On March 9, 1864, Edward Telfair Wilkinson appeared before the recorder of births and deaths for the city of New Orleans to report the death of his four-month-old son. The child, called E.T. Wilkinson after his father, had died at eleven o’clock that morning. The father had not even waited until the next day to register the death. Perhaps he needed to get out of that house full of grief and painful memories.
Back at 197 Canal Street, the home she shared with Wilkinson, Catherine mourned the loss of yet another son. It seemed her sons would not live. This was the third she had buried. Her eldest daughter Virginia Becnel, a seamstress, worked at the basket of mending she had to finish while taking breaks to show four-year-old Lelia a stitch. Her younger sister was supposed to be learning, but her mother’s distress proved a distraction. Catherine held two-year-old Georgiana, another daughter. At least her daughters lived.
Edward Telfair Wilkinson was the son of Captain Nathaniel Green Wilkinson and Georgiana Blanchard of Rapides parish, Louisiana. After attending the College of St. James in Maryland, Wilkinson had followed his father’s calling and was now a Red River boatman himself. He held the important position of pilot, responsible for safely guiding the steamboat along the river. Wilkinson was expected to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the rivers he navigated. He needed to be intimately aware of the shifting sand bars and passages. The Mississippi River in particular was constantly changing, and pilots had to be licensed to show that they were knowledgeable enough to guide steamboats through its many twists, turns, and jetties. A pilot had to be decisive and immensely confident, especially in bad weather or the when blinded by fog. Explosions, wrecks, and constantly moving from one port to another made life on a steamboat a precarious existence. Returning home to Catherine and the children was the one stable factor of Wilkinson’s life.
Lelia and Georgiana’s names honored Edward’s family. His younger sister was called Lelia, and his mother, Georgiana, had died when he was only five years old. Whether or not he was the biological father of Lelia, or if he considered her his own since he had been with Catherine from the time of her birth, remains a mystery. Census records indicate that Lelia was born in September 1859, yet when Catherine went to the register as a free woman of color she included only her daughter Virginia and not Lelia, likely because the child had not yet been born. Lelia was alive and well by May 1860, able to be counted by census takers. Whether Captain Parker was her father or Edward Wilkinson seemed irrelevant to her; she always used the name Wilkinson, after the only father she had ever known.
Shortly after the end of the Civil War, Wilkinson was away on one of his many river trips when tragedy struck. His steamer the Colonel Cowles was on the Mobile River on May 25, 1865, when men on deck noticed black smoke rising up from a warehouse in the city, a depot containing 200 tons of confiscated Confederate gun powder, ammunition, and explosives. Flames soon filled the sky, and all of Mobile shook. A New York Times correspondent reported, “The shock made the city tremble like an aspen, shaking every building to its foundation. The crash of broken glass was heard in every direction, and falling walls made the earth resound like the rumbling of an earthquake.”
J. E. Lockwood, clerk on board Wilkinson’s steamer the Colonel Cowles, described the scene:
Capt. Tucker of the steamer stepped on the wharf and was engaged in conversation with Capt. Southard, to whose ship the cotton was to be taken. The pilot, Mr. Wilkinson, and Mr. Brotherton, Chief Engineer, was sitting on the railing of the boiler deck. I had just taken a chair down stairs to set in, and put it in front of the boilers on the larboard side. Suddenly, without any previous warning, the terrific explosion occurred. It raised me from my chair. I fell down on one knee, picked myself up, but seemed propelled by some invisible power and went headlong overboard. The air seemed filled with infernal missiles. I struck for the pier. Having got up I went back on the steamer and advised the first mate to cut the head line, which he did, I not knowing at the time that the boat was on fire, and with steam already up, we supposed that we could get away from the infernal missiles which were still flying about us. . .At the time of the explosion both the pilot and engineer threw themselves down on the boiler deck, supposing that one of the steam pipes had exploded, but were soon undeceived. Just as soon as the first shock was over, Mr. Wilkinson went up into the pilot house, Mr. Brotherton went down to the engine room. Although missiles were still flying around them, they stood bravely to their posts. Immediately on my informing the mate that the steamer was on fire, he informed the pilot who, only with one engine---one being disabled---brought her in by the steamer N. Thomas, when the balance of the crew, together with Mr. Tucker who was badly wounded, and Mrs. Tucker, his wife, were taken on the wharf, where, surrounded by burning hay, they made signals to a gunboat, which immediately sent a boat to their rescue and took them from their perilous position. Too much credit cannot be given to Mr. [Wilkinson], the pilot, for showing so much nerve in going into the pilothouse at that time, when it was shot almost to pieces---one tiller rope was cut---and through his presence of mind none of the crew was lost with the exception of one cabin boy.
Conflagration at Mobile, caused by the explosion, May 25, 1865, sketched by George Watters. Harper’s Weekly Magazine, June 24, 1865.
Edward’s “presence of mind” in a crisis seemed akin to that shown by Catherine during the many times of turmoil she had endured. The Colonel Cowles was utterly destroyed. The entirety of north Mobile was devastated. Five hundred souls were buried under rubble. The explosions and falling debris claimed the lives of more than three hundred people. The crew received assistance from the captains of two nearby steamers, and printed a card of thanks in the newspaper “for their kindness manifested to us in providing for our immediate wants after escaping from the terrible explosion to which we were exposed, and having lost everything.” The clerk, chief engineer, and pilot E.T. Wilkinson signed. Wilkinson must have been relieved to return home to Catherine and the children. Catherine would have received the news in horror. Shock and relief must have overwhelmed her; she was seven months pregnant, left home alone caring for three children.
On July 23, 1865, Catherine again gave birth to a son. They called him Nathaniel Telfair Wilkinson, after his grandfather Nathaniel and father Edward Telfair. After all they had endured, the couple was due some good fortune. This was the son who would live. Yet he would not be considered the legitimate son of his father. Under Louisiana law, Catherine and Edward could not marry, for it was illegal for a white man to have a woman of mixed race as a wife.
By 1870, Catherine and Edward were still together, yet she did not take his name. The census taker recorded her as Kate Becknell; she was listed first, almost as head of household, yet her occupation was “keeping house.” Edward Wilkinson was still working as a pilot. Virginia, Kate’s daughter with Lezin Becnel, was now seventeen years old and, like her mother, still using her biological father’s name. At ten years old, Lelia attended school, while younger siblings Georgiana, age eight, and Nathaniel, age five, remained at home. The most significant element of this census record was that the entire household’s race was listed as white. At the time in Louisiana, even a person with only one-quarter African ancestry, like Catherine’s children, were still considered black, and trying to “pass” as white could have serious consequences. Yet the family chose to cross the color line, probably in an effort to receive better educations, housing, treatment, and jobs.
Once she had been a slave. Then she was a free person of color. Now on an official federal document she was a white woman, which was for her an elevation in status and freedom. The opportunities available to her children by crossing the color line cannot be downplayed. Being black in Louisiana would have affected almost every aspect of their lives, from where they sat in the streetcar to the schools they attended to whether or not they had to step aside when someone who was of a supposed superior race came walking by. Catherine’s conscious choice to ensure that her children beat the system must have made her both anxious and hopeful. If they covered their tracks and carefully obfuscated their pasts, Catherine’s children could have a future she had never dreamed possible. Did her thoughts ever return to her mother back in Virginia, whose dark hands had held and comforted her? Did the memories bring her guilt and ambivalence, or did they further instill in her the determination that the choice she was making was the right one for her family? We will never know the inner-workings of Catherine’s heart.