“We are the Pelican Girls. In 1704, Fort Louis at Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff was full of young, French soldiers who were harassing the native women. Bienville wrote to the king asked him to send nice young women to marry the men. They scoured the orphanages and found 23 girls willing to get on a boat named the Pelican. The girls were 14 to 19 years old and came with little boxes, called caskets, filled with everything they owned. The arrived on Massacre Island, later renamed Dauphin Island, in later summer 1704. Most were married in less than two months. There were more girls that followed and they were called “casket girls”.

The organizer of the new Massacre Island Secret Society came up with the idea of story groups and we started the Pelican Girls. We landed on Massacre Island last weekend, just like the originals. This weekend we arrived in Mobile.”