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.

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.