Sudden illness ended captain’s career

Hinckley Street and the century-old Hinckley house in the old St. Landry Parish town of Washington are reminders that Oramel Hinckley was one of the most significant steamboat captains in the heyday of Bayou Courtableau.
The bayou is only 43 miles long, but for three-quarters of a century its geographical reach extended far beyond its length, and its economic reach made Washington and the region around it prosperous. The Courtableau was an important steamboat channel, and Washington was one of the most important ports in the state, perhaps in the whole Mississippi River system. It was the main shipping point for crops, cattle, and passengers bound from south Louisiana for New Orleans, and for trade goods coming here from the city.
The first steamboat, Opelousas, came to Washington in 1830. The last, Warren, left in May of 1900. In between, more than 100 boats called on the little port at one time or another, and Hinckley steered several of them, while building warehouses and other businesses to serve the boats and the shippers who used them.
Newspaper advertisements list him as master of the Irene (1865), W. Burton (1859), J. M. Sharpe (1866), and J. D. Hinde (1866). He was almost certainly involved with other boats over three decades in the bayou trade.
The editor of the Opelousas Courier wrote in September 1865, when Hinckley brought the Irene to the Courtableau, “It appears that nothing more can be desired either for the comfort of passengers or for the confidence which shippers place in her. It is useless to speak of her captain, as everybody knows that for the last twenty-five years he has been in our trade.”
At least by early 1866 he also owned warehouses that gathered cargo for his boats, advertising that the firm of O. Hinckley & Son was “ready to receive … at our Warehouses at Washington, Sugar, Cotton, [and] products of all kinds.” About a year later, he announced plans for a “magnificent and fireproof warehouse … 103 feet in length,” that promised to be “a great ornament to Port street.”
Business was good and all was going well for Hinckley until July 1868, when the Courier announced an “unavoidable misfortune … requiring the immediate suspension of all business of O. Hinckley & Son.” He’d suffered a debilitating blow to his health, and died five months later at age 55.
“Capt. Hinckley was too well and favorable [sic] known for us to repeat here his good qualities. His … simple and open urbanity of manners, and other qualities of the heart that will long be remembered by many,” the Courier eulogized. “[He] came to our parish about thirty years ago … [and] leaves a family and a large circle of friends to whom his remembrance will ever be dear.”
Local Masons wore a badge of mourning “as a slight testament” to “an affectionate husband and indulgent father [and] … honest and upright citizen,” one of the “most sterling members” of the community.
Shortly after his death, his widow Anna Hawley Hinckley and merchant Louis Stagg, announced that Hinckley & Stagg, “receiving and forwarding merchants,” had opened “at the old stand of Hinckley & Son,” and that Stagg planned a separate grocery store there.
The sale notice for the Hinckley estate listed “the last residence of the deceased” on what is now Hinckley Street, three other residential lots, several commercial lots, and an interest in “the lower bridge across the Bayou Carron.” (In those days the bridge was a privately owned toll bridge.)
The inventory also included four cows, several horses, household furniture, kitchen utensils, crockery, an office desk, an iron safe and its contents, bookcases and books, two pairs of scales, a clock, a stove, pictures and parlor ornaments, and a piano, and guitar.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.