Category: Louisiana

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New Orleans to Baton Rouge the Plantations

We’d already discovered that there are about 70 plantation homes along the Louisiana Scenic route road, and a dozen that offer tours. We chose three that have different histories to Southdown Manor in Houma and learned a lot about the sugar plantations, the mansions, and the people who lived and worked there. Along the route we were very surprised to see how much water lay on either side of the roads. There were many, many, miles of swamps and effectively, unusable land.

Destrehan, the closest to New Orleans, is also the oldest plantation in the Mississippi Valley. We were greeted with a very warm and humid day and by staff and guides in traditional period costume, complete with petticoats and hoops. Wonderful when in the air conditioning of the gift shop. Not so, walking around in the heat and humidity. We were the first to arrive so had time to have a lovely chat with the guides who were very happy to pose for pictures.

The history of Destrehan begins with Jean Baptiste Honore Detrehan Sieur De Peaupre (1716-1765), an obvious Frenchman whose father was a counselor to King Louis XIV. He arrived in Louisiana and in 1745 married Catherine de Gauvry, moved into her family home and together had 7 children. After his death, Jean Baptiste’s youngest two sons moved in with their elder sister and her sugar plantation owners husband, Etienne DeBore. In 1776 Etienne bought them their own plantation with their inheritance and ten years later, the youngest, Jean Noel married Celeste Robin de Longny. Her father contracted Charles Paquet, a mulatto slave (someone with African and European ancestry) and master builder to construct a French Colonial style house which began in 1787. This would be Destrehan.

Charles Paquet

The plan of the house and the contract

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and like many of the plantations, it moved from growing indigo to sugar, becoming the top sugar producing plantation in the region. As one of the wealthiest and influential plantation owners, Jean Noel was appointed to the Orleans Territorial Council, tasked with creating Louisiana’s government. They take great pride in showcasing the original document signed by Jean Noel, President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison (who would become the fourth US president). It’s kept in a dimmed room below the house in a climate controlled, sealed case. No photos allowed!

Sugar production was also much more labour intensive than indigo, requiring double the manpower. Destrehan’s slave population grew from 49 to 100 with the change to sugar and by 1861, managed over 200 slaves. The dwellings they called home were very much different to the opulence of the manor and several slave dwellings have been relocated from the plantation to the grounds.

These divided cabins would have housed two families with two rooms each. One as a kitchen, sitting room and bedroom and the other, a second bedroom. There was one chimney in the centre with a fireplace in each side and timber shutters covered the windows. Bedding was stuffed with the Spanish moss we’d learned about earlier and while this house displayed an original bed, because the inhabitant was capable of making it, most slaves slept on the floors and they were often dirt, not brick as this depicts.

The list on the wall details the name of every man, woman and child slave on the property, in the hope that their contribution to Louisiana’s history is forgotten.

Our guide regaled us with interesting stories about the house and its inhabitants, including a period tea box complete with a block of tea. No tea bags or even loose leaf tea here! It weighed about 1 lb. or 1/2 kilo and you broke a small piece off to steep in boiling water in a tea pot.

We learned about Marguerite, a slave who was purchased with her two children as the plantation cook and laundress and how formal and tedious the cooking and provision of meals was for the family. As is routine for this era manor, the kitchen was a separate building away from the house. Firstly, to stave off any fires destroying the house and secondly, because it was considered extremely gauche to have cooking smells wafting around the manor. Once cooked, the food was carried to the butlers pantry (a room making a resurgence today to keep the mess from cooking hidden away) in the house and kept warm over coals. Meals were traditionally many courses which only the adults eating at the dining table. The children ate in a separate room next to the butlers pantry and were then whisked away by childminding slaves.

It was Marguerite’s job to tend to the whim’s of the family. She was the chief cook and the one who was present at the dining table. She delivered the food, and cleared the table after each course. That required removing every piece of tableware, cutlery, plates, glasses etc. and removing the top tablecloth to reveal a fresh, crisp tablecloth underneath. Then the table was reset for the next course. There were numerous courses, sometimes, as many as 7 so that’s seven times this ritual was performed for every dinner. The meals were often sumptuous displays of the wealth of the household, including “meat, fish and fowl,” breads, cheese, freshly churned butter and cream, fresh vegetables and fruits picked form the kitchen garden. Imagine completing this task for breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week, sometimes for many extra guests, and having to wash all of these extra table cloths and dishes ready for the following day. Not to mention, preparing and cooking the food in the first place. Marguerite, and her children remained slaves during their lives.

Our guide then took us upstairs to a loft room which shows how the house was built and explained details of its building. It measures 60 ft. x 35 ft. and is surrounded by a 12 ft. balustrade gallery. The house was completed in 1790 with a double-pitched roof and using Louisiana Cypress, which, due to its ability to survive and thrive in swampy conditions, makes it incredibly hard wearing and durable and not subject to the wood rot that infects other timbers. It is one reason why so many of these plantation homes remain in such good condition.

Our tour completed, we were free to wander around the grounds, read the information in the slave dwellings about their lives and enjoy the shade of the 200+ year old oak trees.

I couldn’t resist this little fellow, considering he posed so nicely!

Next up, a trip over the mighty Mississippi river to Laura Plantation and the story of a Louisiana Creole family.

This house and the tour are unique because Laura actually lived in the house and wrote her memoirs in her later life, entitled Memories of the Old Plantation Home & A Creole Family Album and written by Laura Locoul Gore in 1936. Of course, we are relying on her memories of events, written many decades after they occurred, but it still gives a different insight into life at this plantation, especially considering its female biases.

We were on the last tour of the day and again, were the only two, so were able to ask numerous questions. I wondered if we received more candid answers than during the Destrehan tour when we were tacked onto a bus group of about 20 people.

The 12,000 acres which comprised the Laura plantation was amassed by Guillaume Dupare by 1804 and the homestead completed in 11 months. It is raised off the ground on brick columns which created a large underground cellar.

Louisiana Cypress made the structure and it was bricked and plastered inside and stuccoed and painted outside. The house was 24,000 square feet and the separate kitchen another 2,500 ft. The house served as a business headquarters and a venue for large and lavish parties and social gatherings.

Four generations of Locoul’s lived at Laura, who was herself born on the plantation in 1861. But much of her life was spent among various other homes in New Orleans’ French Quarter. In fact, she moved away from the plantation in 1891 when she married Charles Gore, living in his home town St Louis, Missouri. It is because of the manuscript she penned, which wasn’t discovered until 1993, well after her death, that the history of the plantation is so detailed.

After Guillaume’s death in 1808, his wife Nanette Prud’homme ran the manor and the plantation and was the first of four generations of women to manage the plantation. Laura’s grandmother Elizabeth, also outlived her husband and ran the plantation for a further 47 years. She left the property to her son Emile (Laura’s father) and her daughter Aimee. She returned to France having no inclination to run the plantation and Emile renamed it after his daughter Laura. Upon her departure in 1892, it was a condition of the sale that the business remain known as the Laura Plantation.

While we visited the “big house” much of the tour revolved around the slaves and their stories, as remembered by Laura in her memoir.

The four remaining slave cabins are original and were build during the 1840s. By the civil war era, the 1860s, there were 185 slaves that lived and worked on the plantation. When the emancipation was signed in 1866, the majority of slaves remained and continued living in these cabins. Some of their descendants still lived in those cabins until 1977.

The first register of slaves was undertaken in 1808 and there are 17 names on the inventory. Some were born slaves in Louisiana but there are also 5 other African nationalities listed. The inventory provides a name, age if known, skill set and cost of purchase. Historians have pieced together the lives of some of these slaves and in conjunction with Laura’s memoir, their stories are recorded.

Betsey was 29 years old, 5′ 2 1/2″ tall and bought for $550 in 1824. She came from St. Dominigue (now Haiti) and she was a washerwoman, cook and seamstress. It’s assumed her work a a domestic was not suitable because in 1826 she was sold on to his mother-in-law, Nanette Dupare for $600 as only “fit for the field.”

Cyrus Denelin was a “good blacksmith.” Consequently, he was the most expensive slave purchased by the plantation. He was purchased in 1840 at the age of 24 for $2,000. After the civil war, Cyrus started his own successful blacksmith shop and Raymond Locoult was a witness to his marriage.

Sam O’Brien, 23 years old, and 5′ 9″ was sold to Nanette Prudhomme Duparc for $825. he spoke English and struggled on the French-speaking plantation. He escaped but was caught and branded with VDR (referring to his owner) after a poster advertising a $10 reward was published in 1824. He then remained on the plantation and was listed on subsequent inventories in 1829, 1852, 1855 and 1860, but without an occupation. Considering his worth was listed as only $300 in 1852 it is assumed he was a field or menial worker. A plantation journal of 1864 records his death of smallpox.

After three tours around very different plantation homes, we were amassing knowledge of life on the plantation for both the owners and the slaves and it was clear how very different their lives were. Although some slaves were able to manumit from slavery, their lives were manifestly different from the privileged few who owned and lived in the “big houses.”

The last antebellum plantation mansion we visited was Nottoway, an imposing Greek revival/Italian style built for John Hampton Randolph (of THE Randolph’s) in 1859. 

Today, it is a resort venue for weddings, and conferences.  It has 2 restaurants and the bedrooms in the house have had modern ensuites added and are used for accommodation.  There are extensive gardens, beautiful trees, a pool, games room, tennis courts and gym, many utilising the existing buildings.

Our tour was of the main plantation manor and again, we were the only visitors.  The land Nottoway sits on had been a tobacco plantation from 1718 operating with 17 slaves.  John Hampton Randolph arrived in Mississippi in 1820 with his family because his father was appointed as a federal judge by President Monroe.  He married Emily Jane Liddell in 1837 and together they had 11 children.  John realised how lucrative sugar had become, so to increase his wealth, in 1842 he moved his family to Louisiana, bought 1,650 acres of land that would become Nottoway and where cotton had replaced tobacco, replanted sugar cane.  He built a sugar mill in 1844 and tripled his income.  By 1854 he had acquired 7,116 acres of land and managed 176 slaves.  In 1855 he added to his holding with an additional 400 acres of Mississippi river frontage and had the house built, naming it Nottoway after the county in Virginia where he was born.

Similarly to the other manors we’d visited, cypress logs were used extensively throughout the house.  After felling we learned they were cured in the river for 6 years and then dried.  The bricks used were hand made by slaves on the property and 40 carpenters, masons and plumbers were hired.  The house was completed in 1859.  By 1860 they had also built 42 slave cabins, a bathhouse, hospital, schoolhouse, greenhouse, stable and added a steam-powered sugar mill and meeting house which was also used as a creche to mind slaves’ children while they worked.

When the American Civil War began, John’s 3 eldest sons left to fight for the Confederates and as the fighting neared Nottoway, he moved 200 slaves to Texas to grow cotton while his wife and the youngest children remained behind in the hope that this might save it from being ravaged during the war.  His plan worked, because although some of the grounds and buildings were damaged, the manor was spared.  The only damage Nottoway received was a canon ball shot that became embedded in a front pillar and remained there until 1971 when it fell out.

When the war concluded, he returned to Nottoway with most of his slaves who had few other choices for work but by 1875, with sugar cane losing value, he reduced his land holding to 800 acres.  He died at the property in 1883 and his wife Emily, sold the plantation in 1889, dividing the $50,000 received between her 9 remaining children.  She died in Baton Rouge in 1904.  The property then changed hands several times, until the most recent inhabitants, Stanford and Odessa Owen.  They resided in Nottoway from 1949 until he died in 1974.  In 1980 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places but unable to maintain the extensive house and grounds, Odessa sold the plantation to Arlin Dease with the stipulation that she be able to reside in the house until her death.  When she died in 2003, Dease restored Nottoway then sold it to Australian health care billionaire Paul Ramsay in 1985 for $4.5 million.  It was Ramsay who spent in excess of $15 million converting it into property to the resort destination we see today.

The interior was incredibly opulent with period antique furniture and fittings.  Even the guest bedrooms had the traditional 4 poster beds.

At the conclusion of the hour-long tour, we were able to wander around the grounds at our leisure, and we didn’t see another sole.

Continuing along our roads less travelled, we followed the Mississippi river, arriving at Donaldsonville (there are a lot of towns whose names end in “ville”). Where we had an interesting walk around the town.  We learned that they were Confederates during the war and like many of the small towns we’ve visited, they are proud of their history and their town.

The church was quite beautiful. Founded in 1772, on orders by King Charles III of Spain, the first stones were laid in 1876 but it wasn’t completed for 20 years.

We wandered around the crypts and tombs in the cemetery noting that they, too were all above ground.

We had parked a distance from the main town and walked through the suburbs, new and old to reach the town centre. On the way back I couldn’t resist taking snaps of this interesting domicile.

We guessed this was their security device.

We had one last stop on our journey through Louisiana. Baton Rouge and the state capital building.

As we drove in, we passed one of the 29 locks of the upper Mississippi River, the Port Allen lock. It is the largest free-floating lock of its kind and also one of the busiest.

We drove over the Huey P. Long bridge, opened in 1935 to commemorate the Governor, who was also assassinated in the same year.

We headed for the CBD and the State Capitol Building which is situated among beautiful parklands adjacent the Mississippi River.  They also have the most adorable squirrels and this one posed every so nicely for his photo.

They also have, as we’ve discovered at each of the State Capital buildings we’ve visited, a replica Liberty bell.

The capital building is 137 meters tall with 34 stories. Two separate lifts whisk visitors up 27 floors to an observation deck with 360-degree views of the city.

We were also able to wander around and enjoy the grandeur of the halls of power, so to speak.

Including the Senate chamber that was in session but had broken for lunch.

Our last stop in Louisiana was the historic town of Natchez. Settled by the French in 1716 it is the oldest non-native settled region on the Mississippi River and where we picked up the Natchez Trace Parkway, all the way to Nashville, Tennessee.

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Antebellum Louisiana and New Orleans

We arrived at Lake Fausse Pointe State Park late afternoon and were told by the park ranger to choose any spot to park for the night. I know I’m overusing the word, but this was another surprising place. We didn’t expect every RV spot to be on a raised asphalt slab surrounded by 6 inches or more of water. The road was also raised above the water which spread out through the trees like a swamp. We weren’t inclined to venture outside because there were certainly mosquitos and other biting bugs.

The following morning was eerily foggy, warm and building up to be humid but we dressed to repel the bities, coated ourselves with a layer of Rid and headed off to do some of the hikes.

As the name suggests, the park encompasses a lake with numerous waterways. We found out later from the ranger that they’d had quite a bit of rain recently and that the park wasn’t usually surrounded by so much water at this time of year. It was “unseasonal” to repeat that word again! Consequently, most of the hiking trails were wetter than we were prepared to hike on. Not to be deterred, we walked the length of the park on the road, discovered a boardwalk that wasn’t underwater and realised that it was actually quite a large park.

It’s on 6,000 acres of Atchafalaya Basin and advertises that “fishing, boating and canoeing abound.” There were more than 45 RV sites, a number of large grassy areas for tents, and also backcountry tent sites, three glamping tents on the edge of the lake and 20 or more large log cabins set over the lake with ramps from the car parks. Add to that a playground and water play park and we could see the attraction for families. But not when it was this wet, or during summer when it gets to 115 F ( 46 C) and 95 % humidity.

Before long we saw a Danger Alligators sign and if we’d been in Australia and that said saltwater crocodiles, we would have stayed well clear of any water. However, the locals call the alligators “swamp puppies” which we believe is code for “not aggressive.” So we started keeping our eyes open.

If you forgot how humid it already was at 7.30am and how many tiny bugs were flying around us but getting deterred by our generous coating of Rid, it was actually a very beautiful place.

Eventually, we found the Lake and it was certainly much bigger than we imagined. Occasionally, there were birds chirping but mostly it was just eerily quiet. And then we spied our first alligator, just gliding along with a nose out of the water. Before long we’d seen another couple at a distance. I do love seeing critters in their natural habitat, even alligators.

Once we knew what to look for, we realised there were actually quite a few in the water, so as per usual, I took about 50 photos and a number of videos!

Then, on the return past the cabins we spied this magnificent specimen, drying out on one of the docks by the cabins. In fact, right next to the canoe shed! They might call them swamp puppies but I’m not getting in any kind of boat, much less swimming in any waterway where something this size is lurking.

However, I was emboldened by the swamp puppy tag to climb up into the canoe shed and onto the top beam to get a closer, but safer viewpoint.

Number 26 your canoe is ready.

He certainly wasn’t underfed

I know he looks fake , but I can assure you he was real! And he wasn’t sleeping either, as we found out when Peter started climbing up to my vantage point. He got back in the water at a great rate of knots!

Once he splashed back into the water, we saw another two swimming towards the dock and just hovering in the water by the cabins. We wondered if they got fish from people, even though signs say don’t feed the wildlife. Our suspicions were confirmed by the ranger who said they often have to speak to people who throw fish offcuts into the water by the cabins.

As difficult as it was to drag ourselves away, the humidity was ramping up so a shower and A/C was very appealing.

When we chose this road less travelled, we didn’t imagine it would be a single lane, gravel track between the lake on our right and a levee bank on our left. We’d come out of the park and turned right like the GPS said but after several miles of driving, the road hadn’t changed. Returning the way we’d come meant driving 17 miles back to the previous town which we were disinclined to do. And to be honest, this dirt track was smoother than a lot of the main highways we’ve driven on, so we continued.

As you can see, Lake Fausse Pointe was quite expansive.

We encountered a slight hiccup about 10 miles down the track when we came to an incredibly old and narrow, single lane bridge with road workers doing levee bank work. Initially, we thought Joey was too wide to cross the bridge, notwithstanding the rough track that was dug up from the large machinery. We would have struggled to turn around too, so I got out and walked backwards across the bridge, checking each side as Peter drove ever so slowly across. Luckily it was only a short span and we made it over with a few inches on each side spare, collectively heaving a sigh of relief.

Soon after, we reached the bitumen and arrived in Franklin and a region of Louisiana resplendent with antebellum to circa 1900s houses and fascinating history.

Sugar and steam boating created inordinate wealth for some of the Englishmen who came to this region after the Louisiana purchase of 1803. Many held prominent government and civic appointments and transacted public slave auctions on the lawns of the former court house. In May 1863, this was also the site of one of the bloodiest civil war battles where more than 300 Union soldiers lost their lives and the Confederate gunboat Diana was sunk.

Many of the towns we’ve visited in Louisiana have a rich history of opulence and status juxtaposed with squalor and suffering. A clear divide between the wealthy and the poor is blatantly evident. But every story is important for future generations to understand and acknowledge. Consequently, we’ve spent many hours walking around town streets, reading historical plaques about the towns and their peoples.

Today, Franklin is still a major port for passenger river boats like this one and transporting goods via barges. it also contains a number of heritage registered, antebellum mansions like these, still privately owned and lived in today.

We learned also that white houses were owned by Americans and coloured houses were favoured by Creoles and Cajuns.

Others have been gifted or bequeathed to the State of Louisiana and offer tours of the homes and grounds with guides who impart the history of the land and houses and the people who lived in them and worked around them.

We planned to tour several distinctly different antebellum plantation homes, along the 70 mile long Great Mississippi River Road between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. During it’s hey day there were close to 350 antebellum plantation houses from small farms to magnificent mansions and there are 12 plantation mansions that give tours. However, the first one we chose was Southdown Manor in Houma, on the way to New Orleans.

We’ve driven through many small towns so far and notice that almost all of them have pride in their towns. Even though shops are empty and boarded up and some of the houses are run down and clearly needing work, their streets are clean and very many have brightened their outlooks with murals or artwork. Houma was no different.

We walked around the town before Southdown Manor opened and learned more about the Great Arcadian Upheaval. In 1755 10,000 people were transported to the American colonies, England and France from their homes in the French L’Arcadie, later renamed Nova Scotia by the English who also seized their land, homes and possessions. Many settled in this region of Louisiana and their culture and history remains strong.

As we walked back to Southdown Manor, (named after a breed of sheep that were also farmed here) the colour really struck us. It’s so pink! It was the first question I had for our guide. We were the only ones on the tour, so there was ample opportunity to ask questions and our guide took her time showing us around.

Here are some of the interesting facts we learned:

Southdown Sugar Plantation was founded by William John Minor in 1828, whose father was the last Governor of Louisiana Territory under Spanish rule. The Manor was built in 1858. During this period he also built a sugar mill, had a brick making furnace and barrel making factory to store and ship the sugar.

86 sugar mills operated in the Houma region at the height of the sugar growing era. Imagine how many slaves must have worked in the plantation fields to grow and cut enough sugar cane!

Southdown’s walls are 12 inches thick and the ceilings 12 – 14 feet high. The house was single story until 1893 when the second story was built by William’s son Henry after his death.

The stained glass windows were designed by the Minors and made and installed by Tiffany Glass.

By 1853, 233 slaves lived in small, 2 roomed cottages and worked the sugar cane. Our guide said they preferred to call them “workers” and also allowed them to have small plots of land to grow vegetables to supplement their food and “sell” in the Minor farm shop.

4 generations of Minors managed Southdown and its plantations, revolutionising the sugar cane industry and successfully rejuvenating it after a disease decimated the sugar cane during the 1920s.

Several of the rooms were dedicated to the history of the Houmas area rather than the history of the plantation house. We were fascinated in their strong ties with Mardi Gras and the importance to Houmas of the holiday and parades.

So, why was it painted pink? Because the bricks were made and fired on the property by slaves. When fired, the clay became red so after it was built he painted it white in the American tradition. It wasn’t long before the red began to seep through and no matter how many coats it had, the red continued to seep until eventually he painted it pink.

Our next stop was New Orleans.

Call me macabre, but I like to visit old cemeteries. During our last visit in 2008 we missed going through one of their very famous, above ground cemeteries so it was top of the list this visit. In 2015 they closed their major cemeteries to tourists “due to vandalism” and now allow only guided tour visits. However, at $25 a person (there were over 20 people on our tour) and with tours from 9am – 4pm every 15 minutes, they’re also making quite a few pennies from the tours! We toured St. Louis Cemetery No 1.

Our guide was very interesting. He spoke at a million miles an hour and gave us some fascinating history about the cemetery and its inhabitants. This is the oldest cemetery in New Orleans you can visit of the 44 they have and they’re are all above ground. Apparently the water table caused any buried underground to be washed into the Mississippi River, which wasn’t ideal. He also advised us against visiting in summer, when the temperature regularly reaches 110 outside the tombs and to quote “as hot as a pizza oven inside!”

This cemetery opened in 1789, replacing the existing underground cemetery, now under the cobbled streets of the French Quarter.

There are still burials here also, as many of the crypts can be reopened to inter new people. Some of the fascinating information we were told was that Nicholas Cage built a 9 foot high white pyramid crypt and according to the guide, has no intention of being interred there, but built it as a tax write off. It has a steel frame inside and has been twice struck by lightning.

One of the most popular tombs is that of Marie Laveau who was a free woman of colour and called “the Voodoo Queen.” When she died in 1881, people were convinced she had mystical powers and believed she was immortal. Many believed they had seen her walking the streets, after her death, however it was actually her daughter, who greatly resembled her and even pretended to be her mother. Her tomb was one cited by our guide being responsible for closing the cemetery. Apparently, even in this day and age, people left offerings of flowers and beads at the tomb and also scratched X’s into the stone.

Another resident is Bernard de Marigny. He was responsible for keeping the French language alive after the Louisiana purchase by America in 1803 and helped to draft the first state constitution, after 1812. A suburb of brightly coloured houses near the French Quarter are also a legacy attributed to only selling the subdivisions of his plantation land to the French Creoles, not the Americans.

We also learned that many people can be buried in one tomb.

How do they all fit you ask?

They have a cavern underneath the tomb accessible by a hollow at the rear. Apparently, there’s a custom that one year and one day must pass between burials. If another burial is required before this time, they are interred in the wall nearby for safekeeping until the time has elapsed, then reinterred in their family tomb. Because of the heat and humidity in New Orleans, after this time everything has disintegrated into dust so when the next family member is ready, so to speak, the crypt is unsealed, a long rod is used to push the remains to the back and they fall down to the cellar. Plenty of space for the next inhabitant.

Apparently, a tomb big enough for two people will set you back about $US50,000. Some of the more elaborate and larger tombs could cost upwards of $US500,000! This is why many of the tombs are sponsored by groups, eg: The New Orleans Musicians Tomb.

Our guide regaled us with so many fascinating facts and spoke so quickly it was hard to keep up but one anecdote that stuck with me was where the saying ‘saved by the bell’ originated. Allegedly, during Yellow Fever epidemics (in 1853, more than 9,000 New Orleans inhabitants perished and in 1878 a further 4,500), if someone caught the disease they were immediately removed and buried because they believed that it was highly contagious. There was no doctor visit or autopsy, a mirror was held to their mouth and if it didn’t fog up, they were deemed deceased and immediately interred. In some cases, when the crypt was opened later, there was evidence that the person was in fact, not dead! To remedy this, a bell was placed outside the crypt and a string tied to their fingers and toes. A person walked around the tombs daily and if they heard a bell, they unsealed the crypt; they were very literally, ‘saved by the bell.’

by the time our 45 minute tour was concluding, it was warming up and becoming quite humid so we were glad we’d done the first tour of the day. Our walk into the French Quarter took us past some of the more iconic, tourist places in New Orleans, like Bourbon Street.

We didn’t venture down the street because the street cleaners were still hosing it down. Literally hosing the sidewalk! Apparently this is done every morning to clean up from the night before.

It’s very much a city that embraces its jazz roots. There are musicians or jazz bands with singers in many of the outdoor cafes and musical themes are everywhere.

We also stopped to listen to this university band that arrived by coach and spent 1/2 hour setting up in the heat, wearing black. They were very good!

The iconic horse and carriages were lined up ready for passengers but there weren’t many takers.

We wandered through the market and were reminded how popular the strings of coloured beads are. There were numerous strands on the streets, draped over things and hundreds for sale in ever gift shop.

Alligator heads in various sizes and mardi gras masks were also available everywhere.

We went into two hand made chocolate shops that made pralines, a traditional French candy, while you watched. We couldn’t resist trying a couple of chocolates.

Peter spied a rather large chocolate concoction on a stick called a Petey Popper, so of course he had to try one! It was marshmallow, covered in caramel, covered in rice crisps, covered in chocolate. Needless to say it didn’t last long!

We had fun taking pictures with some of the statues.

I donned a silly hat that made me look like a Gum Nut from May Gibbs books. For those that aren’t familiar, she wrote and illustrated iconic children’s books in Australia pre the 1920s.

We took in many of the iconic sights

Statue to Joan of Arc.

The owner of the RV camp we stayed in drew up an historical tour of one of the more traditional Creole streets in New Orleans so we spent our afternoon walking along the beautiful tree lined Esplanade Avenue, an important travelling route in the 19th century and according to the tour information, was a “millionaires row” for the Louisiana Creole community.

Some of the homes, which are mostly privately owned, were as majestic as the plantation mansions. Like these, built circa 1861

Some are smaller and quaint but display the vibrant Creole colours.

We also took a short walk around St. Louis Cemetery No. 3.

Many of the tombs had a plaque in front like the one above, which said perpetual care. This means that the owners of the tomb have paid quite a princely sum to have the tomb cared for eternally. The cemetery is then responsible for keeping it maintained.

By now we’d spent a very full day experiencing the Jazz centre of Louisiana and were ready to catch the bus back to Joey. New Orleans certainly is a fascinating city with a very unique history, but we were ready to move on and visit some of the plantation homes on our route north.

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The Gulf of Mexico and Beyond

We’ve always been fans of a pioneer village because you can gather so much history about a region in one place. Google is such a wonderful tool that we didn’t have in 2008 when we were here, so a quick Google gave us a list of interesting places to visit along our roads less travelled and that’s how we found ourselves in Gonzales Pioneer Village.

The village was tucked away down a narrow lane, then a gravel road but we were pleasantly surprised when we entered. It had been raining all morning, so the girl in the office hadn’t opened any of the buildings because she thought noone would arrive. We explained that the rain wouldn’t stop us, so we paid our entry and she opened all the buildings for us.

There were 17 heritage buildings in all, each one having been removed from another location within the Gonzales area and donated to the village during the 1980s and 90s. Consequently, the buildings are also from different eras. The Presbyterian church for example, was relocated from Hamon, 9 miles south of Gonzales and like much of the village, was used for a variety of things, including a community centre and a hay barn before deteriorating and needing propping up with timbers and then being donated to the village.

The Greek Revival Muenzler house was built in 1892 and relocated to the village in 1989. The furnishings are original and came with the house.

This camera from the late 1800s was a wonderful find and in fantastic condition.

The Gates house was built in 1856 by Samuel Hardin Gates who received a land grant in recognition of his actions during the Runaway Scrape at the Alamo in 1836. Much of the timber was replaced when it arrived at the village but it was renovated using original techniques so the timber joiners are mortise and tenon, the joints half-lap and the entire structure is held with pegs and square nails.

The Knowles Townsend log cabin was built circa 1850s and relocated from fifteen miles away in Nixon. Archaeologists are able to date the timbers used and found that most of the “cutting dates” fall between 1867 and 1869, the oldest timber used can be dated to 1691. It is surmised that Artemis Knowles built the house as a temporary structure while his actual house was under construction. It’s a “double pen, central chimney” style cabin that was unusual for south Texas.

The furniture is a collection of pieces from the same period. Apparently the children slept in the loft so they were safer from wild animals and Indians, which also explains why the steps are so steep and narrow.

There was a schoolhouse, a printing shop and a broom shop which belonged to the caretakers grandfather and contained all the tools and equipment he used to make brooms during the late 1800s. It was relocated from San Antonio. The corn used for brooms is specially grown for the purpose.

While I found the buildings interesting, the memorabilia inside them was often more interesting. For example the print shop contained an original linotype printing press which was an innovation in the late 1800s, enabling a 90 character line of type to be selected at once. Before this, each letter was selected by hand.

The schoolhouse had original desks, complete with ink wells which were the same desks I remember when I first went to school in Sydney.

The washer and wringer were hand operated. Washing was put in the tub and spun using a crank handle then each item was fed through the ringer to press the water out. My grandmother used one of these when I was little. If I could send a note back to my 3 year old self, it would be “don’t put your thumb in the wringer when grandmar is wringing the clothes!”

It took us about an hour to look through all the exhibits and we learned more about the local history. We said goodbye to their resident potbelly pig, Penny and headed off.

One thing we know Texas is famous for are their longhorn cattle and I’ve been hoping to get some photos the entire time we’ve been in the state. A short distance out of Gonzales, we finally saw some and were able to stop on the road.

They’re the most amazing cows. I can’t imagine how annoying it must be to have two feet of horn poking out either side of your head to get caught in things.

We were also well past the dry, desert-like terrain we’d become accustomed to seeing in southern Texas, passing miles of lush green pastures, waterways and sugar cane.

After Gonzales our road less travelled took us through Yoakum, Edna, Bay City and Freeport until we joined the coastal scenic road, with 45 miles to Galveston.

This road traverses a narrow land spit between the Gulf of Mexico and West Bay and like many of the regions we’ve travelled through, its was unexpected.

We had a brief stop and walk along the beach at Quintana’s Bird Sanctuary, and found they have a foolproof way of deterring people from going into the sand dunes! And I thought rattlesnakes preferred hotter, more arid regions.

We had planned to stop at Gavleston for the night but after driving the 12 miles to Galveston Island State Park and discovering they were full, we decided to take the ferry and stop on the other side.

Galveston beachside was another place that surprised us. There were many houses built on stilts, right on along the coast. Being aware that this region has suffered a number of hurricanes, we marveled at how unconcerned these people were, stilts or not, building so close to the water. We discovered the most recent hurricane to hit Galveston was in September, 2008, when we were in America last. Luckily, we were in the New York State region. It hit as a category 2 with a storm surge of 20 feet (6 meters), certainly enough to engulf many of these residences.

It’s obviously a popular seaside destination, with amusements on the jetty’s, numerous large hotels, restaurants and even show rides.

Before we decided on this route we confirmed that Joey was able to go on the ferry, and found that it was a free service. We arrived as the returning ferry was about half way across the East Galveston Bay so didn’t have long to wait. The ferry is “free-wheeling” so unlike ours that traverse the Murray River by cable, this one travels under its own steam to the other side. The water wasn’t calm and our ferry certainly rolled about a little. Our docking was also skew whiff, so the driver took a second go at lining us up before letting the ramps down. It was already 6pm when we docked and the road we’d chosen along the intercoastal waterway was almost 80 miles, with only a couple a minor towns along the way, so we parked by the ferry terminal for the night.

The following morning we took a walk to a small inland village, popular with fisherfolk who were already out in force and managed to capture some of the water birds.

Most of the drive was indispersed with seaside houses on stilts but as we drove we started to see the results of category 4 Hurricane Ida that hit this part of the coast in August, 2021, with winds of 150 mph. It was one of the most severe hurricanes to hit Louisiana.

We were also surprised to see how very close the road was to the water and how little there was between them

And this house? Enough said!

As the name implies, the intercoastal waterway traverses a number of waterways. The bridges that span them certainly don’t give you a run up before heading for the skies! They are very steep up and very steep down!

The terrain was also more reminiscent of the Texas we’d seen previously with oil wells and electricity infrastructure.

And then all of a sudden we were in Louisiana.

The first thing that struck us was the French on the sign and as we started learning about Louisiana history, we realised their French ties are still strong. The second was that once we left the coast it got decidedly warmer and more humid.

We travelled towards St Martinville, stopping at some of the smaller towns along the way to appreciate their 18th and 19th century homes.

We were also in awe of the magnificent trees growing along the streets and among the houses.

In Broussard we were introduced to Arcadian history and began to get a better understanding of the strong French influence even today. This region of Lafayette is considered “Cajun Country” a term that came from the French “le Cadiens” which was Americanised to Cajun. In the 1600s almost 18,000 French-speaking Cathlolic people settled in Acadie, now Nova Scotia, during its Spanish rule. When the region became English ruled, they refused allegiance to the British crown or the Anglican Church so in 1755, were ejected. They scattered among numerous locations, but a number made their way to Spanish ruled Louisiana and settled between 1765 and 1785 in regions along the Vermillion River.

In St Martinville, we also learned about the Native Attakapa Indian tribe who inhabited this area and were christianised and civilised by missionaries.

At the outskirts of the town we discovered the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic site, named after the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem Evangeline which detailed the Acadian expulsion and relocation to Louisiana. It is dedicated to the diverse people who inhabited the region, a true melting pot of cultures, including Acadian, French, Spanish, Creole, Native Indian and African peoples who each brought their own culture and heritage to the region. French was the main language and remains very strong today.

They even had two horses and two long horned cattle.

Our next stop was the Living History Museum and Folklife Park Vermillionville, so called because it lies on the banks of the Bayou Vermillion. During the early 1800s the land was a sugar cane plantation but as the settlement grew it became the town of Lafayette. The village represents the different communities that lived in the region.

We were there on a Sunday so there were people in period costume in some of the houses who explained life at the time. A band began playing at 1pm for the afternoon and the restaurant was open, serving a buffet of local delicacies.

There were numbers of information panels throughout the houses that explained numerous things about the era, including who resided in the dwelling, how it was constructed and where, and how some of the implements were used.

For example, this is a wall panel that’s been laid bare to show its construction. The walls are a mix of Spanish moss and mud, a technique used by the Indians and called bousillage by the French.

Armand Broussard House (above) was a plantation home built circa 1790 and is an authentic French Creole style of the period. It’s one of the oldest buildings in southwest Louisiana and considered a large family home of the period.

Attakapas Chapel was Catholic and a reproduction based on two different churches in the region from the 1760s and 1770s. Enslaved people were baptised catholic by law (Noir Code) and both enslaved and free coloured people sat in different areas of the church.

The forge, also a recreation from the era, represents a blacksmiths shop with a large, open indoor space and earthen floors to dampen sparks. Blacksmiths were important members of these communities and often individual plantations had their own blacksmiths who fashioned everything from wagon wheels to tools, nails, cookware and horse tack.

Boucvalt House was a village dwelling from the late 1800s. This house is French Creole with some Victorian features, for example, there is no central hallway. It also had an authentic early gramophone.

We also had fun pulling ourselves across the lake on la petit Bayou ferry (guide rope ferry). This method was used to cross reivers and bayous before bridges were built. It was actually quite hard to pull across so I can’t imagine how tough it would be with any current or across a wider river although the guide ropes are intended to prevent it from being swept downstream.

Rope Ferry

I found the Beau Bassin House particularly interesting because the interior displays are tools of the textile trade. The loom is an original 200 year old Cajan loom, used by Arcadian women to weave wool, flax and cotton and became renowned for the intricate designs they wove.

The quilt was made in situ and by hand using a small and incredibly neat running stitch by the lovely lady in period costume, sitting at the back. It took her three years and is supported on a traditional frame from the era. We had a lovely conversation about quilting, sewing, knitting and crocheting and she told us about her grandmother who taught her to quilt.

She also explained how the moss, which hangs from almost every tree in Louisiana, was collected, washed, combed and used in pillows, quilts and stuffing for furniture.

We spent a very interesting 2 hours at Vermillionville but it was time to move on. Since leaving the regions of National Parks we’ve missed the wide open spaces and hiking so we decided to spend the night at Lake Fausse Point State Park and do some of the hikes the following morning.