Original Art available FOR SALE by Jim Blanchard
This drawing depicts Tezcuco in the mid 1800s, based on old photos, archival research, and family histories. The ruins were measured, and the proprerty was surveyed to determine the scale for this drawing.
Tezcuco Plantation Home, River Road
(measures 72"w x 39"h framed)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
Tezcuco was built for Benjamin Tureaud in 1855. He was the grandson of Emanuel Bringier, and the son of Augustin Dominique Tureaud, both plantation owners. The plantation remained in the Tureaud family until 1950. Tezcuco burned in 2002, leaving only the beautiful gardens and towering chimneys among the ruins.
Hamilton Mercer Wright Mansion, Esplanade Ave., New Orleans
(measures 55"w x 45"h framed)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
Built in 1856 for Hamilton Mercer Wright (1816-1872) of Wright, Allen and Company, Cotton Factors. The Italian Renaissance mansion is attributed to James Gallier, Jr., architect, and was built at a cost of $90,000. The house and lot were purchased by Archbishop Placide Louis Chapelle in 1899. The mansion was demolished in 1970. The Cast Iron fence, made by Bennett & Lurges of New Orleans, is now located upriver at Houmas House Plantation & Gardens. Today the lot remains empty.
Belle Grove Plantation Home (measures 75"w x 49"h framed) (SOLD)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
John Andrews (1771-, a wealthy sugar planter originally from Virginia, purchased the plantation in 1844. Henry Howard, architect, designed the mansion and construction began in 1853 with completion in 1857. Literally a palace in every detail, Belle Grove contained 55 rooms and was the center of a vast sugar plantation which included a private race-track and stables where fine horses were bred. It stood in a magnificent grove of magnolias, live oaks and pecans, and long festoons of gray moss blended with the bright green of palmetto palms. and the frail pink of the crepe myrtles that [framed] the entrance, but today its surroundings are singularly uninteresting and flat, an un-mowed and pasture-like field from which the house rises, abrupt and startling in an indifferent landscape bounded by the levee. Morning Advocate – Sept. 20, 1936
In 1867, John Andrews sold the plantation to Henry Ware for $50,000. James Ware acquired the estate in 1880 and once again, Belle Grove, became a showplace on River Road. Mrs. Ware, Mary Eliza Stone Ware, travelled to New York and Europe to find and collect furnishing for the mansion, spending over $375,000. The lavishness and beauty of Belle Grove became legendary. In the 1920s, the plantation began to decline and the mansion was finally sold, as well as the furnishings, in 1925. The house changed hands a few times, hoping for a restoration, and by the 1930 the mansion was falling into ruin. The Historic American Buildings Survey measured and documented the ruined house in 1938. On the night of March 17, 1952, the mansion was finally destroyed by fire.
White Hall (La Maison Blanche) (measures 75"w x 47"h framed) (SOLD)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
White Hall was built for Marius Bringier in the 1780s. In 1825, Wade Hampton purchased the mansion and began a major remodel to transform the mansion into a colonial revival columned home for his wife, Mary Cantey Hampton. In 1829, he sold the home and then moved the craftspeople and workers to Houmas to enlarge the home there as he did to White Hall. The mansion burned in the 1850s. Nothing remains of the once stately estate.
The year 1798 brought royalty. The Duc d'Orleans, later to become Louis Philippe, King of the French, arrived with his brothers, the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais. After visits in and around New Orleans, the exiled trio was taken to White Hall. Cannons boomed; slaves raced to the house with the news that the vessel had been sighted. The family lined up for review with fellow planters, field and house servants, and an Indian chief, shod in beaver skin moccasins, wearing a mantle of the inner bark of an ash tree. A friendly ruler of the Houmas tribe, he was there to pay his respects to the fellow-leaders, even though the latter might be without followers at the moment. The princes did not omit a return call to the chief in his village. The visitors found Louisiana plantation life more princely than anything they had ever known: great halls, silks, laces and food--lucious snipe, delicate shrimp, enormous fish with flavor as rare as the host's wines. Old Louisiana Plantation Homes – and Family Trees
Louisiana Statehouse
(measures 70"w x 90"h framed) (SOLD)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
The Old State Capitol
Louisiana’s Gothic Castle sits high atop a bluff in downtown Baton Rouge.
1847-1850 – Designed and built, James Dakin, Architect
1862 – Burned and left abandoned during the Civil War
1882 – Restoration and Enlargement, William Freret, Architect
1931 – Seat of Government moves to the new statehouse
1931 – The Statehouse becomes known as the Old State Capitol
1994 – becomes the Louisiana’s Old State Capitol, Center for Political and Governmental History
The Houmas - Burnside Era (measures 37"w x 37"h framed) (SOLD)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
On a great curve of the Mississippi River and on high ground first selected by the Houmas Indians stand the great Tuscan columns of The Houmas. The mighty Mississippi River gave birth to this land over the millennium, creating the fertile lands which became the great fields of Sugar Cane, Cotton, Corn, Indigo, tobacco and more. The richness of the land, great forests of cypress, and the abundance of wildlife for hunting attracted settlers in the early 1700’s and eventually into the hands of the Great Sugar Barons in the early 1800’s. In 1803 Donaldson and Scott built a new center hall cottage directly in front of the1700’s French House. In 1829, General Wade Hampton began the task of enlarging the Donaldson Cottage and transforming it into the Classical Revival Mansion that stands today. For over 240 years, the Houmas Mansion has evolved and grew with the times and with the owners of the great mansion. The great colonnade has not changed since 1829, when General Hampton set out to build a mansion fitting for his wife, Mary Cantey Hampton.
French Quarter Courtyard
(measures 29"w x 35"h framed)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the
Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
Dominican College
St. Charles Ave., New Orleans
(measures 32"w x 30"h framed)(SOLD)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
Seven Dominican sisters from Cabra, Ireland, arrived in New Orleans in 1860 to teach the children of Irish immigrants. The Dominican Sisters purchased the lands in Greenville, a community just east of Carrollton, in 1865. St. Mary’s Hall was designed by William Fitzner, architect, and built by G. Murry in 1882 at a cost of $25,000. The byzantine dormers were most likely added by Toledano and Reusch, architects, in 1911. St. Mary’s Dominican College, a Liberal Arts college for women, was established in 1910 and the building was renamed Greenville Hall in 1960. The property today is part of the Loyola University campus.
Townhouse Floater
(measures 26"w x 34"h framed)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
The New Orleans Townhouse is generally a three bay side hall structure with a hallway to the left or right side of double parlors. The staircase in the hall takes one up to the second, and sometimes, a third floor containing bedrooms. To the rear of the residence is a service wing containing kitchens, service rooms, a second staircase ans servant's quarters. Some townhouses have an extra room between the main building and the service wing, usually used as a dining room. Historically, the interiors were decorated with the latest fashions in design and comfort, while the exteriors were mostly identical, except for the decorative features that adorn the facades. Like a paper doll, an owner had options to dress the townhouse in any fashion they wished. The Floater painting shows options that could be placed upon a brick townhouse to create a unique facade.
Rev. John Bliss Warren Residence, New Orleans
(measures 36"w x 28"h framed)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
John Bliss Warren, clergyman, educator, and journalist, was born in New England in 1800, and was instrumental in founding the Presbyterian church in Mobile, and the Louisiana Institute in New Orleans. He also founded the New Orleans Protestant (1844-1846), a denominational weekly newspaper. Rev. Warren purchased this half square from the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company to build a theological seminary. The house on Maple Street was built in 1844 and attributed to James Dakin, architect. Rev. Warren died on August 13th, 1845 and the property was bequeathed to the First Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Warren regained possession of the house in 1853 and operated a school for girls there until 1862.
Madewood Plantation, Bayou Lafourche (measures 56"w x 44"h framed) (SOLD)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
Colonel Thomas Pugh (1796-1852) enlisted noted architect, Henry Howard, to design and build his magnificent Greek Revival Mansion on Bayou Lafourche. Madewood’s construction began in 1844, and upon his death in 1848, his widow, Eliza Foley Pugh, completed the mansion. The Mansion was sold to the Marshall family in 1964. The painting shows Madewood with its original red sandstone painted façade.
Woodlawn Plantation, Bayou Lafourche (measures 56"w x 44"h framed) (SOLD)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
William Whitmell Pugh (1811-1906), purchased the Pierre Charlet Plantation (341 acres) in 1835. He married Josephine Nicholls in 1844 and they lived in the old Charlet residence. In the 1840’s, William Pugh enlisted architect Henry Howard to enlarge and redesign the old mansion. The old mansion was raised and a new floor placed below along with Palladian wings to each side. The central block of the mansion was refaced with the massive colonnade of four ionic fluted columns set between two square end columns. In 1906, William Pugh died at Woodlawn and soon after the plantation was sold at sheriff’s auction. After years of abandonment and decay, the famed Woodlawn was demolished in 1946. Only the four carved capitals remain.
Burnside Place, Garden District, New Orleans (measures 80"w x 50"h framed) (SOLD)
This painting was exhibited in "A Precise Vision" exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in 2018)
Burnside Place “The James Robb Mansion”, Garden District, New Orleans
James Robb completed the Italianate Villa in the fashionable Garden District of New Orleans in 1855. After a financial downfall he was forced to sell the estate to John Burnside in 1859 for $55,000. John Burnside resided in the great villa, known then as Burnside Place, for 22 years until his death in 1881. Oliver Beirne inherited the estate and then in 1890, his heirs sold the mansion and gardens to Newcomb College. Sophie Newcomb College added the second floor to the mansion and occupied the estate until 1917. The Baptist Theological Seminary occupied the estate from 1917-1954. The mansion was demolished in 1955.
All that remains today are a few granite steps and the brick and granite fence base along Washington Avenue. The massive granite gate posts and urns, along with the gates and the cast-iron fence have been moved to the new campus of Baptist Seminary on the lakefront.
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Dr. George Washington Campbell Mansion, New Orleans
(measures 39" w x 25" h, unframed)
This painting is included in the book "Magnificent Obsessions" by Jim Blanchard, and was also featured in Country Roads Magazine, August 2020.
The Italianate Campbell Mansion was designed and built by Lewis E. Reynolds, a New York trained architect, and finished in 1859 at a cost of $40,000. The Cast-Iron cornstalk fence surrounding the mansion was made by the Philadelphia’s Wood & Perot Foundry, and supplied by Wood and Miltenberger, New Orleans agents. During the war, federal troops took possession of the Campbell mansion and put out Mrs. Campbell and her family. U.S. General Benjamin “Spoons” Butler and his family occupied the mansion. The mansion was sold after the Civil War and became the luxurious residence of Judge Henry Spofford. The 50 year lease on the property expired in 1906 and the property reverted to the Poydras Home. The neighborhood began to change. The house became the Mansion Apartments, which housed the Chat and Chew Café, later known as the Hummingbird Café. In 1965 the house was demolished to make way for a parking lot. Only the rear carriage house remains on Julia Street. Only the Carriage House remains, now incorporated into a new condominium complex.
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Woodlawn Plantation (Indian Camp, Carville, Iberville Parish, Louisiana)
(measures 40" w x 25" h, unframed)
This property is known as Indian Camp Plantation and was an agglomeration of small Acadian homesteads bought by General Robert Camp. The name Indian Camp is thought to have double reference: the site once held a Houma village, and the house remained in the Camp family until the latter part of the nineteenth century. In 1859 he hired the famed New Orleans architect Henry Howard to design the raised brick Italianate mansion.
Camp lost his property for the final time in 1874, and Indian Camp became a tenant farm under absentee ownership. It was abandoned and in disrepair in the late nineteenth century, when a neighbor informed the board of control for the Louisiana Leper Home in New Orleans that the property could be leased. The first paitents-5 men and 2 women- were dispatched here from New Orleans in November 1894. Because neither steamboats nor trains would accept them as passengers, they were sent by coal barge at night. They were housed in the former slave cabins, which were, according to contemporary reports, in better condition than the main house. Two rooms in the main house were used for administrative offices. Now part of the Gillis W. Long Center.
Bocage Plantation, River Road, Ascension Parish, Louisiana
(Measures 39"w x 25"h, unframed)
Bocage Plantation, River Road
Bocage, a wedding gift from Marius Pons Bringier to his eldest daughter, Francoise “Fanny” Bringier, the fourteen year old brief of Christophe Colomb, upon their wedding in 1801. The original house was destroyed by fire and the present Bocage was built in 1837. The mansion is attributed to James Dakin, architect
Mt. Carmel Academy, Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 29" w x 21" h, unframed)
Mt. Carmel Academy, was founded in 1855, by Pere Charles Menard, the “Apostle of Bayou Lafourche” as a Catholic boarding school for girls under the direction of the Sisters of Mount Carmel. Fr. Menard, purchased land and built the first school for girls on the site. The old Mt. Carmel Academy building was completed in 1900. The school moved and merged into E. D. White Catholic High School in 1965. The old Mt. Carmel building was damaged by Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and soon after, demolished. The cupola was salvaged and placed on the present building on the site.
The Lemann Building, Donaldsonville, Louisiana
(measures 39" w x 22" h, unframed)
William Donaldson, a young merchant from New Orleans, and a member of the Louisiana Legislative Council, had a dream of building a town to be parish seat and the state capital. In 1806, he purchased the 1775 Spanish Land grant of Pierre Landry, bordered by the Mississippi River and Bayou Lafourche, and commissioned Barthelemy Lafon (1769-1820), Creole architect and city planner, to draw a plan for La Ville de Donaldson. Donaldson Town was formally dedicated on April 27th, 1806. La Ville de Donaldson was incorporated on March 25th, 1813. William Donaldson died in September 1813.
In 1825, Donaldsonville was selected to become the “Capital City of the Commonwealth of Louisiana.” The State House was completed, and the legislature meet there in 1830 and 1831, until they decided to move the seat of government to New Orleans.
Donaldsonville was bombarded by Union forces, during the Civil War, in the summer of 1862. After the Civil War, Donaldsonville became the largest black community in the state, and in 1868, elected Pierre Caliste Landry, a former slave, as the first African-American mayor in the United States.
BERNARD LEMANN & BRO.
Jacob Lemann (1809-1887), a peddler, who arrived from Germany, settled in Donaldsonville, and founded the business in 1836. His sons Bernard and Myer Lemann took over the mercantile business, becoming “Bernard Lemann & Bro.”.
On December 2nd, 1876, a destructive fire engulfed the block between Mississippi, Railroad, and Crescent Place. The five buildings were destroyed. The “Chief” of February 10th, 1877 reports: “Mr. Bernard Lemann has purchased the two lots…which the buildings were recently burned…Mr. Lemann is having the debris removed from the lots preparatory to putting up an extensive brick building…”
In June of 1877, large quantities of brick were hauled to the lots on Mississippi Street, and construction began on the new building designed by James Freret, architect. By October 1877, the workmen were constructing the roof. The new Italianate style building, “Bernard Lemann & Bros.”, opened on February __th, 1878. The store offered groceries, both retail and wholesale, men’s clothing, shoes, hats, and lingerie. At Christmas time, the second floor hosted a Toyland.
“Once the oldest family-operated department store in Louisiana”.
The Lemann Store finally closed it’s doors in 1940’s.
Lafourche Parish Courthouse, Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 58"w x 27"h, unframed)
The Lafourche Parish Courthouse was designed by Howard and Diettel, architects, in 1859. The building was constructed in 1859-60 on land donated by Henry Schuyler Thibodaux, the founder of the Town. The 1818 and 1846 courthouses had previously occupied the site. The original front colonnade faced Bayou Lafourche, and the Lafourche Parish Jail, located in the lot behind the courthouse, was also designed by Henry Howard, architect, and built in 1859. The courthouse was remodeled and enlarged in the Breaux-Arts architectural style in 1903, by Favrot and Livaudais, New Orleans architect, and again enlarged in 1958, by Fernand T. Picou, architect, removing the original colonnade façade and replacing it with a large wing. The Green Street Façade became the new front entrance.
Acadia Plantation, Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 24" w x 12" h, unframed)
The Bowie family came to Louisiana from Tennessee in 1802 and settled in what is now Rapides Parish. As young men, Steven Bowie (1797-1833), and his brothers, James “Jim” Bowie (1796-1836), Rezin Bowie (1793-1841), and John, headed South to fight in the Battle of New Orleans in 1814, but they arrived to late. It was there they befriended Jean Lafite (1780-1823). In 1819, the Bowie Brothers descended upon Bayou Black, near the current location of Southdown Plantation in Houma. The Bowies lived near present-day Houma until the Atchafalaya River flooded its banks, putting the Bowie farm underwater. With a suggestion from Lafitte, the Bowies sought higher ground on Bayou Lafourche in 1827.
The brothers then began purchasing adjoining plantations, forming a 1,500 acre estate they called Acadia Plantation, located next to the current location of Nicholls State. While in Thibodaux, the Bowies continued to run a slave trade operation, but they also got involved in the sugarcane industry and built Louisiana’s first steam-powered sugar mill. In 1830 the brothers purchased the back land bringing the size of the plantation to about twenty-one hundred acres. On February 12, 1831, the Bowie Family sold Acadia and 65 slaves to Duncan, Robert Walker and James Wilkins for $90,000. With their profits, Rezin and James bought a plantation in Arkansas. In 1845 Philip Barton Key, nephew of Francis Scott Key, and mother Anne Plater Key bought the land from the bank. This included all the land of Acadia, the growing crops, every slave, and shares in the bank. He added three other sizable tracts of land to the estate before his death in 1856.
The land was then purchased by John Nelson and his son-in-law, Andrew Jackson Donelson, (a nephew of Mrs. Andrew Jackson) until he died in 1858, and the war and postwar years saw several mortgages and lawsuits developed from Nelson's attempts to hold the plantation together. When Acadia was seized in lieu of taxes for 1871 and '72, Edward J. Gay, paid the debt, and operations of the plantation were resumed by Gay and Nelson. When Edward J. Gay died the Prices formed one spacious home by joining the three original homes of Jim, Rezin, and Mrs. Bowie. The Price’s also ran the sugar mill on the land, from 1850 until 1926, and continued to farm cane. In the late 1900s a dairy farm was set behind the main home and operated until the 1940s.
In the 1930s, the house was stripped of much of its Queen Ann architectural elements. The Acadia Plantation house was demolished in 2010.
Millwood Plantation, Richland County, South Carolina
(measures 39" w x 27" h, unframed)
Millwood, the home of Wade Hampton 11, was built in the early 1800s. In 1838, Millwood was enlarged and remodeled in the Greek Revival style by Nathaniel Potter, architect from Rhode Island. His plan added a wing on both sides and a two-story grand colonade in front of the mansion. The renovations took two years. Nathaniel Potter also designed Millford, for Susan Hampton, sister of Wade Hampton 11, and wife of John Manning. The grand mansion, Millwood, was burned during the Civil War and all that remains are the remnants of the columns.
Acadian Cottage, Bayou Lafourche Territory
(measures 20" w x 11" h, unframed)
Expelled by the British in 1755 from their Canadian homeland, French Acadians began to arrive in Louisiana in a series of waves that lasted several decades. The first Acadians settled primarily along the Mississippi River, on the upper fringe of the German Coast, an area along the Mississippi River above New Orleans where the first successful pioneers were settled in 1721 by John Law’s Company of the Indies.
As the Acadian’s numbers grew, this area on the Mississippi became known as the “Acadian Coast.” In time, the first Acadians were joined by other immigrants – Germans, French, Spanish, Irish, Africans, and others, all seeking their own new “homeland” in the Louisiana territory. With each additional wave of immigrants, their settlements moved farther upriver and then inland along Bayou Lafourche, where new land offered new opportunities for the freedom and peace they sought.
These early immigrants settled first close to the fork of the Mississippi near present-day Donaldsonville, Belle Rose, Paincourtville, and Plattenville. An early census of 1769 estimated the population of Lafourche at 267 persons of all ages, sex, and color, living within a 35-mile stretch from Donaldsonville to approximately where Thibodaux is today. In 1778, a group of Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands were settled near Donaldsonville by the Spanish Government, and after 1785, additional small groups of Acadians followed after learning of the availability of land offered by Spain. Slowly, settlements were established farther and farther down the length of the bayou.
Settlers built their farmsteads on the natural high ground near the bayou built up from centuries of sediment left from spring flooding. This fertile land nearest the bayou was ordinarily used for gardens and larger commercial farms, while the lower-lying areas to the rear of the tract gave each settler access to the swampland and the wildlife that lived there. Access to the bayou gave the settlers an onramp to the main route of trade and transportation in and out of the area. By the early 1900s, homesteads stretched the length of Bayou Lafourche almost 80 miles from Donaldsonville to Golden Meadow, giving rise to Bayou Lafourche being called the “longest main street in the world.”
Melodia Plantation, Rousseau Station, Bayou Lafourche
(measures 28" w x 12" h, unframed)
Pierre was descended from a noble family from the French region of Midi-Pyrénées. His grandfather Jean Francois Daspit de St. Amand was born in Toulouse, France, and was stationed in Louisiana where he served as a captain in the Compagnies Franches de la Marine. Jean Francois was killed in 1729 in an attack by natives upon Fort Rosalie (in present-day Natchez, Mississippi), leaving behind a widow and two orphaned boys in New Orleans. Pierre was born on Jan. 19, 1755, in New Orleans. There he married Marie Mayeux on Nov. 28, 1778, and they had several children together. The family later moved to Lafourche Parish in Louisiana, where Pierre served as Probate Judge for the French-speaking residents of the parish, and where he died on Sept. 22, 1837. Pierre Daspit de St. Armand was the owner of Melodia Plantation.
Pierre II Daspit de Saint Amand (1755-1837) married Marie Daspit Mayeux (1764-1802) at the age of 14, in 1778.
Hurricane Betsy in 1965 damaged the house beyond repairs and the house was demolished, using the bricks and other elements to build a house in Thibodaux. All that remains is a pile of rubble and two ancient live oaks. All that remains is a pile of rubble and two ancient live oaks.
St. Joseph Church,
Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 22" w x 29" h, unframed)
The first St. Joseph Church was erected in 1819. The Old St Joseph Church was begun by Pere Charles Menard, pastor of St. Joseph Church, in 1848, and completed in 1849. On April 18th, 1867, the relic of St. Valerie, obtained by Pere Menard, arrived from Rome and was placed in the Church. The solemn ceremony was attended by more than four thousand people. The church was destroyed by fire on May 25th, 1916. Only a few items were saved, including the Relic of St. Valerie. The relic was then brought to the Chapel at Mt. Carmel Convent, where it stayed until the completion of the new St. Joseph Church, on Canal Street, in 1923.
Thibodaux Town Hall
Green St., corner of West 4th St.
Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 24" w x 26" h, unframed)
Built in 1886, the Victorian – Eastlake building served as Thibodaux Town Hall. The building was equipped with a Seth Thomas clock and bell that could be heard throughout the town. A new City Hall was built and opened in 1949. The old Town Hall was demolished in 1963. The bell has been preserved and in on display at the Warren J. Harang Civic Center.
St. John's Episcopal Church
Jackson Street, Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 21" w x 27" h, unframed)
St. John’s Episcopal Church was constructed in 1844, and is the oldest Episcopal Church building west of the Mississippi River. The land, once part of Ridgefield Plantation, was donated by George Seth Guion. The construction contract with Abraham Kees and James Frost, was signed September 28th, 1843. The church served as the first home of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, under the leadership of Bishop Leonidas Polk. The church was remodeled and enlarged in the 1850s, by Henry Howard, architect. The original portico was enclosed, a choir loft added, and the bell tower constructed.
In 1845, Bishop Polk’s church boasted 24 communicants, 14 of whom were black. Many of the sugar cane planters were Episcopalians, thus the reason for Bishop Polk’s concern for their slaves. During the tenure as Bishop, Polk confirmed 58 blacks and baptized countless others. He also believed that slaves should be married in religious ceremony, a revolutionary idea for the day. St. John’s Church was damaged extensively during the Civil War, but restored and continued to serve the Thibodaux community for over 178 years, since 1844.
Dansereau - Caldwell Mansion, Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 40" w x 27" h, unframed)
The house began has its beginnings as a one-story house built in 1847, for James A Scuddy (1804-1864), Mayor of Thibodaux, from 1840-1845. It was purchased from the widow of Scuddy, by Sheriff sale, by Francois Philip Dansereau of Canada in the 1852. Dr, Hercule Pierre Dansereau (1831-1915) began the task of enlarging and remodeling the home into the Italianate style mansion in 1875. The architect was Henri Thiberge, a partner of Henry Howard, architect of New Orleans. The home was purchased by V. L. Caldwell in 1847 and remained in the Caldwell family until sold in 1996.
Desire Plantation, Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 29" w x 17" h, unframed)
Jean Baptiste Desire Boyer (1755-1827), a French planter, settled along Bayou Lafourche, north of Thibodaux, around 1800. Boyer had two sons, Eugene (1799-1862) and Desire (1796-1848). In 1816, Boyer purchased the lands across from the young town of Thibodauxville, and named it Desire Plantation. Edward J. Gay acquired the plantation after the Civil War and later sold the property to Judge Taylor Beattie, (1837-1920), attorney and plantation owner. Judge Beattie married Frances Estelle Pugh, daughter of Thomas Pugh of Madewood Plantation. It is during this ownership that the house is believed to have been remodeled and enlarged by Henri Thiberge, a New Orleans architect.
In 1897, Henri Nicholas Coulon (1844-1911), purchased the plantation, and in 1907, divided the land into lots, becoming North Thibodaux. The home and lands were used as the Thibodaux Country Club and Golf Course in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1930, The Knights of Columbus acquired the building and did major changes to the interior and the 2nd floor of the mansion. In 1976, the old Plantation home, known as the KC Home was demolished and replaced by a new building. The great avenue of oaks remains today.
Thibodaux College, Thibodaux, Louisiana
(measures 29" w x 17" h, unframed)
The first European settlers along Bayou Lafourche arrived in the late 1700s. A small village and trading post was established in 1808, where Bayou Lafourche and Bayou Terrebonne meet. The settlement, known as Thibodauxville, was formerly incorporated in 1830, in honor of Henry Schuyler Thibodaux.
March 31, 1855 … Schifferstein has removed his private school for boys from Mrs. Knoblock’s to Mrs. J. B. Bernard’s, about one mile above Thibodaux, where he will continue to hold forth for the future….
Thibodaux College, originally called Schifferstein Academy, was incorporated by the legislature in 1859. Shortly after, the school was placed under the direction of Pere Charles Menard. From 1891 until 1894, The Brothers of the Sacred Heart assumed direction of the school.
The Old Thibodaux College building could have possibly been the old Mrs. Knoblock residence, before becoming the school. The new Thibodaux College building was built in 1912…and then the Old College building was moved back to face Goode Street (105 Goode Street), and converted into a private residence.
Ducros Plantation, Bayou Terrebonne, Schriever, Louisiana
(measures 29" w x 16" h, unframed)
Originally a Spanish Land Grant to Thomas Vilanueva Barroso (1762-1824), who 10 years later, sold to Pierre Denis de La Ronde (1762-1824). His son-in-law, Adolph Adolph Ducros (1798-1861), developed the lands into Ducros Plantation. In 1845, Ducros was sold to Colonel Van Perkins Winder (1809-1854), who enlarged the plantation by acquiring the adjacent lands and slaves from Thomas Butler and other smaller farms. Col. Winder died of Yellow Fever on November 8, 1854, at his Ducros Plantation.
The mansion was built by Martha Grundy Winder (1812-1891), widow of Col. Winder. Construction began in 1859 and completed in 1860. She hired Evans, a Louisiana Architect, and told him to model the mansion after Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage in Nashville. By 1860, she owned 202 slaves and 4,550 acres of land.
During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, the mansion was saved from a fire by Union General Godfrey Weitzel.[4] However, the outbuildings burned down.[4] Meanwhile, the fields were used as a camping ground by the Confederate States Army and the Unionists. The Texas Rangers hoisted Bonnie Blue Flag, a flag of the Confederate States of America, on top of the house.
In 1872, the plantation was purchased by two brothers, R.S. Woods and R.C. Woods, who were married to two sisters, Maggie Pugh and Fannie Pugh. It became known as the Old Jackson Plantation. It was purchased by Samuel and Leon Polmer in 1909. It was later inherited by Leon Polmer's sons, Irvin and Marvin. In 1974, it was inherited by Dr. Jacob L. Fischman of New Orleans. The plantation is now owned by the Bourgeois family. Old wood with inscriptions about the secession of South Carolina and the presidential run of Stephen A. Douglas in 1860 have been found on the property.
Lilias Plantation, (Tournillon Plantation), Bayou Lafourche, Assumption Parish
(measures 29" w x 19" h, unframed)
Mary Louise Brown (1770-1823), was born in Ireland and immigrated to America. She first married Hore Browse Trist, Sr. (died in 1804). Of that marriage, two children were born, Nicholas P. Trist (1800-1874), and H. B. Trist (1802-1856). In 1803, Thomas Jefferson appointed Trist collector of taxes for the District of Mississippi and then for New Orleans. He died in New Orleans of Yellow Fever in 1804. Mary Brown, second marriage was to Philp Livingston Jones, a New Orleans Lawyer, who died in 1810. She then married Saint Julien de Tournillon in 1813, and they had two children, St. Julien Tournillon (1814-1876), and Marie Louise de Tournillon (1818-1876). Mary Brown died soon after in 1822.
St. Julien Tournillon (1770 -1857), a distinguished Frenchman, arrived in Louisiana in 1804. He was educated in Paris, then emigrated back to his family estates in Haiti, until he was forced to take refuge from the insurrection. He owned the plantation from 1827 to 1870. Records show that Saint Julien Tournillon purchased seven slaves for $4,120 in 1831, and in 1834, mortgages land and 52 Slaves to Citizens Bank of Louisiana ($68,600.00), for 8 arpents front by 80 arpents depth, above by Joseph martin, and below by Tournillon, together with all buildings and improvements erected on said plantation … dwelling house, sugar-house, barns, negro huts, and all other out houses and included a list of slaves.
In 1851, Julien Tournillon, contracted with Adolph Richard, to complete all carpentry and joinery on his new mansion, and in 1853, he worked with Henry Howard to complete the mansion. St. Julien Tournillon died in 1857.
Hard Times Plantation , Bayou Boeuf, Assumption Parish
(measures 20" w x 16" h, unframed)
Etienne Benjamin Pennison (1777-1856), formerly of the Company of Jean Lafitte, first settled the lands along Bayou Boeuf. The Thibodaux family, one of the first Acadian families to come to Louisiana from Santo Domingo in 1765. Charles Melance Thibodaux and Felix Thibodaux (brothers) had lumber property in the Coteau Folse area Raceland, Louisiana. They sold their lands and purchased 2,550 acres fronting on the east bank of the Bayou Boeuf. The C. M. Thibodaux’s moved into temporary quarters… but had their eyes on the stately home adjoining their tract of land.
The Plantation Home was built in 1832 for George Benjamin Schwing (1801-1870) and his wife, Christine Anselm. They had 10 children. The plantation was purchased by Newell Tilton, a New Orleans merchant. On March 19th, 1880, the Thibodaux’s moved into the house as caretakers. The floods along Bayou Boeuf in 1882, forced the family into the second floor of the house, and the crops were ruined. The family began calling the property “Hard Times”. In 1896, the Thibodaux’s purchased the plantation from Tilton.
In 1952, J. Ray McDermott took a 50-year lease on 1,200 acres. The lands surrounding the remains of Hard Times Plantation are still part of the McDermott Yards.
Donaldsonville Courthouse, (1846-1862) Donaldsonville, Louisiana
(measures 29" w x 20" h, unframed)
Ascension Parish was created in 1807 and Donaldsonville was selected as the Parish seat. The first courthouse was erected in 1810 and was destroyed by fire in 1846. The second courthouse was designed by Henry Howard (1818-1884), a New Orleans architect, and built by George Weldon, in 1846. The courthouse was destroyed in the 1862 federal bombardment of Donaldsonville in 1862, during the Civil War. A third courthouse was built by Thomas Supple in 1867 and burned in 1889. The fourth and present courthouse was constructed in 1888-89.
The Iberville Courthouse in Plaquemine, still standing, and the Napoleonville City Hall, demolished, were both designed by Henry Howard and built in the same form and design.
Donaldsonville Shotgun Cottages, Donaldsonville, Louisiana
(measures 31" w x 10" h, unframed)
The 600 Block of Lessard Street - Shotgun houses, corner of Williams Street.
Red Star Plantation, Labadie Plantation, Labadieville, Louisiana
(measures 28" w x 20" h, unframed)
The area was originally called “Brulee Labadie”, and tradition says that the area was named after French Settler Jean Louis Labadie. Jean Louis Labadie (1799-1854), born in Painboeuf, Louir-Atlantique, France, immigrated to Louisiana in 1818, arriving by flatboat via Bayou Lafourche, and in 1821, in Thibodaux, married Marguerite Carmelite Boudreaux, daughter of Joseph Simon Boudrot and Marie Julienne Brossier. Jean Labadie built the home in 1853, and died the following year. Two of his sons were educated in France and one at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. All three sons died unmarried. His three daughters married Theophile Harangue, Evariste Hebert, and Frederic Avet. There were eight children born between 1824 and 1839. The Labadie’s plantation was called “Red Star Plantation” and the store was the “Red Star Store”. The Star Post Office was established in 1847. And the community was known as “Star” until 1867 when the name was changed to Labadieville. The Plantation was then known as Labadie Plantation.
The plantation became the home of Thophile Boudreaux, born 1851, who married Marie Honora Hebert (1857-1947), and they had four children. Elise, their second child, married Dr. J. J. Mire, dentist in Labadieville. The house was demolished.
White Plantation, Bayou Lafourche, Louisiana
(measures 28" w x 17" h, unframed)
Guillaume Romain Arcement (1772-1850), his father Pierre, and other family members migrated to Louisiana, boarded the ship “La Ville D’Archangel” which left port of St. Milo, France, on August 12, 1785, and arrived in New Orleans on December 3, 1785. The Arcement’s settled on Bayou Lafourche and built the Acadian Cottage in 1824, and sold the property in 1829 to Edward Douglas White, Sr. (1795-1847) who began remodeling the earlier 1824 Acadian house in 1834. E. D. White Sr., a lawyer and judge, became the 10th Governor of Louisiana, serving from 1835-1839. He married Catherine Sidney Lee Ringgold, daughter of Trench Ringgold, U. S. Marshall in the District of Columbia. Their son, Edward Douglas White, Jr., (1845-1921) was born in the house and lived there until age six, when he moved with his mother to New Orleans. When his father died in 1847, Edward inherited the property and operated the plantation until he died in 1921. Edward Douglas White, Jr., served as United States Senator from Louisiana and later appointed 9th Chief Justice (from 1910-1921) by President William Howard Taft. After the death of E. D. White Sr., Catherine remarried in 1850 to Andre Broussaum a French-Canadian immigrant merchant, and moved to New Orleans. E. D. White, Jr. left the property to the Knights of Columbus, as directed in his will. The house was occupied by a caretaker until purchased by the State of Louisiana in the late 1950s. The house is now part of the Louisiana State Museum.
Point Houmas Plantation, Ascension Parish, Louisiana
(measures 29" w x 20" h, unframed)
In April of 1804, Capt. Edward D. Turner presided over the raising of the Stars and Stripes over Natchitoches. In 1808, Edward Turner moved to Ascension Parish and together in partnership with Daniel Clark, purchases the large plantation at Houmas Point. On October 12th, 1811, Mrs. Turner died, and Mr. Edward Turner died the following day, leaving 7 minor children. Daniel Clark sold his share to Wade Hampton in 1811, and Col. Hampton purchased the other half interest in 1812. In 1835, after the death of Wade Hampton 1, the Point Houmas House and Lands were given to the heirs Susan Hampton Manning, daughter of Wade Hampton 1, and wife of Governor John L. Manning, of South Carolina. John Burnside purchased the Plantation just after the Civil War. Mr. J. C. Cofield purchased the Point Houmas Plantation in 1868. Mr. Cofield died in 1892. In the 1920’s, Cofield Point and Point Houmas Home became a bathing resort. Point Houmas, after many decades of abandonment, was demolished in 2021-22 and the lumber and elements were salvaged and put to good use.
Elm Hall Plantation, Napoleonville, Assumption Parish, Louisiana
(measures 40" w x 22" h, unframed)
On October 5th, 1820, Dr. Kittredge married his first wife, Martha Wills Green (1804-1836) daughter of Thomas Green, of Gayosa Place, Natchez. Their first two children, Elizabeth Eaton and Mary Louise, were born in Natchez. In 1826, Dr. Ebenezer Eaton “E. E.” Kittredge (1799-1867) came to Louisiana and purchased Elm Hall Plantation, and began the cultivation of cotton, and a few years later, turned to the production of sugar. Their next children, Orville Mile, Joseph K. G., Eliza Josephine, and Olivia Corinna were born at Elm Hall. His wife Martha died, at Elm Hall, in 1836, and Dr. Kittredge remarried in 1839 to Ann Elizabeth Kelly (1819-1889), and the had five children, Mary Ann, Henry Eaton, Jessie Amanda, Emma Kittredge, and Francis Robert.
Elm Hall began as a center hall raised Louisiana Plantation cottage, sitting high above a raised basement. As Dr. Kittredge’s family and fortune grew, he enlarged and redesigned Elm Hall into the sprawling house that is shown in Persac’s Painting done in 1859. A large center pediment was added in front of the original home, with matching wings hidden behind the massive colonnade. The ground floor was a raised basement, and the second floor was the main residence.
On February 3, 1852, Bishop Leonidas Polk married Dr. Ewing to Eliza Josephine Kittredge (1833-1914), daughter of Dr. Ebenezer Eaton Kittredge and Martha Wills Green, at her father’s Elm Hall Plantation.
1860 Slaveholding Report … Dr. E. E. Kittredge, sugar planter, having 9 children, and 11 in the household, the Plantation having 177 slaves, 26 slave dwellings, Value of Real Property $330,000, Value of Personal Property $300,000, having 1,200 acres of improved lands, 3,800 acres of unimproved lands, Cash Value of Farm $150,000, Value of Farming Implements and machinery $60,000, having 15 horses, 60 mules, 15 Milk Cows, 8 oxen, 15 sheep, 8 swine, 50 cattle, value of livestock $10,000, producing 5,000 bushels of corn, 75 bushels of Irish Potatoes, 600 bushels of Sweet Potatoes, 530 hogsheads of sugar, and 30,000 gallons of molasses…
1867 – Dr. E. E. Kittredge died at their summer residence in Winchester Springs, Tennessee.
Elm Hall was destroyed by fire in the early 1900s.
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