A wreath-laying ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Battle of Lake Pontchartrain was held Sept. 10 on the Mandeville Lakefront.
The event, which was sponsored by the city of Mandeville, the Sons of the American Revolution and the Granaderos y Damas de Galvez, remembered the little-known but important naval battle that took place on Sept. 10, 1779, and eventually ended a British blockade on the port of New Orleans.
Though almost all of the American Revolution was fought on the East Coast of the continent, a British sloop and a Continental Navy schooner met in a fierce fight for control of the waterways surrounding New Orleans on Sept. 10, 1779. At the time, Britain controlled the northshore and its ship was a commanding presence in the lake. The south shore, including New Orleans, was led by the Spanish colonial governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Galvez, who quietly helped the American revolutionaries in their quest for freedom from British rule…