Louisiana
50 STATES: LOUISIANA (page 1)
“50 States: Louisiana” starts with the story of Jeremge Beauchamp and his cabin boy.
In 1724, Captain Jeremge Beauchamp, the captain of a merchant vessel in Colonial Louisiana, was busted for having an affair with his cabin boy. As punishment, the colonial authorities assigned the cabin boy to another ship and forbade the two from seeing each other. Beauchamp promptly went to the other ship, stole his lover back, and the two took off down the Mississippi River on their ship, La Bellone en route home to France.
They made it as far as Dauphin Island, off the coast of what is now Alabama, where the ship sank in perfectly clear weather and calm seas . . .