Mary Cane: Gambler's daughter

Stories about pioneer Mary Cane are many; few are substantiated. Separating myth from fact is easier with ever growing digitized databases, but still many “facts” in the story of Mary Cane must be taken with grains of salt varying in size..

- Lani Duke

Sometimes called “the mother of Shreveport,” she preceded Captain Henry Miller Shreve to the bend in the Red River where a city would soon take root.

Mary Doal Cilley Bennett was the child of Samuel Bennett and Comfort Batchelder, born in Chichester, Merrimack, N.H., according to Ancestry.com. The record shows her as having one child, James H. Bennett.

A Find-A-Grave contributor wrote that Mary’s father was a professional gambler who “played chequers unusually well” but believed that playing for the sake of the game was a waste of time without $10 or more at stake. He became a land and slave owner in Alabama, the writer indicates, but does not say whether those possessions were the result of successful wagers.

When Capt. Henry Miller Shreve arrived at the Red River to begin clearing the “Great Raft” debris from its channel and make the waterway navigable, he found the trading post of Mary and William Smith Bennett and James Huntington Cane already established on Bennett’s Bluff (today’s riverfront up to the Spring Street Museum.