Barataria: The Ruins of a Pirate Kingdom
FOR the last three hundred miles of its course the dark old Mississippi ploughs through a land of swamp and bayou, cypress and water oak. There comes a point as we go southward where the swamps are penetrated by tide water and the bayous widen out to rival in breadth even the Father of Waters himself. At last these bayous, great currentless swamp rivers, merge into Old Ocean as wide bays, or as lakes cut off from the sea by narrow little strips of reed - covered sand, rising as islands from the alluvial marsh. Some of these swamp-locked bays are deep enough to sail a good-sized schooner. Wilderness, whether mountain or forest or swamp, is ever a preserver of primitive conditions, and it is not strange that when the high seas became too thoroughly civilized for the freebooter, piracy should make its last stand in the place where progressive Old Ocean gives way to the conservative marsh. Neither was it strange, when the law stepped in to blot out freebooting forever, that the swamp closed up to hide its own, and that conditions prevailing in pirate days should be preserved like some prehistoric monster sunk in a bog of peat, or like a city covered with the ashes and lava of a spurting volcano.
The student of American history knows that among the defenders of New Orleans in 1814 was Jean Lafitte, the pirate, with some hundreds of his men who came from their settlement on the islands and cheniers about Barataria Bay; he knows that when the city had been saved these men were granted a full pardon, and that many returned to civilized life. But the fate of the Baratarian settlement, — that was left to the student’s guess. So completely was the region forgotten that the average New Orleans citizen to-day has little or no idea of the route to be pursued in reaching it. Inquiries at hotel and Steamer offices gave me very little help when, one day in April, I went to and fro about the Crescent City, asking a way to reach the country of the pirates. At last I bethought myself of the French Market, whither go the shrimp, fish, and turtles from Barataria. There, among dark-haired Hungarians and fatfaced French madames, I learned the name of a little steamer which plies back and forth in the Barataria trade.
The boat would leave in two days, said the kindly old gray-haired captain, and would arrive at Grand Pass, between Grande Terre and Grande Isle, on the second day out. When I asked how far that might be, he answered,—
“Fifty-four miles, if you mean the way the duck flies. Fifty-four thousand, if you want to communicate with any one who lives there.”
The vessel lay at the head of Harvey’s Canal, one of the little channels by which luggers make their way to the swamps and bayous and back again to the river. The steamer had a stern wheel, and drew so little water that the shallow bayous and receding tides offered no great menace. Its little cabin was saloon, bar-room, clerk’s office, and sleeping quarters all in one. Its crew consisted of an engineer, a cook, and three colored deck hands. The engine gave forth a puff-puff, puff-puff-puff, and we started southwestward from the city, disputing the passage with a raft of cypress logs, which persisted in crowding our steamer into the bank. Slowly the raft yielded to the little vessel’s prow, scraped along the port side, and left its length behind us as we pushed down the canal. The reed - covered marsh gave way to dense cypress swamp, cypress whose limbs were draped with long festoons of gray Spanish moss. Turtles scurried from every fallen log. Water snakes swam lazily along the shore. Huge garfish jumped like trout, splashing the water in our front. The huts of moss gatherers, with their adornment of stupid, wondering black faces, passed. Then we issued upon an almost currentless stream of brackish water, — a stream half as wide as the Hudson at Albany. This was the Bayou of Little Barataria.
Now we are approaching the country of the pirates. The bayou branches and branches again, and at one forking place there is a high shell mound, and about its foot a modest extent of land that rises always well above tide water. Here in the old days was Lafitte’s chief distributing point. By a dozen routes contraband could be brought from the Gulf to one of the cypress-shaded passes that led hither. And from here to the portages leading into New Orleans the way was safe to follow and easy to guard. Here was the palace royal of the buccaneer chief. Here it was that Lawyer Grymes, invited to Barataria to receive his fee of $20,000 for the defense of the younger Lafitte, was wined and dined by the “most polished gentlemen of the world. ” It was back through the same bayou by which we came that he went with his gold, in a splendid yawl. It was at plantations whose charred ruins we have seen that he met hospitable planters, and played sinful games that left him to arrive in New Orleans penniless and in debt.
From here to the Gulf of Mexico extended the rule of Lafitte. The shell heaps were his stations. The higher land was settled by his followers. The bayous were his routes of travel and places of hiding. When piracy ceased with the battle of Chalmette, his people improved the plantations that existed, and made new ones on every bit of land that rose high enough for tilling. The old civilization was continued on a new basis, only a little more in touch with Louisiana laws, and far less in touch with Louisiana people, than in the days of the freebooter.
It is thirty - five miles by the most direct bayou route from this point to Grande Terre, on the Gulf Coast. Yet over the whole persists the personality of Jean Lafitte. It is a strange thing, this immortality of strong characters. One who has visited Mount Vernon feels that Washington still lives. At Monticello one finds Thomas Jefferson alive in the traditions that connect him with every object. So lives Lafitte on Barataria bayous and on Barataria Bay.
Here, at his old headquarters, we see the pirate collecting and disposing of his plunder. We look in upon the feasts as he entertains his friends over a heavy silver service and with costly wines. Below, we catch him burying his treasure in shell heaps, or sinking it in the bayous at spots marked by crossing chains whose ends reach out to trees upon the bank. Always he leaves with four negroes who pull the yawl, always seated in the stern with a musket in his hands and his belt bristling with pistols. Invariably we see him returning alone, and imagine the last terrors of the four blacks whose bones rest where the alligators left them.
Yonder is a shell heap covered with trees. Beneath a huge live oak that once grew there, tradition tells us that Lafitte stood while a storm was raging. Lightning struck and shattered the tree, but Lafitte was left unharmed. The atmosphere is charged with pirate personality, and every time the long dark skiff of a negro moss gatherer comes silently out of some cypress-draped bayou, we start, half expecting to see the handsome, heartless outlaw king sitting in the stern.
Elements of the supernatural mingle in the tales of pirates. Many years ago New Orleans sent men out for shells to pave her streets. A certain steamer captain came hither with a tug and barge. He tied to a live oak on one of the cheniers near Little Temple. Next day his tug steamed back to the city towing an empty barge. During the night the captain declared that the ghost of Jean Lafitte had come to his cabin, and with drawn sword demanded the surrender of his vessel, only to fade away and leave the terror - stricken steamboat man bathed in perspiration.
The men who recall these tales are mainly dark-faced, handsome planters of the swampy bayou farms. But sometimes they are native fishermen or grizzled shrimp catchers. Now the storyteller is of pure Spanish origin, again of pure French. Sometimes there is a dash of color in the blood, indicating almost certain descent from some old pirate and his colored mistress.
They are men who believe in dreams and spells and supernatural apparitions. There would seem to be some ground for the belief that their land is accursed. Time after time tidal waves have swept the portions nearest the Gulf Coast, and in the middle days of the last century, when the more enterprising Baratarians had flourishing plantations and hoped to grow as rich as their freebooting ancestors, a crevasse opened in the western bank of the Mississippi, and the plantations were flooded so that cane grew no more. Then the factories turned into picturesque ruins, which stand today, the remnants of a lost civilization.
At the old distributing point near Lake Salvador is a prehistoric shell mound, and on this, beneath the live oaks, lie two brothers, sons of a follower of Lafitte, who even as late as the civil war ruled over Barataria. In the ruins of the old slave hospital lives an ancient negro who served the brothers as a slave. He brings them to life, and lets us see them in one phase of their piratical character.
“ Dey both had niggah wives, ” said he, “an’yallah chilluns. De younges’ he die first. We all niggahs hab to go to de funeral. De odder brudder he read de sermon out’n a book. He read awhile, an’ de li’l’ yallah chilluns ob de dead brudder all cry an’ say, ‘ O daddy, daddy! ’ Den he stop readin’ an’ say, ‘ Shut up, you damn li’l’ niggahs! ’ Den he read some moah. Bimeby de chilluns cry ag’in an’ say, ‘ O daddy, daddy! ’ Den he stop readin’ ag’in an’ say, ‘ Shut up, you damn li’l’ niggahs! Cain’t you alls lemme read dis here sermon fur you all’s damn noise? ’ ”
From a scene like this it is not far to transport ourselves to the day when religion and freebooting went hand in hand; when a buccaneer captain would compel his crew to attend divine worship on Sunday; when he asked the blessing of heaven upon every voyage, asked that his prizes might be easily captured and heavily treasure - laden, and, the conquest complete, read services of thanksgiving.
A little below this point with its graves, we come to the “peach orchard, ” a live oak forest, where in the days of piracy peach trees flourished. In the decade following the war of 1812, the land fell into the hands of a Spaniard, who found upon it a jar of Spanish doubloons that made him immensely rich.
Here a passenger comes on board our little vessel. He is a man of more than fifty years, tall and straight, and dark as an Indian. He is a pleasant man of Spanish descent, and owns one of the rice farms on this bayou. His father was here before him, and his conversation is as full of the strange atmosphere of Barataria as of the quaint accent of the bayous.
“One time, ” he says, “my god-fah’r out on Lake Salvador in evening. He see boy come in boat. De boy seem all tired out. He say to my god-fah’r, ' You take me to Company’s Canal.’ God-fah’r say, ‘ No, boy. I no time take you Company’s Canal, You come home wi’ me an’ stay all night.’ De boy say, ‘ You take me Company’s Canal an’ I give you t’ree hundred dollar’.’ My god-fah’r say he do it. He fasten de boy’s towline to his lugger an’ start. Right away dat boy fast asleep for he all tired out. Bimeby my god-fah’r say, ‘ Here, boy. We at Company’s Canal. ’ Boy get up an’ say, ‘ See what I got. ’ He had a bag an’ dat bag was full of gold pieces shape’ like hearts. He say his fah’r been wid Lafitte, an’ tell him when he die where money was hid. He had work t’ree day to fin’ it. He live ’way down on Lower Coast, an’ god-fah’r never see him again or know his name.”
Some thirty miles below New Orleans, Bayou du Pont branches off to the eastward, Bayou Barataria turns into Bayou Rigulets, and we continue southward through this into Little Lake, a sheet of water some fifteen miles across. Flocks of ducks and pelicans rise from marsh and water. Fishing luggers manned by Hungarians or Malays, or the mixed breed of Barataria, are left behind. We pass Grand Bayou and steam out among the channels, shoals, and bird-covered islands of Barataria Bay. Before us, a low stretch of marsh grass, rising from the waterline, is an island, beyond which we see the great blue Gulf. On the island’s extreme western end stand an abandoned fort and two lighthouses. One of these latter is deserted, and the other marks Grand Pass, the channel between Grande Terre and Grande Isle, the pass by which the schooners of Lafitte sailed from Gulf to bay and back again from bay to Gulf. This low-lying island is Grande Terre. Just westward across the pass is Grande Isle. Here, beyond low stretches of marsh and spits of sand projecting westward, rises a higher bit of land covered with live oaks. Amid the trees, in a spot as fertile and as beautifully flower - covered as any on earth, dwell sons of the Baratarian pirates. On the bayous above we have met children from the same ancestors, but among them are men of a more recent importation, so intermarried and assimilated to the community that it is difficult to tell where the relationship begins or ends. But here the descent is clear and direct.
Grande Terre has been more intimately connected with the name of Lafitte than has the higher island to westward. It was there that he had his fort, — a fort not designed to guard the pass against incoming vessels, as many have supposed, but made to cover the bay and sink any schooner on which a slave cargo might break its bonds or a crew become mutinous. The pirate fort was washed away many years ago, but the channel whereby yawls approached may still be seen. The homes of Barataria were chiefly built on Grande Isle and Chenier Caminada, — the latter a low spit of land projecting from the marsh on the island’s westward side.
In early days there came to be a strange line of demarcation between Grande Isle and the Chenier. The pirates and smugglers who made homes in the bay took unto themselves wives. But like the early Romans they found eligible sweethearts scarce. Some therefore chose the handsomest women from cargoes of negro slaves, which the repeated raids upon plantations in the West Indies gave to Lafitte, and these became mistresses of most Baratarian homes. Others had wives of their own color, — women who left civilization to share the fortunes of pirate lovers, and perhaps other women who, torn from their early homes, became, like the Sabine women, reconciled to their masters.
Gambia, one of the lieutenants of Lafitte, became the nucleus about which clustered the pure white blood of Barataria. He and his descendants lived on Chenier Caminada. Rigault, another lieutenant, manager of transportation, who handled the goods that went from Barataria Bay to the points above, became the leading figure on Grande Isle.
Little by little a caste line grew up between the children of Grande Isle and those of the Chenier. The two communities were friendly. They ate and drank together, and visited at one another’s homes. But it became a rule that no one of colored blood could live on the Chenier.
The sons and daughters of Grande Isle were just as handsome as those of the Chenier, which is saying a good deal, for the tall, straight, active bodies and well-modeled, sun-blackened faces are full of a beauty peculiarly their own. True, too, Grande Isle men and women were just as intelligent and just as well to do. The two peoples were shriven by the same priest when the latter made his periodical visit from a station of Bayou Lafourche, and gathered in the same little chapel to say their prayers. They had the same teacher, and went to the same balls and the same quaint celebrations of the holidays. But parents of pure white origin drew the line at the marriage of their children with those of far-off colored ancestry.
Yet the youths of the Chenier have persisted in loving the handsome daughters of the island, and the daughters of the Gambia faction have not disdained the sons of Rigault’s clan. So the sons and daughters of the Chenier have married the daughters and sons of Grande Isle.
Parents have opposed, pleaded, threatened, and cursed. To the Baratarian a parent’s curse is something dreadful. In a community where men put out to sea in little boats, where tropical storms rage and sweep island homes to sudden destruction, where death is ever lurking in a hundred forms, the man accursed stands an excellent chance to meet an untimely fate. And when such an one dies, it is easy to remember that he was under a curse, and to forget that many others died in the same manner. It may be, too, among men who believe in the weird and supernatural that the dreaded parent’s curse serves as a handicap. Perhaps in the critical moment of danger the belief in a certain doom furnishes just sufficient force to take away the trifle of strength and courage that makes the difference between life and death. At any rate, many a son and many a daughter have been crushed when an angry parent upon the Chenier called down evil from heaven to rest upon a child that must from now on live upon Grande Isle with a parti-colored mate.
One of my first acquaintances among the pirate people was a man who had been so accursed. He is Mandeville Marques, a Spaniard by descent, some sixty years old, and grandson of a follower of Lafitte. I had left the little vessel, and with the ancient trader in command had landed and was walking about Grande Isle. The Marques home lay in the midst of gardens where roses bloomed amid cauliflower, cabbage, and cucumbers. Like all Grande Isle houses, it stood on posts some four feet high, to guard against any sudden tidal wave. It was made of unpainted cypress boards. Oak and banana trees gave shade. Young orange trees flourished in front, in the place of older ones, which succumbed to the cold of ’98. A line of coops containing gamecocks stood just westward of the house. It was these that brought my escort to the place. For Marques is a breeder of cocks as well as a professional hunter. The owner stepped from the house. He is something more than six feet in height. His shoulders set well back, and his head is proudly poised. A red bandana, knotted in cowboy fashion, is his only neckwear, and furnishes contrasting background for a grizzled beard. We must step inside and have a drink of wine or milk or coffee. The room is bare save for a bed, chairs, a long-barreled duck gun, and a stand on which are glasses and bottles of wine. The bed has high posts and is hung with mosquito netting.
“Blank says you have some gaffs for him,” began the trader.
“Not so,” shortly replied Marques.
“He said you promised him some gaffs to go with the chicken you sent him last week.”
“Never say it. Never say it. Not got gaffs to give away. I sell cocks. I sell gaffs.”
Then followed the sale of two murderous-looking gaffs made by hand, according to the rule handed down through generations of cock-breeding Spanish ancestors. Leaving the house, we met Madame Marques. Her age was not far from that of her husband, but one could see signs of a handsome girlhood. Her head was tied in a colored handkerchief. She spoke no English, but when she saw us look at a specially beautiful rosebush she came forward and insisted on cutting a bouquet for each.
Marques comes from a family of pure Spanish blood. His wife has a fraction of color. His father opposed the marriage, and pronounced a curse upon all children of the union. Might none ever grow to manhood to disgrace the name of Marques. Sure enough, of the two sons born, one was killed in childhood, while the other grew to be a man in body, but remained a child in mind.
The oldest man on Grande Isle is Victor Rigault, son of the Rigault who served Lafitte as lieutenant. We came upon him kneeling in his garden among beds of early cucumbers. His beard was white, and his shoulders stooped. He wore a broad palmetto hat, and arose on our approach to greet us with “bon jour.” Born in 1823, he remembers the time when his father’s comrades discussed their adventures beneath the black flag. But he is shy of the subject, and is not proud of the fact that his fathers were freebooters. He has seen the storms that have swept the region during seventy-eight years, and tells of them in Baratarian French.
In that time many have been the vicissitudes of his family. Down by the bay, on the spit of land where our skiff approached the island, stand the ruins of the first Rigault home. A great brick cistern and the foundation posts of a house are all that remain. Victor tells us that these are the ruins of his father’s home, long ago swept away by storm. The foundation was laid for another, and part of the building was complete, when a second storm came and swept this also away. A house was then built back from the beach among the orange trees, but this was destroyed by fire. Now Victor lives in a little low frame building. His wife came down from the house as we approached. She is very dark save for her snow-white hair, and wore a curious brown sunbonnet with triangular flaps sticking out on each side, giving the impression of wings. In her ears were plain gold rings.
In early days the Rigaults were rich. They owned a sugar plantation on the island, and Victor and his brother did an extensive business in the city. Defying custom, they deposited money in New Orleans banks. Then came the civil war: the banks failed. A tidal wave ruined the plantation, and the family went back to depend upon fishing luggers, duck boats, and gardens for income, and on shell heap and chimney for places of deposit.
This latter method of saving is almost the only one in Barataria, and for this reason coin is much more popular than paper in the trade. It is asserted by those who have long traded here that an immense amount of old Spanish coin is still in the possession of Baratarian families. However true or false the tales may be, it is certain that in two instances, at least, the great storm of ’93, which tore down houses and cut channels through the levees, did reveal the hiding-places of Spanish doubloons.
Chenier Caminada is some inches lower than Grande Isle, and has less protection from trees. As a result, almost its entire population perished in the last great storm. Many valuable relics of the old days were lost. One family, according to an old resident, had some wonderfully fine oil paintings, handed down by fathers who had snatched them from heaven knows where. These went tumbling into the sea with the house and its inhabitants. Others had old guns, swords, and divers relics, all of which were lost. Grande Isle is fortunate in having oak trees, many of them, in its settled portion. When waves came up over the land these broke the force. Several men lived through that night of awful storm in treetops. Others escaped because their houses were held by trees and prevented from going out to sea.
It is on an occasion such as that of the last storm that the pirate blood in the Baratarians shows itself. One whose house was blown from its foundation, who spent part of the night clinging to the roof, and saw at daybreak a steamer stranded in his own front yard, tells me that next day the younger generation broke forth in acts of lawlessness, running here and there, from ruin to ruin, plundering every house, and looking in tumble - down chimneys and beneath brick foundation posts for hidden gold. Not content with this, they carried away boards from houses, and every bit of furniture or other property that could be useful. This was not the work of the older ones, but of the youngsters, whose inherited love of loot had not been suppressed by years of discipline.
The population of Grande Isle is something like twelve hundred persons. The life is an easy one of plenty. Never have I seen such fruits, such vegetables, and such flowers. On the April days spent there we found blackberries, half as large as a man’s thumb, growing in every spot which cultivation had not claimed. The gardens were full of the finest peas, beans, cabbages, tomatoes, and nearly every other vegetable that is prized in the early market. The poorest is never hungry. Besides the garden produce, which he may gather every month in the year, he has oysters for the taking, and a single cast of the net will always yield a mess of fish. Crabs and turtles are likewise plentiful at all times.
The land was early apportioned among the families by common agreement, and remains to-day practically as thus divided. The Rigault estate belongs to the Rigault family, and on the west gives way to the land of the Ludwigs. Narrow little lanes, whose bordering live oaks intertwine their branches above the way, separate farm from farm. The low ground where marsh grass thrives is a common pasturage for cattle.
Attempts have been made by outside parties to invade the island. Years ago planters from Bayou Lafourche and the Lower Coast of the Mississippi resorted hither in summer for the fishing and fine sea bathing. But their hotel was wrecked in the storm of ’93, and those who went through that awful night of tidal fury have not cared to return to a resort so exposed to wind and water.
The loss of the hotel brought little sorrow to the Baratarians, for they have fought unceasingly to preserve their island as it was in the old days. Once a planter from the Lower Coast undertook to purchase a large interest in the island, but the older heads, led by René Rappellet, opposed the sale, declaring that the life Baratarians were living was far better for them than the life that would follow the coming of men from the outside world, with strict views as to the association of whites and men of color. The deal was not made.
Similar has been the fight against any change in the face of the island. Some years ago a movement was started among the younger men to clear away the live oaks and make larger truck gardens. But the older ones placed a veto on the scheme. Honore Coloun, one of the second generation from piracy, a man whose boyhood had been spent on the Chenier, and who had left it with a father’s malediction on marrying a Grande Isle lass with a trace of color, declared that the trees would be the salvation of the island and its people. When the storm came it was seen that his reasoning had been sound.
The storm of ’93 has left its traces over the whole region, not only in the desolation produced, but in the traditions, superstitions, and miracle tales of the people. The wind had been blowing very strongly from the Gulf for several days. Water had been forced into Barataria Bay through the passes, and the bay had risen several feet. One night, at ten o’clock, water had reached some of the gardens, and men believed it was at its worst. At one o’clock the wind changed, and the water which had been piling up in the bay was suddenly forced seaward. The narrow passes could not empty it fast enough, and the masses of liquid, literally piled up by the hurricane, went tearing seaward, through pass and over island alike.
Then men were wakened by the moving of their houses as they rocked in the torrent. Over and over went the smaller structures, and hundreds of the inmates were drowned at once. Some stood the first shock, and families climbed to attic and roof to go floating away: a part to the sea, and a part to the treetops. Many, finding their houses held by the live oaks, remembered the prophetic advice of Coloun. Since that time the live oak has been a sacred tree in Barataria.
Over on the Chenier, where the land was lower and the trees very scarce, the desolation was something awful. Old chimneys, broken and crumbled, told where homes had been. Great pools and ditches showed where whirlwinds and water spouts had torn their way. A few men and women had time to get into their luggers. Some of these came straggling back to look upon the wreck and wait about, hoping the sea might give up their friends.
Those at sea in luggers fared little better than those on shore. One old fisherman told me his story: —
“Dere were twelve luggers where I be. De wind came stronger and stronger. De waves very bad. Den de wind turn and de waves come both ways at once. Whichever way we head we in de trough. Den de boats fill an’ de men drown. Ten of dose twelve boats all gone. When I come back to Chenier, pier gone, house gone, wife gone. It seem like de en’ come to de world.”
One tale of the weird will serve as an example of many. It is a tale that Baratarians tell in all the faith of their simple, quiet lives. Gilbau, a resident of Chenier Caminada, had invited his friends to a feast on the night of the storm. Rare old china was laden with the finest of game. Old wine sparkled in cut glass goblets. Roses and oranges adorned the table. Gilbau arose at the opening of the feast and said in Baratarian French : —
“My friends, I want you to have the best dinner I have ever given you. Later I will tell you why.”
At the close of the meal he arose again and said: —
“I asked you to have the best dinner I could give. I hope you have enjoyed it and will remember, for this is the last night of your neighbor Gilbau. I am going to die to-night. I do not know how, but I know that to-night I shall surely die.”
When Gilbau’s body was washed up by the tide, those of his guests who were alive remembered his words, and another tale of mystery had been added to the many which are handed about in Barataria.
The storms have carried away most of the relics of pirate days. The character of old Barataria is preserved mainly in the conservatism of a quiet, kindly, handsome people. The remains of the old are the strange intermixture of races, the quaint jumble of French, Spanish, and Portuguese tongues, the superstitions, the love of wine, and the fearless seamanship.
Down near the bay, on the shore of Grande Isle, by the old cistern of Lafitte’s day, stands a little collection of brick tombs, that have resisted wind and decay and wave. In one of these lies the body of Rigault the pirate. Once Rigault manned the sloops and yawls which carried slaves and goods from the buccaneer schooners to distributing points above. Once he confounded revenue officers and dealt with polished men, who deemed it no crime to buy in the cheapest market. Now his dust lies on the shore of the bay where formerly his yawls were laden. A dozen little ivory images, a rosary, and a cross are there for the good of his soul. An orange shrub and a thorn bush strive with each other for the honor of giving shade. Harsh Spanish daggers present their sharp, piratical points to the visitor. A mocking-bird sings a song of multitudinous notes. Cardinals whistle and flash in their spring love-making. Now and then a flock of awkward pelicans will circle near, and a great white gull bend his flight close down, as though keeping watch over the dust of a sea-rover once as free and careless as himself.
Leonidas Hubbard, Jr.