Mile 79.0 - Miles 79-77: English Turn Bend
79 - 77 English Turn Bend
English Turn Bend and makes a tight turn in excess of 90 degrees around Shingle Point, which means another blind corner. In addition to the usual unknowns coming around a blind corner, the currents are powerful here even at low water, and a giant eddy forms around Shingle Point, extending halfway across the channel. This eddy forces all of the fast water into a single concentrated flow, a giant tongue to use whitewater paddler’s language. This giant tongue sticks out a miles down into the bend, curving southward as it goes. Upstream freighters (and other traffic) tend to stay in the slower water closer to Shingle Point. Downstream traffic meanwhile will remain solidly in the middle of the channel and follow the faster water as much as possible. For the freighters, fast water usually means deeper water, which is their ultimate concern, as result of their 45 foot draft full loaded.
“You are on the Wrong River!”
On September 16, 1699, Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur de Bienville, was descending the Lower Mississippi in a small boat with a handful of men when he met an English ship that had dropped its anchor in a great bend of the river below the bend in which the city of New Orleans is now located. The ship was under the command of Captain Lewis Bond, who had been engaged to take a group of settlers to the Mississippi to establish a British colony on the lower reaches of the river. Bienville, a lad of 19 at the time, had an air of authority that belied his years. Haughtily informing the English captain that he was on the wrong river, Bienville declared that this one was claimed by the French. A large force of French ships and French soldiers was following close behind him, Bienville added casually, and should appear in the bend above very soon. The young Frenchman's monumental bluff succeeded. Captain Bond raised his anchor, turned his vessel, and hurried back out into the Gulf of Mexico. From that time forward, the bend was known as "English Turn." (Braggs)
Later the French officials erected a small fort on the west bank at English Turn. The old fortification, called Fort St. Leon, was strengthened by the Americans during the War of 1812, when batteries were erected and a garrison was stationed there for the protection of New Orleans.