| Abstract | Photo and bio of Captain John Cowdon, "the originator and projector of the 'Barataria Ship Canal' of Louisiana," born in 1824 in Arkansas Territory, becoming "a river steamboat clerk" in 1844 until moving to New Orleans in 1854, then to Memphis, Tennessee, and Cape Girardeau, Missouri, after the Civil War, engaging in the construction of "the 'Barataria canal,' for ocean and river steamboats on the Mississippi River. |
