©Public Domain
In January of 1911, Schoonover and his new bride traveled to Cuba and the bayou country of Louisiana for their honeymoon. In both locations, the artist visited the haunts of the pirates, sketched the environs, took photographs, and made notes with the plan of writing and illustrating an article on the infamous pirate, Jean Lafitte. Schoonover’s wife did research in the library while her husband continued to scour the bayous.
In this illustration, Vidette, leaning forward warily, waits in the ‘pirogue,’ guarding the entrance to Lafitte’s lair. The cluster of weeds, typical of the bayous in Louisiana, provides the perfect hiding place for the pirate. Schoonover took photographs of the bayou grasses reflecting his determination to be authentic about the details as well as the boat, the clothing and the objects.
In a letter to Alex H Lappe, Esq. in 1912, Schoonover wrote: “I made a trip through the various bayous to the islands and and there discovered some of the descendents of the Pierre Lafitte band…I paddled about in just such a green pirogue as you see in the picture…took up my position back of a fringe of salt marsh grass and watched the Gulf.”
