, Jr. (1868-1948), who was known as Toy.

When Antonio Catchot died intestate in 1885, the oyster shop was inherited by his surviving family.  The Storm of 1893 devastated the Mississippi Coast, and the Catchot wharf and building were badly damaged by the fury of that tempest.

On April 27, 1894, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen of the Town of Ocean Springs entered into an agreement with a private citizen to erect a public wharf at the foot of Jackson Avenue.  Bathhouses on the pier were to be rented to families for less than $10.00 per year.

As the Catchots still held claim to this land and didn't want to relinquish it, the town marshal of the City of Ocean Springs entered the Catchot land and prevented them from rebuilding their storm torn property.  Naturally, this action generated lawsuits from both parties. 

In the Catchot suit entered in the Chancery Court of Jackson County in October 1900, against Ocean Springs, the Catchots felt their claim to the land at the foot of Jackson Avenue was valid because of adverse possession, and also that in 1860, the Board of Police (Supervisors) had granted their father, Antonio Catchot, the tract for meritorious

service.

One of the tales which survive about Catchot's laudable service was preserved by Ellis Handy (1891-1963) in his “Know Your Neighbor” column of the July 29, 1949, Gulf Coast Times.  It reads as follows:

     In 1853, the Governor came to Ocean Springs.  He had to travel from Jackson to New Orleans and then to Ocean Springs by boat.  When the time for his return came, he and the Catchot brothers were waiting on the head of the pier for the Governor's boat.  A hurricane was blowing and much of the pier collapsed cutting them off from land.  The Catchots swam to a yawl type boat and took the Governor on the land occupied by the old Ocean Springs Hotel.  They were heroes and there was talk of a reward.  The Governor deeded them the land at the foot of the pier.

     In actuality, although less romantic, Antonio Catchot saved the life of Captain Charles Walker (1813-1860+), an entrepreneur who operated the steamboat wharf at the foot of Jackson Avenue in the early 1850s.  On September 15, 1855, a hurricane struck near Bay St. Louis.  The resultant winds and high tides from the tempest destroyed Walker's wharf.  The New Orleans Daily Picayune of September 18, 1855, reported that, "Captain Walker was on the pier head of his wharf when the latter was swept away, and there he had to remain all night, and until 4 P.M. on Sunday when he was discovered with a flag of distress flying".

On June 1, 1885, Antonio Catchot and his wife, Elizabeth Hoffen, swore before Judge H.H. Minor (1862-1905), the following affidavit:

     State of Mississippi, Jackson County.  This is to certify that we, the undersigned citizens of the town of Ocean Springs, County and State aforesaid, recollect that, at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors (Police) of said County in the year 1860, there was an ordinance passed granting Antonio Catchot, of the Town of Ocean Springs, a right of property at the foot of Jackson Avenue.  It was at that time water; since them made land by the said Antonio Catchot, and known and designated as his oyster shop, the same having a length of sixty feet and a width of fifty feet.  We also swear we saw a transcript of said order, which has since been destroyed by fire at the burning of the Courthouse of said county.  The above privilege was granted unto said Antonio Catchot for life for services he had rendered the State by saving the life of Captain Charles Walker in the great storm of the same year.

     In July 1902, the Town of Ocean Springs filed Civil Suit # 1080 in the Chancery Court of Jackson County, Mississippi.  The suit alleged that the defendants: Joe Catchot, Toy Catchot, Mrs. Elizabeth Catchot, Mary Bellande, and Elizabeth Dunn all heirs of the late Antonio Catchot had no valid claim to a parcel of land located at the foot of Jackson Avenue which their father, Antonio, and themselves had possessed for approximately 40 years.

     Ocean Springs led by alderman, H. F. Russell (1858-1940), contested the Catchot claim on the following grounds:

Jackson Avenue was a public street which connected with a public wharf that extended into the Bay of Biloxi several hundred feet to the deep water channel where steamboats and other water craft took on and discharged freight and passengers bound for Ocean Springs and other areas.  Jackson Avenue was maintained by the County Board of Police and Supervisors from 1854 until the 16th day of March 1886, when the Legislature created the Town of Ocean Springs.  After this date, the city maintained and improved Jackson Avenue as a public street.  The city contended that the public right of way did not stop at the waters edge, but extended out the width of the road to the navigable channel connecting the land highway with the public right of navigation in the Bay of Biloxi, a distance of approximately 500 feet at that time.  The Town of Ocean Springs also maintained that the County held title to the tract by this same argument until the Town of Ocean Springs was created.

The Catchot heirs claimed that their father, Antonio, had been given the right to operated an oyster shop in the shallow water of Biloxi Bay about 60 feet from shore by the Board of County Police (now Board of Supervisors) of Jackson County.  The only currently known authoritative evidence for a Catchot claim to the property was given during the March Term of 1887 by the Jackson County Board of Police.  In Minute Book 2, Page 191, the following statement is found:

             It is ordered that A.J. Catchot be allowed the privilege of building a wharf and house at the foot of Jackson Avenue, at or about the waters edge, so as not to obstruct the passage of persons or vehicles in Ocean Springs Beat Number 4.

Solicitors for Ocean Springs argued that this right was granted only for the lifetime of Antonio Catchot, and that this condition was forfeited upon his death in 1885.  The resultant judgment from the Supreme Court of Mississippi after years of litigation upheld the rights of the heirs of Antonio Catchot to their land at the foot of Jackson Avenue.  They also received damages for the destruction of their property by the Town of Ocean Springs.

Joe Tony Catchot continued in his seafood business at the foot of Jackson Avenue in the family tradition.  He lost his wharf and oyster shop in the September Storm of 1909.  Other beach seafood operators at this time, such as, Narcisse Seymour (1849-1931) were acclimated to the perils of operating on the shore face.  Joe Tony continued in the seafood business until his death in 1919. 

Before 1920, F. Kuppersmith (d. 1920) from Mobile also operated a large wholesale and retail fish market on the beach at Jackson Avenue.  It is not known if Kuppersmith and his son, William Kuppersmith (1875-1920+) who succeeded him in 1920, occupied the Catchot site.  One of William Kupper-smith's daughters, Glaydis (1904-1941+), married Herman Dick (1897-1941), the son of oyster dealer, Eugene Dick (1868-1918), in January 1926.

In the late 1920s, the Kuppersmiths returned to Mobile, and George Davis Maxwell (1888-1951) opened a fish and oyster house on the littoral at Jackson Avenue.  A storm struck the area in March 1929, and partially destroyed the Maxwell business.

In the 1930s, Bernard P. "Benny" Seymour (1908-1969), and his wife, Dora, operated a fish house, called the Seymour Brothers, in this area also.  It was located where the Sunset Beach Apartments are now situated. 

In August 1941, Toy Catchot, the only surviving heir of Antonio Catchot leased the old Catchot oyster house property to Herbert P. Beaugez (1895-1954) for five years.  The rental was $6.00 per month.(JXCO, Ms. Land Deed Bk. Book 85, p. 299)

Purity Seafood (post September 1947 Hurricane)

(located at the foot of Jackson Avenue)

Purity Seafood Company 

The Purity Seafood Company was organized by Alfred P. Moran (1897-1967), Hermes F. Gautier (1895-1969), John T. Powers (1887-1971), and Herbert P. Beaugez in October 1942.  They operated on the old Catchot grounds under the Beaugez lease agreement with Toy Catchot.

In April 1944, the founders of Purity sold the company to A.W. McAllister and Dudley Lang.  After a brief period, the seafood business, still called Purity and leasing the land from Catchot, was conveyed to George Leavenworth (1875-1956) and Edgar P. Guice (1899-1971) in January 1945.  In September 1945, Purity acquired the land from Toy Catchot which terminated the Beaugez agreement.(JXCO, Ms. Land Deed Bk. Book 85, p. 298, Bk. 89, p. 239-240, and Bk. 92, p. 226-227) 

At this time, Purity Seafood employed about one hundred twenty-five men and women.  It owned six boats and had three additional local vessels working for the factory.  Depending on the season, the factory processed shrimp, crabs, or oysters.  There was a small counter and several tables in the structure where coffee, boiled shrimp, and other seafood served.  Edgar P. Guice also owned the Ocean Springs Ice and Coal Company, and Home Ice and Coal at Biloxi.

Earl H. Fayard and Ocean Springs Seafood

In May 1956, Purity then owned by E.P. Guice and Mrs. Virginia Blocker Leavenworth (1912-2006) leased the property to Earl H. Fayard (1929-2007).  In February 1962, Purity with E.P. Guice as the sole owner conveyed the site to Earl H. Fayard.  Fayard and his family have operated here for almost forty years making Ocean Springs Seafood and Narcisse Seymour & Sons the longest continuous seafood businesses to ever operate in the city.(JXCO, Ms. Land Deed Bk. 159, pp. 500-507 and Bk. 85, p. 298)

             In April 1976, the Fayard family remodeled their building.(The Ocean Springs Record, April 15, 1976, p. 12)

Ocean Springs Seafood-Foot of Jackson Avenue

 (l-r: image made July 2005 and September 2005)

         In the winter of 1990, it was alleged that Ocean Springs Seafood was not labeling shrimp imported from China.(The Ocean Springs Record, Febraury 22, 1990, p. 1)

        The foot of Jackson Avenue is the cradle of history at Ocean Springs as evidenced by the Morgan steam packets, the Ocean Springs and Sea Shore Hotels, the Egan wharf, Post Office, store, and barroom, and a long seafood industry occupation from Antonio Catchot to Earl Fayard.  Who will write the next chapter seaward of the stately oaks of Jackson Avenue?  Unfortunately, it was Hurricane Katrina who slammed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast on the morning of August 29, 2005.  A storm surge approaching twenty-feet with waves destroyed the Ocean Springs Seafood building.                             

LEWIS & STAPLES

         In addition to their mercantile business, Lewis & Staples, were involved in the seafood and wool business.  In November 1880, they were shipping an average of 25,000 oysters per day.  At Governor Colquit’s wedding supper in Atlanta, Georgia, thirty-five gallons of Ocean Springs’ finest oysters were served.  The succulent mollusks were shipped via Lewis & Staples.(The Pascagoula Democrat Star, November 19, 1880, p. 3)

     Lewis & Staples was the enterprise of Robert Walker Lewis (1858-1886), the son of Alfred E. Lewis (1812-1885) and Ann Farrington Lewis (1821-1901) of Lewis Sha, now Oldfields, at Gautier and his brother-in-laws, Frederick Staples (1852-1897) and Beauregard Staples (1861-1880+), the sons of Solomon Gordon Staples (1817-pre-1874) and Adeline A. Terrell (1829-1902).                                                                     

                                                                         NARCISSE SEYMOUR & SON
      Narcisse Seymour (1849-1931), the son of Jean-Baptiste Seymour and Marie Fournier, established a wharf, oyster houses, and fish houses on the beach and in the water at the foot of Washington Avenue in the 1880s.  The Daily Picayune of August 22, 1888, corroborates this when describing the destruction of the saloon and fish house of Narcisse Seymour by a fierce storm.
    

Narcisse Seymour & Son Oyster Shop

(located at the foot of Washington Avenue and Front Beach)

       The Seymour seafood operation was on land, which was owned by the Dolbear and Friar families.  Narcisse Seymour must have had a lease or agreement with these clans.  This operation was initially called Narcisse Seymour & Son, and lasted in some form until the sea wall was completed in 1929.  It is believed that The City of Ocean Springs refused to let the Seymour family or others operate south of the seawall at Washington Avenue.
      Narcisse Seymour also owned the trading schooner, Carrie, which he would sail to New Orleans.  Here he would sell fish, shrimp, turtles, and poultry at the Vieux Carre.

Family
      Narcisse Seymour was married to Amelia Kendall and Virginia Krohn (1847-1895).  These women bore him fourteen children, many died young, and others tragically, in their adult lives.  The Seymour children that survived adolescence were:  Mary Cecile Dick (1869-1953), Hugh Charles Seymour (1876-1913), Rose Harriet Dale (1876-1956), John R. Seymour (1879-1938), Alice Virgina Bellman (1880-1957), Benjamin Seymour (1882-1904), Francis Joseph Seymour
(1884-1933), and Carrie S. Ames (1889-1979).
      Three of the Seymour boys, Hugh, John, and Frank would join their father in the seafood industry, as well as his son-in-laws, Eugene Dick (1868-1918) and Phillip M. Bellman (1872-1927).  Son, Benjamin Seymour, a flagman for the L&N, lost both legs below the knee at Bay St. Louis when he fell beneath a freight train.  He died in the Charity Hospital at New Orleans the next day, December 18, 1904.  Narcisse Seymour sued the L&N Railroad in 1908, for $20,000.  The jury awarded him $5,000, but on February 16, 1909, a jury in Federal Court at Biloxi reversed the decision in a retrial.

Sloop Maud
      In mid-June 1897, Narcisse Seymour was building a twenty four-foot sloop to transport seasonal hunting and fishing charters.  Occasionally, he sailed to Horn Island on Maud with day trippers.(The Pascagoula Democrat-Star, June 16, 1897, p. 3 and June 25, 1897, p. 3)

1893 Hurricane
      The Cheniere Caminada Storm of 1893 which struck Ocean Springs a severe blow in early October swept away the oyster shop and wharf of the Seymours.  The structures were rebuilt immediately and functional by mid-month.
      This large hurricane took the lives of at least two Ocean Springs sailors.  Calvin Sylvane Ryan (1852-1893) and his son, Edward Wesley Ryan (1875-1893), survived the storm, but died of exposure and thirst on a sand spit on the southwest side of the Chandeleur islands.  The schooner, Alphonsine, with Captain Paul Cox (1867-1942) at the helm was reported missing, but returned to Ocean Springs safely.  Two men who resided in the Bayou Porteaux area, Frank and Paul Fergonise, of the Young American lost their lives at the mouth of Grand Pass during the tempest.
        In July 1904, The Progress, reported that "N. Seymour & Son are on the jump these days in filling their local orders for fish, oysters, crabs, and shrimp.  The firm under the management of H.C. Seymour, who is a progressive young man of business faculties and who is always prompt in filling orders is one of the reason of the firm's popularity".
      They advertised in 1904 as:

N. SEYMOURE (sic)

Wholesale and retail dealer in

FISH and OYSTERS Crabs, Shrimp, etc.

CORRESPOND WITH ME

      The firm also owned two shares in the Builders Supply Company, which was incorporated in August 1905.  B.F. Joachim (1853-1925) ran the lumber supply company located on Fort Bayou just southwest of the Fort Bayou Bridge.
      In 1906, The Pascagoula Democrat-Star described Narcisse Seymour as, "the well known and popular fish, oyster, and shrimp dealer".  He distributed his seafood in a stylish and comfortable delivery wagon. Narcisse Seymour lived on Dewey Avenue and later on Calhoun.  He and his sons had substantial real estate holdings on both streets.  In February 1892, Seymour contracted with Westbrook & Buehler to erect two cottages on Calhoun Avenue.  One edifice, a Queen Anne Cottage at present day 1108 Calhoun, was the home of his daughter, Carrie Ames, for many years.  Mrs. Ames called her home, "Carrie's Happy Hill".  This writer gave it the appellation, "Centennial House", because it was constructed in the year that Ocean Springs was incorporated as a town.
      Before 1920, Hugh C. Seymour and John R. Seymour with his brother-in-law, D.B. Van Court, commenced their own seafood operations on the beach near Washington Avenue.  Another son, Frank Seymour, made his livelihood as a fisherman, and sold his catch to his father and brothers and the seafood factories at Biloxi.  The sons of Frank Seymour and Caroline Domning (1987-1969), Bernard and Oscar, would start the Seymour Brothers seafood operation at the foot of Jackson Avenue in the mid 1930s.
      Narcisse Seymour died on January 20, 1931, at his daughter's home on Calhoun Avenue.  His remains were interred at the Bellande Cemetery.

                                                                               THOMAS R. FRIAR
      Thomas Randolph Friar (1845-1918) was born at Lumberton, Mississippi on April 14, 1845.  He came to Ocean Springs after the Civil War, in which he was wounded at Chickamauga.  Friar operated his wholesale seafood shipping business east of the foot of Washington Avenue.  He was married to Marie Louise Dolbear (1846-1914), a native of Mobile.
      The father of Marie Friar, Louis E. Dolbear (1807-1882), a boat builder and brickyard operator, was born at Genoa, Italy.  In August 1866, Mr. Dolbear bought 364 feet on the front beach east and west of Washington Avenue from Azalie LaForce Clay Ryan (1820-1866+), the granddaughter of the Widow LaFontaine, for $200.(9)  On April 12, 1881, shortly before his death, Louis E. Dolbear sold his son, Louis L. Dolbear (1855-1918) and daughter Marie Dolbear Friar, these tracts.(JXCO, Ms. Land Deed Bk. 5, pp. 132-133 and Bk. 14, p. 481)
 In June 1893, Marie D. Friar bought her brother's eighty-eight front feet east of Washington Avenue consolidating her beachfront interests. (JXCO, Ms. Land Deed Bk. 19, p. 156)
       Prior to entering the seafood business, Thomas R. Friar made his livelihood as a carpenter and was the Postmaster of Ocean Springs from 1888 to 1895.  The Friars had a large family consisting of:  George L. Friar (1870-1924), Thomas Adolph Friar (1871-1896), Louise A. Davis (1874-1952), Robert A. Friar (1878-1948), James Friar (1882-1962), Josephine Friar (1884-1958), and Marie Antoinette Van Court (1886-1978).
      In 1900, Robert A. Friar was an oyster dealer probably working with his father.  Another son, George L. Friar, became a well known local boat builder and lumber merchant.  Thomas R. Friar's daughter, Louise, married Elias S. Davis (1859-1925), who owned the Davis Brothers Store on Washington Avenue while another daughter, Josephine Friar, worked
in the Davis Store for many years.  Theresa Vahle Friar (1871-1956), the widowed daughter-in-law of Thomas R. Friar, was also an oyster dealer in 1910.
      The August 1901 Hurricane wrecked havoc on the beach at Ocean Springs.  Wharves, bathhouses, and the entire New Beach Road were destroyed.  During the tempest, Captain Thomas R. Friar went to secure his vessel, Gladys.  The fury of the storm prevented him from returing alone, and he was rescued by Bob Friar, George Seymour, Ben Dick, and Ned Ladner.
     In 1904, Thomas R. Friar advertised in The Progress as:

FRIAR'S OYSTER SHOP

Open For The Retail Trade

OYSTERS, FISH, CRABS, and SHRIMP

Constantly on Hand

Your Patronage Solicited Telephone 83  Free Delivery

      After Mrs. Marie Dolbear Friar died in September 1914, a forced heirship sale, Jackson County, Mississippi Chancery Court Cause No. 3462, resulted in her daughter, Josephine Friar, buying Lot 1 and Lot 2 of Block 6 (364 feet on bay front) for $960.  This conveyance occurred in January 1916.  Miss Josephine Friar sold her sister, Marie A. Van Court, the east part of Lot 2 (80 feet on the bay) in December 1916.(13)  Her husband, Daniel B. Van Court, may have operated his seafood business here before moving to the "triangle" in the 1930s.  The triangle is that parcel of ground west of the foot of Washington Avenue.  It was formerly the mouth of the small bayou, which drains the Fort Maurepas Nature Preserve, before it was filled in during the seawall construction in 1928-1929.  Josephine Friar sold her interest in the triangle to Katherine Crane Powers (1891-1961) in March 1959.(14)
      John R. Seymour (1879-1938) would acquire a 100-foot front tract east of the southeast corner of Washington and front beach from O.G. Swetman (1872-1963) in November 1930. (15)  He operated his seafood dealership and a restaurant here after the seawall was completed.

                                                                          JOSEPH S. CATCHOT
      Joseph S. Catchot (1858-1919), called Joe Tony, was the son of Antonio Catchot (1826-1885) and Elizabeth Hoffen (1838-1916).  Catchot appears not to have married.  He learned the seafood business from his father, an immigrant from Menorca, who probably built the first oyster house prior to the Civil War, at the foot of Jackson Avenue.  Joseph Catchot began shipping seafood before 1895.  He lost his wharf and oyster shop in the 1909 September Storm.  Joe Tony may have been in business with his uncle, Arnaud Catchot (1834-1910).
     

Joe Tony Catchot's Oyster Shop (circa 1910)

(located at the foot of Jackson Avenue)

      Joe Tony Catchot operated in the water and accretions at the foot of Jackson Avenue until his death on June 16, 1919.  Frank and William Kuppersmith of Mobile took over the site after his demise, probably leasing it from his most likely heirs, Antonio "Toy" Catchot (1868-1954) and Mary Catchot Bellande (1860-1931).  The only active seafood operation at Ocean Springs remains here today as The Ocean Springs Seafood Company, which was commenced in May 1956, by Earl Fayard.

                                                                          JOHN E. JOHNSON
      John E. Johnson (1859-1921), called "Cap", was the son of Norwegian immigrant, Nels Johnson (1814-1895) and German immigrant, Caroline Lunderman (1828-1911).  Cap Johnson was born at Biloxi were his father was a prominent boat builder.  He went to sea in 1877, piloting a trading schooner into ports from Florida to Texas.  Later at Biloxi, he owned the Press Saloon on the front beach between Lameuse Street and Main from 1890 until 1897.  Johnson also had a wholesale shipping business in fish, oysters, and shrimp employing sixty men during the seafood season.
       In August 1897, Johnson took a lease from Mayor Thomas W. Grayson (1825-1904) of the City of Ocean Springs at the south end of Martin Avenue.  The lease granted Johnson the right to operate and conduct "the business of opening, selling or shipping fish, oysters and shrimp, provided the same shall be conducted in such a manner as to not create a nuisance in said neighborhood".  Johnson was required to build "a wharf not less than six hundred feet in length from the shore, and not less than five feet wide, to be used by the public in landing and receiving passengers ....erect and maintain bath houses as may be necessary for the accommodation of the public".
      John Johnson also owned a grocery store on the southeast corner of Jackson and Porter.  He bought the property from Peter Geiger (1858-1923) in March 1897.   Johnson married Felicia Pons (1868-1910), who was called Ella.  They had two sons, John L. Johnson (1885-1917) and Joseph E. Johnson (1886-1887), and a daughter, Mrs. Joseph (Edna) Longinotti (1881-1927), who lived at Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Her father-in-law, Joseph Longinotti, Sr. (d. 1923) once was the proprietor of the Hotel Pullman at Hot Springs.  Her husband ran hotel when she was murdered in 1927, at Hot Springs.  Son, John L. Johnson, also died tragically when he choked to death after leaving Schmidt's Premium Bakery on Washington Avenue.
      At the foot of Martin Avenue, Cap Johnson also operated an oyster shucking shed.  On February 13, 1899, the mercury fell to one degree Fahrenheit on the Mississippi coast.  An announcement was made in The Biloxi Daily Herald concerning some of the property loss at Ocean Springs:

      Captain John Johnson was probably the heaviest loser of anyone in town from the cold.  A few days previous he had purchased 700 barrels of oysters at fancy prices, all of which froze, entailing a loss of nearly $800.  To make matters worse, orders for oysters have been pouring in all week which cannot be filled.

      This natural disaster probably put Johnson out of business, as he sold the store property to New Orleanian Sidney Anderson (1867-1917) in December 1899, for $750.  Anderson, who owned charcoal schooners and operated a mercantile store at Vancleave, also bought the Artesian House, a small hostel, on the southwest corner of Jackson and Porter in February 1900.
      J.E. Johnson moved to Biloxi where he may have gotten in the bar business again.  He became ill about 1910, probably with cancer.  Cap Johnson died at the home of his sister, Mrs. August Dorries, at 879 East Beach on April 18, 1921.  All of the John E. Johnson family members are buried at the Bellande Cemetery on Dewey Avenue.

                                                                                            1900-1920
                A brief history of some of the contributors to our seafood industry during this time is presented.  Others active during this interval:  Edward M. Walker (b. 1848), Eugene Dick (1868-1919), Joseph Ladnier (1871-1923), John B. Ryan (1856-1920), John B. Beaugez (1857-1913), Arnold Catchot (1869-1939), and Joseph Ladnier (1871-1923).

WALLACE H. JAKINS

           Wallace Henry Jakins (1873-1929) was born at Islesboro, Waldo County, Maine in May 1873, the son of Henry Jakins (1799-pre-1880) and Elizabeth ? Jakins (1831-1880+), both Maine natives.  In 1870, Henry Jakins was a farm laborer.(1870 Waldo County, Maine 1870 and 1880 Federal Census T9-488, p. 15, ED 80 and M593_560. p. 140)

In 1900, Wallace H. Jakins was domiciled on Warren Street at Mobile, Alabama with George W. Jakins (1863-1900+), his brother.  George had just married Cora ?, an Alabama native.  Both men made their livelihoods as house painters.(1900 Mobile County, Alabama Federal Census T623 31, p. 16B, ED 103, Ward 6)

            At Ocean Springs, Mississippi Wallace H. Jakins married Adele Adelaide Catchot (1895-1981), the daughter of Arnold “Boy” Catchot (1869-1939) and Anna Laura Ryan (1872-1930) in the Methodist Church on May 3, 1909.(JXCO, Ms. MRB 9, p. 63)

            Wallace and Adelle were the parents of: George E. Jakins (1909-1977), Marie Jakins Mathieu (1913-2003), Alice Jakins Tanner (1917-2001), Alvin Jakins Sr. (1919-1981), Laura Jakins Dubuisson (1922-1977), Leona Jakins Vaughan (1923-2003+), Janice Jakins Byrd (?-2003+), and Ernest “Buddy” Adelburt Jakins Sr (?-2003+).

Wallace H. Jakins made his livelihood as a fisherman and operated his own fish shop.  He expired at Ocean Springs on October 17, 1929.  His corporal remains were passed through St. Alphonsus Catholic Church.(The Daily Herald,, October 18, 1929, p. 2)

            After the demise of her husband, Adele Catchot Jakins married widower, Charles Ernest VanCourt (1885-1984), the son of John Norman VanCourt (1864-1927) and Madeline Pons.  Charles E. VanCourt had married Eugenie Beaugez (1888-1931), the daughter of John B.  Beaugez (1857-1913) and Euphrosine (Frazine) Catchot (1866-1916), and they had two children: Lilly Mae VanCourt Fayard (b. 1911) and Clifford VanCourt.  Adele Catchot Jakins VanCourt expired at Ocean Springs on May 16, 1981.  Her remains were interred in the Bellande Cemetery at Ocean Springs, Mississippi.(The Ocean Springs Record, May 21, 1981, p. 3)

                                                                                                                            FREDERICH A. SCHRIEBER
      Frederich Adolph Schrieber (1871-1943) was born at Ocean Springs, the son of German immigrants, Adolf Josef Schrieber (1835-1875) and Rosina Christian (1834-1920).  He was called "Dolph", and married Lilly Rupp.  Her father, Robert Rupp (1857-1930), found the Fort Maurepas cornerstone? in 1909, on the W.B. Schmidt estate where he was the caretaker.  In May 1937, Mr. Schriber through Dr. O.L. Bailey (1870-1938) sent the marker to the Louisiana State Museum at New Orleans.  It has never been returned to Ocean Springs!
     

"The Shack" at Marsh Point

     This small over-water structure was completed on July 4, 1904, by Frederich A. Schrieber at Marsh Point, the head of Davis Bayou.  He called it "The Black Diamond".  Here Schrieber had oyster leases and a US Government Land Patent.  He lived here intermittently to protect his valuable oyster grounds from poachers.( a George Granitz image circa 1930) 

      Dolph Schrieber was active in the oyster business as early as March 1902, when he and E.N. Ramsay (1832-1916) and George W. Dale (1872-1953) applied to the Jackson County Board of Supervisors for an oyster planting lease on eighty acres of "land that is underwater" west of Marsh Point.  Schrieber built a small home on creosote pilings at Marsh Point.  It was christened "The Little Black Diamond" when it was completed on July 4, 1904.  Dolph planted over ten thousand barrels of oysters in Davis Bayou opposite his house.  He and his wife occasionally lived here to protect their oyster beds from poachers.  Mrs. Lily Schrieber reported that she once shot several holes through the skiff of an oyster thief one night.  The Schrieber water home became known as the "Shack".  It survived storms and hurricanes for many decades, but was probably finished off
by Camille in 1969.
     

The Schrieber Brothers- Joseph "Dode" L. Schrieber and Adolph "Dolph" F. Schrieber

(courtesy of Lurline Schrieber Hall)

       Dolph Schrieber acquired a US Government patent on Lot 5, Section 32, T7S-R8W in December 1905.(16)  This 23 acres tract adjoined his 1902 oyster leases at Marsh Point.  Schrieber sold an interest in his Marsh Point acreage to his brother, Dode Schrieber (1873-1951), and others including, George W. Dale (1872-1953), William Toche (1862-1937), Thomas R. Friar (1845-1918), and John Burr (1875-1916).
      In May 1909, Dolph Schrieber relinquished the majority of his holdings at Marsh Point and Grass Island to Hugh C. Seymour (1876-1913).  Seymour for $1000 acquired 1800 feet of Lot 5 fronting on Davis Bayou.(17)  This in addition to 800 feet acquired in May 1905, from Schrieber gave Seymour a commanding position on the valuable oyster reefs in Davis Bayou north of Marsh Point.(18)
      After his sale to H.C. Seymour, Schrieber left the seafood industry and made a career in the Lighthouse Service.  He tended lighthouses at Chandeleur Island, Tchefuncte River at Madisonville, Louisiana, and Biloxi.  The Schriebers bought the Hamilton Connor (1855-1929) home on Ward Avenue in the Spring of 1929.  He retired from the Lighthouse Service at Biloxi in 1937.

                                                                                                                 WILLIAM EDWARD WILSON
      William Edward Wilson (1873-1926), called Ed, came to Ocean Springs circa 1906, from Wabash County, Indiana, probably with the L&N Railroad.  He married Ida Antonia Fayard Smith (1884-1978) in September 1908.
     Although Wilson is better known for his hamburger and hot dog stand and later grocery store on Desoto Avenue, he had a brief period in the seafood business.  It seems significant that Wilson located his seafood business on the west side of Washington Avenue between Porter and Bowen and away from the oyster houses traditionally found between Washington and Martin Avenues on the beach.  Ed Wilson opened for business in the Bertuccini Building on Washington Avenue in February 1909.  He advertised as follows:

Fresh Fish of all kinds in season
Oyster on the half-shell 10 cents per dozen
Oysters delivered in any quantity to any part of the city
I also carry at all times hot roasted peanuts and popcorn

      The Bertuccini Building may have been what later became the Bertuccini Barber Shop of Jacques Bertuccini (1854-1943).  Today, it houses Two Dogs Dancing at 619-A Washington Avenue.  From the local journal, The Ocean Springs News, it seems that Wilson discontinued his seafood business at least in the Bertuccini Building.  Later that year, Alexander P. Faurie (1865-1930) who came from New Orleans to work for the Davis Brothers, a large mercantile store on Washington Avenue, opened a furniture store in the Bertuccini Building.  Faurie later had a dairy business here.

                                                                                                                        VAN COURT & SEYMOUR
      The firm of Van Court & Seymour was formed circa 1914.  It was located on the beach at the foot of Washington Avenue.  The two proprietors, John R. Seymour (1879-1938) and Daniel Bernard Van Court (1885-1943), were brothers-in-law.  Johnny Seymour had married Minerva Aida (Lula) VanCourt (1880-1956).  Their children were:  Leona M. Seymour (1902-1928), John Edward Seymour (1904-1966), Alfred R. Seymour (1907-1907), Margaret S. Norman (1908-2001), and Mark Seymour (1910-1944).
      Daniel B. Van Court was born at New Orleans on April 21, 1886, the son of Alfred Pete Van Court and Virginia Susan Smith.  His older brothers, John Norman Van Court and Maurice Kirby Van Court, were in the ice business at Ocean Springs as early as 1900.  Van Court was a good athlete and played second base on the local baseball team in 1904.
      D.B. Van Court was working as a salesman at the Davis Brothers Store on Washington Avenue, when he married Marie Antoinette Friar (1886-1978) in August 1909.  Her sister, Louise Friar (1874-1952), was married to store owner, E.S. Davis (1859-1925).
      The Van Court children were: Daniel B. Van Court Jr. (1910-1976), George A. Van Court, Louise A. Van Court (1914-2004), Arnold J. Van Court, and Evelyn M. Van Court.  In November 1909, shortly after his marriage, Van Court built a five-room cottage at present day 1313 Bowen Avenue.  It was opposite the Emile Domning place.  D.B. Van Court later built a home at present day 202 Washington Avenue.
      In early February 1915, Van Court & Seymour signed a contract with the L&N Railroad to supply their oysters to the dining cars of one train.  Their product quality and service were successful to the point that in October 1915, Van Court & Seymour were awarded the contract to provide all the of L&N dining cars with oysters on-the-half shell and opened oysters during the winter months on a daily basis.  The L&N found the oysters of Van Court & Seymour vastly superior to other suppliers.  A sample menu card was printed and displayed at the L&N depot which read, "Oysters served in this car received fresh daily at Ocean Springs, Mississippi".
      The Hurricane of September 29, 1915, which struck the Mississippi coast destroyed the oyster packing shed of the firm leaving only a few posts standing.  Tons of oyster shell were washed ashore by heavy wave action resulting in piles of shells along the beach front.
      By 1916, Van Court & Seymour were the leaders in wholesale shipping of raw oysters and shrimp at Ocean Springs.  Their seafood operation, which consisted primarily of oyster sheds, a wharf, and several motor fishing boats, the Seavan and the Vansea, was located on the beach at the foot of Washington Avenue.  The firm shipped by railway express, utilizing iced cars, to Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, and New York.
      Many of the local families such as, Benezue, Cox, Ryan, and Catchot were employed by the firm to catch shrimp, fish, turtles, and tong oysters.  Oyster sold for $1.00 per sack.  Large shucked oysters called plants sold for $.50 per hundred while selects or small oysters brought $.25 per hundred.  Speckled trout, flounder, and red fish went to market for $.25 per pound, crabs $.20 per dozen, and Marsh Point sea turtles returned $40 per dozen at New York City.
      The seafood partnership dissolved after a few years with Van Court and Seymour going their separate ways.  Van Court later operated his seafood business on the Josephine Friar property in the "triangle", west of the foot of Washington Avenue.  Seymour remained on the front beach at the foot of Washington Avenue until the seawall construction in 1928-1929, forced him out.
      Daniel B. Van Court was named a deputy seafood inspector for the Mississippi Seafood Commission in 1934.He served as Ward 3 alderman in 1921-1922.  He expired on October 10, 1943.

                                                                                                                                 HUGH C. SEYMOUR
      Hugh Charles Seymour (1876-1913) was married to Clara Tillman (1889-1952), a native of St. Elmo, Alabama.  Her mother Mary J. Tillman Gallotte, married John F. Tillman in 1887.  Other children:  Almeda T. Byrd and James Tillman.  Their children were:  Hugh C. Seymour, Jr. (1908-2004), Foster N. Seymour (1909-1999), Ulysses Seymour (1911-2000), and Mary Nell Seymour (1912-1915).
      Hugh Seymour learned the seafood business from his father, Narcisse Seymour, on the beach at Ocean Springs.  He was the manager of Narcisse Seymour & Son in 1904.  In April 1903, he bought the beach front lot just west of Washington Avenue with 274' fronting on the Bay of Biloxi from Dr. O.L. Bailey (1870-1938) for $2000.(19)  L.L. Dolbear formerly owned the property.  The deed from Bailey gave Seymour all riparian and oyster rights.  Dr. J.J. Bland (1850-1932) operated his Beach Hotel to the west, and Hugh Seymour made an agreement with Dr. Bland concerning riparian right boundaries in January 1909.(20)
      In 1905 and 1909, Hugh Seymour purchased over 2500 front feet of land on Grass Island (Marsh Point) in Lot 5, Section 32, T7S-R8W from F.A. Schrieber (1871-1944).(21,22)  Valuable oyster beds were located in the waters of Davis Bayou north of Grass Island.  Thomas R. Friar and George L. Friar were also active in this area.
      In July 1908, Hugh Seymour purchased a 15.36 acres tract of land in the SW/4 of Section 18, T7S-R8W in the St. Martin area north of Fort Bayou from E.N. Ramsay (1832-1916).
(23)
He built a home here on what is now North Washington Avenue and Seymour Lane.  Seymour died at his beachfront home in May 1913, before moving into his new home.  The old Seymour St. Martin home was demolished in 1990, when North Washington Avenue was widened.
      Hugh C. Seymour was active in the business and social affairs of the community.  He was a director of the Ocean Springs State Bank, and a member of the Biloxi Council No. 1244 KC, Biloxi Elks Lodge No. 606, and Ocean Springs Fire Company.
      In 1915, the widow, Mrs. Clara Seymour, leased her oyster grounds to A.P. "Tony" Kotzum.  Kotzum owned the Eagle Point Oyster Company.  Phillip Bellman (1872-1927)
took over Hugh Seymour's beach front location, and ran his seafood operation here until 1923.  Mrs. Seymour sold the beachfront property to George Leavenworth in 1927, for
$7500.(24)  The old Seymour house remained vacant for many years and is believed to have been destroyed in the 1947 Hurricane.  

                                                                                                                               PHILLIP M. BELLMAN
      Phillip M. Bellman (1872-1927) was the son of Charles Bellman Jr. (1841-1885) and Almina Egan (1851-1881).  His grandfather, Charles Bellman (1806-1860+), was a German immigrant who arrived at Biloxi in 1835.  Here, he married Pauline Ryan (1815-1899) and made his livelihood as a boarding house proprietor, druggist, and doctor.  Charles Bellman, Jr. made his livelihood as a carpenter and was residing at Ocean Springs probably on Jackson Avenue in 1870.
     

Philip M. Bellman  (1872-1927) 

       Phillip Bellman married Alice Seymour (1880-1957), the sister of John and Hugh Seymour, and the daughter of Narcisse Seymour (1849-1931) and Caroline V. Krohn (1847-1895).  Their children were: Bertridge B. Brou (1900-1992) married Edward Brou (1896-1949); Phyllis B. Burke (1902-1970) married Edward Burke; Inez B. McClain (1906-2004) married Arthur R. McClain (1900-1974); Carrie B. Dellinger Emerson (1909-1964) married Earl J. Dellinger (1901-1951) and Milton Emerson; Bernice B. Cascio (1912-1971) married Charles Cascio 1909-1968); Philip A. Bellman (1915-1964); Edward Bellman (b. 1920) married Mabel B. “Patty” Kennedy; and Robert E. Bellman (b. 1927) married Thelma Rita DeGeorge.(Lepre, 2001, pp. 102-103)
      Phillip Bellman worked with Narcisse Seymour & Sons until 1915, when he joined A.P. "Tony" Kotzum (1871-1916) in forming the Eagle Point Oyster Company.  After Kotzum died in 1916, he took over the Hugh C. Seymour (1876-1913) oyster shop on front beach west of Washington Avenue.  Bellman was noted for his affable humor and relaxed attitude.
In mid-December 1916, two of Bellman's fishermen, Alphonse Cox and Emile Beaugez (1901-1967), took his vessel, Kentucky, in search of shrimp outside of Dog Key.  The motor quit and they rigged a crude sail to get home.  The resourceful seamen reached Belle Fontaine Beach and walked ten miles back to Ocean Spring having been without food for nearly two days.
      In August 1923, Philip M. Bellman sold a two-thirds interest in the Ocean Springs Fish and Oyster Company to C.L. Martin and S.J. DeBleau who planned to continue the business at the same site and under the same lease terms from Mrs. Hugh C. Seymour.  Bellman vended his business to Martin and DeBleau for $600.(The Jackson County Times, September 15, 1923, p. 5 )
      The Bellman family moved to Biloxi in 1923, and resided at 612 Reynoir Street.  Phillip Bellman made his livelihood as a carpenter until he passed away on March 3, 1927, at Biloxi.

THERESA VAHLE FRIAR

        To my knowledge, Theresa Vahle Friar (1871-1956) was the only woman oyster dealer at Ocean Springs.  She was the wife of Thomas A. Friar (1871-1896), the son of oyster and fish retailer, Thomas R. Friar (1845-1918).  Theresa V. Friar was born at New Orleans, the daughter of Franz Vahle (1838-1894) and Catherine Vahle (1838-1914).  Her ancestry was Swiss-German.  Both families spoke the German language.
       Mrs. Friar's husband, Thomas A. Friar, died untimely at Pensacola, Florida on November 10, 1896, of typhoid fever.  He left two small children:  Lydia Louise Hewson (1895-1968) and Adolph C. Friar (1897-circa 1971).
      After the death of her husband, Theresa V. Friar assisted her mother in operating the Vahle House, a two-story family hotel, which was situated on the northwest corner of Washington and Calhoun.  It was opposite the Shanahan House, another family operated hostel.  In 1904, her brother, Casper Vahle (1869-1922), ran a small ice house on Washington Avenue just north of the Vahle House with James Soden.  Casper Vahle was formerly in the livery business with Jeff Davis Egan (1864-1907).  Herman Nill (1863-1904) was the brother-in-law of Theresa and Casper. He owned a drug store on northwest corner of Porter and Washington.

       In the 1910 US Census, Theresa Vahle lists her occupation as an oyster dealer.  She probably operated out of her father-in-law's Washington Avenue oyster shop.  Mrs. Friar moved to St. Leo, Florida several years after the Vahle House burned in 1916.  She returned to Ocean Springs in 1930.  Mrs. Friar resided in a small green cottage on the former site of Vahle House.  She died on August 18, 1956.

                                                                                                     THE OCEAN SPRINGS PACKING COMPANY
      Although the first seafood canning factories were established at Biloxi as early as 1880, it would be several decades later before one was built at Ocean Springs.  As early as 1883, it was mentioned in local journals that Ocean Springs needed a canning plant.  In August 1883, The Pascagoula Democrat-Star, related that “plenty of fresh shrimps caught by the Seymour brothers and crew.  Why can’t our own town start a canning factory”.
     In February 1897, The Pascagoula-Democrat Star announced that "a movement is a foot to establish a canning factory on the beach".
     The Biloxi Daily Herald reported in February 1899, that local real estate, insurance, and businessman, H.F. Russell, authorized the town council of Ocean Springs to offer a twenty-five year lease for a cannery site.(The Biloxi Daily Herald, February 5, 1899, p. 8)
      In October 1904, a reporter for The Progress, the local journal, wrote:

      A well known gentleman of New Orleans who visits this city quite often remarked to the writer the other day that "Ocean Springs ought to have a canning factory".  We are more glad to hear assurances from other cities that such an institution would pay here.  Every citizen in this city thinks so too, and we, with their cooperation, are going to keep pegging away until we get a factory here.  A canning factory is one of the things Ocean Springs needs and must have to make it the city it should be.

Gorenflo Island
      Although Ocean Springs would eventually get a cannery, The Gulf Coast Fisheries Company constructed a plant on Gorenflo Island (now Big Island) in April 1906.  Gorenflo Island encompasses 103 acres and is located in the Bay of Biloxi about one mile southwest of Fort Point, the western terminus of Ocean Springs.  William F. Gorenflo (1844-1932), a native of Bay St. Louis, who pioneered the seafood industry at Biloxi bought the island from Robert Lowery who governed Mississippi from 1882-1890 for $103 or $1 per acre.(  )
      Gorenflo feared that a local tax of $.05 per barrel was going to be levied on shrimp by the Harrison County government.  Since the island was then located in Jackson County, his factory would be exempt from the tax.  It is believed that Gorenflo never had to exercise his threat to move his Back Bay Biloxi cannery to Gorenflo Island.
      In April 1906, Nichols & Castanera laid the foundation and floor sills for the Gulf Coast Fisheries Company.  The plant was built to process menhaden and non-commercial fish, i.e. gars, catfish, and sharks.  The resultant products were fish oil and fish meal which had a high ammonia content and in demand as a constituent of fertilizer.
      Unfortunately, the plant became an environmental disaster.  The atmosphere in the vicinity of the operation was contaminated with the malodorous scent of rotting fish.  The cooking method used to process the fetid fish also contributed heavily to the local air pollution.  In addition, the waters of the bay were contaminated with a caustic yellow scum by-product reported to have the capability of removing paint from boats, which came into contact with it.  Needless to say, the plant created a stir among the residents of Biloxi.  After some legal action ensued in 1908, the factory’s activities diminished and it was slowly phased out.  The Hurricane of 1909 and subsequent storms destroyed the physical plant.
  (see “Charter For New Cannery”, The Biloxi Daily Herald, November 20, 1905, p. 1)

Ice and shrimp
      Although located further east than the Gorenflo Island menhaden operation, Ocean Springs did get a seafood factory in early 1915, when Louis A. Lundy (1876-1941), Morris McClure (1884-1940), and Joe Zaehringer opened a cannery near the L&N Railroad Bridge.  Prior to this time, the seafood business at Ocean Springs consisted primarily of shipping raw oyster by rail.  The oyster dealers were located on the front beach principally at the foot of Jackson and Washington Avenues.  Some of the people engaged in the oyster trade were:  Antonio Catchot (1826-1885), Joseph Catchot (1856-1919), Narcisse Seymour (1849-1931), Thomas R. Friar (1845-1918), Theresa Vahle Friar (1871-1956), Anton P. Kotzum (1871-1916), Philip Bellman (1872-1927), Hugh C. Seymour (1876-1913), John R. Seymour (1879-1938), and Daniel B. VanCourt (1885-1943).
      The Lundy family was from Mobile, Alabama, and had come to Ocean Springs circa 1889.  William Lundy (1827-1880), the father, had been born in Mississippi.  He went to Mobile as a young man and made his livelihood as a clerk in a dry goods store.  At Mobile, he met and married Margaret ? (1835 1900+), a native of Alabama.  Together they reared four children at Mobile.  They were:  Corrine L. McClure (1854-1930), Helen L. Horton (1854-1890), Franklin J. Lundy (1863-1912), and Louis A. Lundy (1876-1941). 

      Why the Lundys moved to Ocean Springs is unknown, but the family was an asset to the city.  Franklin Jefferson, called F.J., and Louis Alexander known as L.A. were an integral part of the business community.  As early as 1892, F.J. Lundy was a merchant operating a general store on the southeast corner of Washington and Government Street.  He was successful in commerce and acquired substantial real estate holdings at Ocean Springs and environs including the Ocean Springs Hotel.
 
Louis A. Lundy
      Louis A. “L.A.” Lundy (1876-1941) was a teenager when his family moved here from Mobile.  He married Alberta May Wattleworth (1885-1962) at the Jesuit Church of New Orleans on March 26, 1906.  Her sister, Gertrude Wattleworth (d. 1971), married L. Morris McClure, the nephew of L.A. Lundy.  McClure would serve as Mayor (1933) and Postmaster of Ocean Springs (1915-1925) and 1934-1940).  The Wattleworths' father was English and their mother a Louisiana native probably born at New Orleans.  At this stage of his career, Lundy was the cashier in the branch of the Scranton State Bank at Ocean Springs.  Prior to this he ran the Postal Telegraph Company for brother, F.J. Lundy.
       The L.A. Lundy home was located on southeast corner of Washington Avenue at Iberville near the Marble Springs.  Their neighbors were the Garrards, Lemons, Hodges, Friars, and Dr. H.B. Powell.  Five Lundy children were born at Ocean Springs, but only three survived to adulthood.  They were:  a girl who died at birth (born circa 1907); L.A. Lundy, Jr. (1908-circa 1993); John (born circa 1910) who died young; F.J. Lundy (born circa 1912); and Katherine Lundy Howland (born circa 1914).
      Among other commercial ventures, it is believed that L.A. Lundy held a seat on the New Orleans Cotton Exchange with H.F. Russell, and owned interests in seafood factories at Biloxi, Bayou La Batre, Alabama, and Westwego, Louisiana.  It is possible that he owned the Shanahan Hotel at Washington and Calhoun in its later years.
      After L.A. Lundy sold the factory to E.W. Illing, Jr. he practically retired from the business community in which he had been extremely active.  It is believed he enjoyed his later years socializing with his many friends in the Ocean Springs area.
On June 4, 1941, L.A. Lundy died at Ocean Springs.  After his demise, May Lundy moved to New Orleans and lived there until her passing in April 1962.  They are both interred at the Metairie Cemetery.

Ocean Springs Packing Company
     

Ocean Springs Packing Company

      The seafood factory, known as the Ocean Springs Packing Company, was located one hundred twenty-five feet west of the ice plant on the four-acre Lundy tract.  In 1925, it consisted of a 3600 square-foot building on pilings about eleven feet above the water.  A 2000 square-foot warehouse was located just east of the factory.
     

Ocean Springs Seafood Site Plan (1925)

       The city government of Ocean Springs granted the privilege of erecting a cannery near the ice factory to L.M. McClure and L.A. Lundy on December 8, 1914.  The Ocean Springs Packing Company opened for business in early March 1915.  The original plant cost $2500, and was financed with local capital.  It had a 60-75 barrel capacity.  The owners stated that it would keep $8.50 in Ocean Springs for each barrel of shrimp canned.  Otherwise, that money would have gone to Biloxi canners.  When fully operational, Lundy’s cannery would have the capacity to process vegetables for canning.(The Ocean Springs News, March 18, 1915, p. 2)
 
Opposition
      The commencement of a seafood operation on the beach at Ocean Springs was not without some controversy.  Mayor W.T. Ames (1880-1969) and the Ocean Springs Board of Alderman had given Lundy and McClure the authority to build their cannery in December 1914.  As word of this action reached the citizenry, immediate opposition was raised by some of the beach estate landowners.  A petition was circulated and presented to the city government by General Marshall Miller, a prominent New Orleans attorney.  Their salient objections to the shrimp factory were that it would be a nuisance because of the bad odors, ruin the residential nature of the bay front, and it wasn't needed because of the number of canneries at Biloxi.
      Several prominent citizens spoke out against the venture.  Horticulturist and pecan orchardist, Theodore Bechtel (1863-1931), was against the factory because he felt the class of the imported labor to work in the facility might be a detriment to the community.  Mrs. Annie L. Benjamin (1848-1938) of Milwaukee, a winter resident at Shore Acres, her large estate dominating Fort Point, complained that a cannery would be a menace to the beauty and purity of the town.  Dr. O.L. Bailey (1870-1938), local physician, said that "if it does prove to be a nuisance and is a public menace, it will be suppressed, if sanitary measures prove unavailing".
      Robert Dunbar Wigginton (1874-1958+), a local attorney, representing the Ocean Springs Packing Company defended the construction of the cannery by pointing out that the petition represented only a few beach residents.  He added that Ocean Springs could use the payroll and that the shrimp season was rather short.  Also in defense of the factory, John W. Lunday (1867-1953), the manager of the Ocean Springs Packing Company said:

     "I cannot understand why all this opposition was raised.  Our plant will only be of about 60 barrel capacity--the Biloxi concerns which are said to give off bad odors are of 1000 barrel capacity.  More over, the smell comes from the shrimp boats, lying at the wharf.  Boats cannot lie at our wharf, because they would obstruct the channel."

      Mr. Lunday went on to add that the operation would commence in February 1915.  He expected a labor force of about three hundred none of which would be Bohemian.  Lunday, a native of Shubuta, Mississippi had managed the Lopez-Dukate factory at Neptune, Louisiana.  His wife was Emma Wells.

First canned shipment
      Syracuse, New York was the recipient of the first shipment of Ocean Springs' canned shrimp.  Thirty-five cases arrived there at the end of June 1915.  L.A. Lundy in negotiating trade agreements in the North had given Ocean Springs an abundance of publicity.  At this time, the factory was bolstering the local economy by five to eight thousand dollars a year through its payroll.
      The Ocean Springs Packing Company was not affected by the 1915 fisherman's strike, which caused financial distress along the Mississippi coast.  The union pay scale was in effect and the payroll for the season was expected to be $10,000.
In early October 1915, high tides and ninety mile per hour winds from a Category 4 Hurricane, which struck the southeastern Louisiana coast, reached Ocean Springs.  Among the casualties of this tempest was the Ocean Springs Canning Company.  The Ocean Springs News reported on October 7, 1915 the following:

      The shrimp factory fell with a crash, at about eleven o'clock Wednesday night that could be heard above the howl of the wind.  It is a most absolute wreck.  Boilers, kettles, cappers, and engines are huddled together at the water's edge, and not two pieces of planking have been left nailed together.  The beach is strewn with cases of canned shrimp and empty cans.(p. 1, c. 1).

     Manager J.W. Lunday reported that the cannery was covered by insurance for $2000, and that the operation would be functioning again in about three weeks.  The new structure was ready by early November 1915.  It was three times the size and had about twice the capacity of the original plant.  The factory was also built four feet higher placing it about eleven feet above mean tide.
      By 1917, Lundy had a large addition built onto the existing warehouse.  He also planned to can okra and sweet potatoes at the facility in the offseason.  C.E. Schmidt in Ocean Springs French Beachhead (1972) had this to say about seafood factories:

      here (Ocean Springs) we had only one, and it limped along 25 years before it died, unnoticed and unwanted.  It was located on the beach by the ice factory and under the management of the same Louis A. Lundy.  Seafood processing was never welcomed on the Ocean Springs side of the Bay, and is not, even to this day.

1917 Fire
      The factory caught fire in late February.  A hole was burned in the engine and boiler room.(The Daily Herald, February 27, 1917, p. 3)

Speculation
      Indications that the Ocean Springs Packing Company was doing well and possibly considering another cannery site on Back Bay in the St. Martin Community, were manifested in June 1923, when the company took a twenty-five year lease from Paul and Adele Fountain on a 1.8-acre tract known as the west half of the Francis Fountain homestead.  The site was l