PREFACE

There has long been a need for the factual story of the old City of Lafayette and its fine residential area, the Garden District. What better opportunity to attempt to fill this need than to benefit the Louise S. McGehee School! This venerable institution now approaches its fiftieth year, a memorable half century of leadership in education.

Therefore, the Parents’ League of McGehee’s, as the school is affectionately known to three generations of students, considered it fitting to put its members to work on this project with a three-fold purpose: to memorialize the half century of growth of McGehee’s as it continues to expand its facilities to serve the community; to develop an extra source of income for the League’s contributions to the school; and to satisfy the continuous requests made by the hundreds of visitors who take the League-sponsored Garden District home tours.

The authors, who were asked to undertake the research and writing project, are gratefully indebted to many for their kind advice and consent. Old maps, documents, rare books and family records have been generously offered for examination. Illustrations have been lent from private and other collections. Patient understanding and careful correction of the manuscript were invaluable. We would like to thank particularly the following: Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Wilson, Jr., Mr. Cecil J. Murphy, Mr. Leonard V. Huber, The Waldo-Burton Memorial Home, Miss Margaret Ruckert, Mrs. Sue Bauman, Mr. Richard Koch, Mrs. William J. Griffith, Mrs. Dorothy Whittemore and others in the archives department of the Howard-Tilton Library of Tulane University, the Louisiana State Museum Library, the Notarial Archives, Mrs. Benjamin Cromwell Gore, Mrs. Robert Lee Emery, Jr., Miss Barbara Gessner, Miss Lily Gauche, Mr. Frank Boatner, Mrs. Keith Temple, Dr. Bernard Lemann, Mr. Albert Lieutaud, Mr. Harold Leisure, Mr. Carleton King, Mr. Errol E. Kelly, Mrs. John Prados, and Dr. Virgil L. Bedsole.

From the McGehee faculty and the Parents’ League inestimable assistance was received. Mrs. Edmund McIlhenny, Parents’ League President, and Miss Elise McGehee, Headmistress, were extremely generous with their time and counsel. Our thanks to Mrs. Andrew W. Dykers for reading the manuscript; Mrs. Leslie Bowling, who designed and executed the cover picture; Leon Trice, Jr., who took the majority of the interior photographs; Mrs. Bernard Wolfe, capable business manager of the project; and very special gratitude to Mrs. Dallam O’Brien, who designed the book, and to Mr. O’Brien for his help.

Particular appreciation is given, of course, to the present owners of the great houses selected for inclusion in this work, for their gracious permission and cooperation.

October, 1961

Acknowledgment

The Parents’ League of the Louise S. McGehee School acknowledges with appreciation the work of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Samuel in writing this book on the Garden District in New Orleans. We are indeed grateful to them for devoting their time and talent to this school project.

A LAFAYETTE CITY STORY

It was February 23, in the year 1852; the place, Lafayette City, the independent municipality on the Mississippi River, just above the thriving city of New Orleans. The hazy sun was turning a chilly morning into one of the unseasonably warm late winter afternoons typical of the semi-tropical climate. Throughout the spacious back residential section of Lafayette City, known as the Garden District, the azalea bushes were covered with swollen buds, ready to burst into their annual blaze of glory.

A morning rain had sent a tiny fresher gurgling along the deep, weed-lined gutters, carefully retained between street and banquette by stout “gunwales”, long planks from broken up flatboats. The neat herringbone pattern of the red brick banquettes was set off by the doily-like border of the white pickets fencing the fine mansion of John Layton on Jackson Street.

Tall jalousies guarded the front door of the Layton home. Suddenly they parted, and John Layton, Esquire, himself, walked out, followed by John, Junior, a lad of 12 years. Emerging from the darkened interior, they both squinted at the afternoon haze. Obviously, from their winter finery, hats and light topcoats, this was a more-important-than-usual sortie.

“There she comes, John, c’mon!” shouted Father, grabbing John by the arm and hustling him down the wooden stairs of the gallery, out the swinging gate and into the street to hail the passing omnibus mule car, bound in Jackson Street toward the lively commercial center of Lafayette City, near the river front.

Father physically scooped son aboard the double-decker omnibus “Governor Johnson”, the pride of Lafayette and product of its own Hart, Thomas and Company. It was crowded this day, top to bottom, and all passengers were dressed in unaccustomed finery.

“But, Father...,” panted young John, “... why are we ... where are we...?”

Both struggled into the packed lower section of the “Governor Johnson” and sandwiched into seats. Blowing hard, the elder Layton withdrew a large linen handkerchief and mopped his brow. In February! Then he answered his son.

“It is a day in history, lad. You’ll see. ’Tis a memory of it I want you to have. Whew!” It was close inside the “Governor Johnson”.

The rocky ride on the mule car compounded the effort of John Layton, Sr., to regain composure. Someone opened a window, but little breeze was generated by the four-mile-per-hour clop, clop, clop of the two scrawny mules. Father knew he still owed son an explanation.

“You see, my boy, we live—or have lived to this very day—in Lafayette City, a distinct and separate city of our own people, our own mayor, our own police, God bless ’em all. But this day, as I said, boy, is historic. The mayor and city fathers in their wisdom, have seen fit to join us to the city of New Orleans by law, as we have long been in fact. Nothing but an imaginary line on the downtown side of Felicity Road has divided us before. Now we will become one. You will see. A wedding you will witness, a wedding of two cities.... ’Til death us do part.” Layton père was warming up to the occasion and rather enjoying the attention of the crowd which smiled benignly at his efforts.

By this time the mule car had come to a stop at Magazine Street where several people got on, further packing the omnibus until passengers were hanging on the stairs outside. As the car started up again, faint sounds of music, a brass band, were heard, coming from the center of the city’s activity.

“It’s a great day, isn’t it, Mr. Layton?” said a red-faced man from behind a well-starched collar, sitting next to them, “becoming the fourth district of New Orleans, and all that.”

“That it is, sir, now that we can be sure the new city government will treat us properly. That’s why we held off before, you know. They assume our indebtedness, $504,800, I believe, and we share in their expenses and in the McDonogh fund—all in proportion, as it should be. No one can complain now.”

As the omnibus crossed Laurel, young John glanced anxiously to the right, looking up the street between Jackson and Philip at the quiescent Lafayette Public School building, making sure there was really a holiday. No sign of life there relieved him immensely, for the Principal, Mr. Lewis Elkin, brooked no absentees without due cause, which usually meant near death.

The tired mules, knowing the end of the line and a well-earned rest were imminent, slowed to scant mobility, just as the “Governor Johnson” passed the Orphan Asylum buildings between Chippewa and Rousseau. Young John steeled himself for the standard lecture from Layton père on counting his blessings that he had loving parents, et cetera. Surprisingly, it didn’t come and then John realized that was because everybody was getting ready to disembark.

The mule car stopped at the Jackson Market. Here the street parted to pass on each side of the two-story, whitewashed building which extended almost across Rousseau Street. Passengers poured out of the omnibus, Laytons included, and all joined a large assemblage of noisy citizens, ready for a convivial occasion.

On Jackson, toward Levee Street, at their left, a big United States flag hung from the editorial offices of the Lafayette Statesman, where J. G. Fanning, its indomitable editor, was holding a sort of wake as his days as “official city printer” came to an end.

Up Rousseau toward Philip, from where the Laytons stood, they could see banners and bunting swathed all over the Lafayette Courthouse, for the city still would have its court, that of the Fourth District, and would still be the seat of Jefferson Parish, too.

In the next block between Philip and Soraparu, a drab note was added by the still uncleared ruins of the burned out Lafayette Theater, directly across the street from the equally charred remains of Terpsichore Hall, both victims of the same night’s conflagration. John had mixed emotions about the loss of the hall. He had delighted at the antics of the remarkable General Tom Thumb there; but he had also paled before the saber tongue of Monsieur Pierre Clissey, dancing master who taught “the latest dances now in vogue, with special classes for children”. His father had attended a fete for General Zachary Taylor in Terpsichore Hall; so, despite M. Clissey, its memory still held certain charms for John’s young imagination. What he did remember vividly was the great fire in March, 1850. Everybody in Lafayette, it seemed, had rushed to the scene. The fire began in the Lafayette Theater and took the entire block with it. Sparks jumped across the street and claimed Terpsichore Hall and several houses next door. A boy doesn’t forget a sight like that!

The crowd now gravitated around the towering flagpole at the river end of Jackson Market. If there was any place the residents of Lafayette City instinctively considered the center of town, this spot was it, under the 135 foot high flagpole. Although one block from the courthouse, it represented the heart of Lafayette out of pure sentiment. Within the memories of almost everyone, the seat of the city fathers had been the rooms above the market stalls. To this day some citizens still maintained that new quarters for the Council should be found further out on Jackson, mainly because of the ... well ... civic pride prevented use of the word ... “smell”.

Even though most of the slaughter houses had been moved to Jefferson City landing, above Lafayette; and even though the breaking up of flatboats with their objectionable odors had several years before been relegated to comparatively secluded sections along the river, there still wafted in from the water’s edge certain disagreeable olfactory assaults. These seemed to be at their worst whenever the city council was in session, giving rise, among the jocular Irish and German senses of humor, to all sorts of unfortunate jokes concerning the odor of the particular politics under discussion.

The Southern Traveler, published by the Rust brothers, Richard and W. E., had moved into a new building just around the corner of Levee Street, and that, some people felt, might help to sweeten the atmosphere. They were in the process of giving this a fair chance when the amalgamation of Lafayette and New Orleans was proposed. So now, it appeared, the matter was moot.

Anyway, on this particular day, at this particular hour, the two Laytons’ attention was diverted by the arrival, from opposite directions, of two parades. One, headed by top-hatted horsemen, red bands across their chests, issued from lower Rousseau Street. The blasts of the familiar brass band were the unmistakable label of the merry Germans, who for this occasion were arm in arm with their neighbors of the Irish Channel section of Lafayette, the streets closest to the upper limit of New Orleans and nearest the river, Felicity, St. Mary, Adele and Nuns. The German families congregated for excitement at the Lafayette Ballroom, St. Mary corner of Bellechasse. This day produced a delightful excuse for excitement at the Lafayette, not that an excuse was generally necessary. The merriment there was known to last as long as the poker game in the back room, which was eternal. William Toy, the blue-nosed editor of the City Advertiser and ardent temperance crusader, often thundered in print about these “sounds of revelry by night” and by morn, too.

The Lafayette was in contrast to the more sedate ballroom run by Mr. Jacob Kaiser, Josephine corner of Chippewa, across from the back of the Orphan Boys’ Home. This was more of a coffee house, where political meetings were held, and only on Saturday night did its hall echo loud and long. Early Sunday morning the good ladies of the Roman Catholic Church congregation barely had time to clean out the hall before early Mass. This was before St. Mary’s Church was built by the Redemptorists.

The other retinue, made up mostly of squeaky two-wheeled carts toting frosty barrels of conviviality for the celebration, snaked along Rousseau Street toward Jackson. This parade had no brass band, but it had collected more of a crowd than if it had. Mr. Kranz had thoughtfully supplied the refrigerant from his popular ice house on Soraparu, just off Rousseau, and the Lafayette Rum Distillery on Levee, between First and Second Streets, had provided the rest of the refreshments.

Young John Layton was taking all this in while trying to keep from being squeezed by the crowd. It was indeed another sight he’d never forget, even though all of it was not very clear to his tender understanding. He was much more interested in the Kaintucks from upriver with their long rifles and in the be-medalled guardsmen.

Then things began to happen. Mayor Francis Bouligny, his sash of office loosely tied around his corpulence, made his way through the crowd to a small wooden stand beneath the flag pole. He was followed by the other city officials: the treasurer, comptroller, city attorney, surveyor, harbormaster, commissary of streets, commissary of day police, captain of the night watch, tax collector and the 10 aldermen, all performing their last independent functions as officials of the city of Lafayette. Michel Musson, prominent Whig Party leader, was everywhere in evidence.

Traditionally, such an occasion would call for hours of oratory. But the skies were darkening early and a nippy breeze was stirring in from the river; so comparatively short work was made of it. Appropriate words were said over the city of Lafayette, its nineteen years of life, by members of the clergy. Mayor Bouligny read the ad of incorporation into the City of New Orleans as approved by the Louisiana Legislature and signed by Governor Joseph Walker. Lafayette City thereby ceased to exist. The fourth district of the City of New Orleans was now in business, and on with the drinks, boys!

From the levee bells clanged, signalling the departure of the Bostona, Magnolia and several other popular packets at the wharves across from the Bull’s Head, the lusty tavern at the cattle landing, foot of St. Mary Street. The two John Laytons, father and son, made their way toward the soda water establishment run by Mr. M. Michell on Jackson, near Levee, where a cup of hot chocolate, sweet and tasty, would reward the youngster’s patience during the ceremony which he had but scarcely comprehended.

His father found friendly conversation inside the tiny shop, fragrant with aromas of vanilla bean and chocolate. As John blew on the steaming cup, he noticed his father chatting with a fine-looking gentleman who was followed by a liveried footman, hat in hand. Layton, Sr., called his son over.

“This is my son John, Mr. Robb. This is Mr. Robb, son.” James Robb! The name was magic to any youngster in Lafayette, especially those living in the garden section. This was the celebrated New Orleans millionaire who was, they said, going to build a real palace right in their own neighborhood. They had walked over to Washington Street one day to see the workmen clearing the space for it. It was to take up a whole square!

“Mr. Robb has kindly offered to drive us home in his carriage,” explained Layton, and the three proceeded out the door, followed by the footman who stepped nimbly ahead outside and lowered the step.

The conversation between the two men immediately jumped to a name familiar to the boy: Poultney. It was familiar because it was the subject of so much “grown-up” talk.

“I hope the Federal Supreme Court will now settle the matter once and for all time,” asserted Robb. “One’s sympathies may be with the Poultney heirs, but the magnitude of the property, so much of Lafayette City is involved, that one must consider the injustice of dispossessing the present owners who bought their small lots in good faith.”

Layton agreed, adding that should the decision be otherwise, a friend of his, Captain G. T. Beauregard, might realize a sum, as he was one of the heirs.

Mr. Robb directed his carriage out Jackson to the river, turning right at Levee Street with its Belgian block pavements, made of granite blocks dumped on the levee from foreign ships which brought them as ballast. The river front as far as the boy could see was lined with flatboats, the ugly but extremely practical box-like floating storehouses, their “broadhorns” shipped and nestling so close to each other that one could walk for miles along their cabintops.

The flatboats were built to bring cargoes for sale at New Orleans, then the boats were broken up and sold as timber. The flatboat crews, a robust lot, went “on the town” while awaiting the sale of their cargoes, and before returning upriver for another cargo in another boat. John had been warned many times about becoming too friendly with the flatboatmen, although nobody ever recalled their being out of line with other than their own brood and the police.

The main problem the city government had with flatboatmen was keeping them from putting out signs and selling their cargoes “retail” in competition with legitimate Lafayette merchants.

The shiny black wheels of the elegant carriage skidded and creaked along the uneven stones, and John was glad when the driver finally turned right again and entered Washington Street. The conveyance ran relatively more smoothly now. Washington had been “paved” with flatboat gunwales laid very closely together. Just past Rousseau Street, Mr. Robb gave a sharp command and the carriage veered left, and “Oh, no,” thought young John, “It can’t be!”

But it was. The carriage pulled into the lane leading up to the most forbidding spot in Lafayette to the youngsters. This was known as the “Haunted House of Lafayette”, and no boy or girl, no matter how brave, no matter how dared, would approach it, especially in the late evening. That was when “things” happened!

And there they were, driving right up to it. Frightening, that’s what it was. Haunts and ghosts, and pirate treasures, and dead bodies!

Mr. Robb slowed the carriage by command, and he and John Layton, Sr., looked over the state of ill repair in which the once celebrated plantation house now stood.

“I can see no advantage to Madame Livaudais’ offer,” said Mr. Robb, breaking a silence that had helped terrify the young boy.

“Nor do I, Mr. Robb,” Layton replied, obviously taking up a conversation of an earlier period of which the boy had not been a part. He listened as Mr. Robb described the offer of Madame Livaudais to sell to the Lafayette Council, now the Fourth District Aldermen, the entire square of Washington, Sixth, Levee, Fulton, including the house, for $80,000, to serve as a Municipal Hall and market. Layton commented that, since the present location served the government’s need at $1,100 per year, and since a new market on Soraparu was under consideration, it would not be of interest.

John Layton Jr., had clasped the seat of the carriage so hard that his knuckles were white, and as the carriage turned around and headed back toward Washington Street, he couldn’t even summon courage for a furtive glance back at the ruin to see if the reported red lights danced from the cracks in the crumbling and once proud home of the family de Livaudais.

The street lamps had been lit at each intersection as the fine pair pulled the carriage steadily out Washington.

Chippewa Street John knew because he loved to play in Clay Square between it, Second, Third and Annunciation Streets. The last street he had first known as Jersey. Laurel Street, where the heavy doors and the iron bars of the jail, just a block from his school, served as a reminder to the little boys to stay in line. Constance Street, first known to him as Live Oak, was familiar as the location of Holy Trinity Church, corner of Second, where his family worshipped. The new church on Jackson was not yet ready.

Magazine Street was next, and this held special charm for him because on Washington, from Magazine to Camp, Live Oak Square formed a vast, tree-shaded playground where he and his young friends staged many a mock battle, refighting the famous engagement at Chalmette, as told to them by some of the veterans themselves, men who had known Jackson, Lafitte and Dominique You in the flesh! Often the boys surrendered the wonderful grounds to real soldiers who encamped there and had military drills; sometimes, to wagon-loads of picnickers of a Sunday. The moss-draped oaks indeed beckoned to him even in the twilight and seemed to whisper, “We’ll be waiting.”

And in the next block they saw the rough foundation outlines of Mr. Robb’s house, an Italian villa he said it would be. The granite foundation stones being hewn, the stacks of the finest cypress and imported mahogany, the piles of red bricks made of the best lake sand—no ordinary house was abuilding here!

Mr. Robb slowed his carriage, but as it was too dark to make out much, they sped onward, turning right at Chestnut Street for the final lap back home to Jackson.

“What a day this has been in the life of the former city of Lafayette,” thought John Layton, Sr. “I wonder,” he mused that night at home, “if the boy really grasped the impact? Maybe I’d better....”

It was too late for that night. John, Jr., had long before gone to sleep.

THE GREAT DAYS OF THE GARDEN DISTRICT

The foregoing is meant to provide a setting for the information to follow. The scene described is not based on an actual occurrence, although it is entirely probable, and factually correct as to dates, places and people except for the Laytons. “Any resemblance is entirely coincidental,” as the usual disclaimer says. The merger of Lafayette City and New Orleans did take place under the circumstances described, although no such public event was recorded in the newspapers. This mise en scène has been contrived merely to serve as a vehicle for revealing the surroundings and events of the period, since the essence, the individuality, the physical characteristics of old Lafayette City are so important to the full understanding and appreciation of the present Garden District and its great houses.

It is equally important to go back one more step to learn how Lafayette City came to be; and it is highly interesting to anyone with the slightest historical inquisitiveness. For the area which was Lafayette City, some four miles removed from what is considered the “historical section” of New Orleans, the Vieux Carré, is still closely interwoven with the original colony’s basic story line.

Louisiana was first seen through European eyes by the Spanish conquistadores of De Soto’s expedition in 1540. The Spanish did nothing to make use of the vast territory they first claimed. Almost 150 years passed before the white man again cast an interested glance in this direction. This was the period of French exploration in the 1650’s, when Canadians began to look south from the Great Lakes and wonder if all were true that the Indians told them about the great river to the south which led to the sea through a land of wealth and plenty. This increased curiosity resulted in the famous La Salle expeditions and the claiming of the entire central area of the United States for France in 1684. Still, no colonial interest was aroused. It took the threat of war and the encroachment of English colonies from the East and Spanish from the West to make the French take Louisiana seriously as a possible source of wealth for the throne.

To secure the colony from attack, forts were built in Canada and on the Great Lakes. The distinguished French-Canadian naval officer, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, hero of Hudson’s Bay and other battles with the English, was sent to install a colony on the Gulf Coast and to build bastions to guard the great river.

The first Colony in Louisiana was founded at Ocean Springs, Miss., near Biloxi, in 1699, by Iberville. It wasn’t until 1718 that another Le Moyne, the Sieur de Bienville, succeeded his brother and persuaded the French authorities to move the capital of the colony to a site on the Mississippi River. Not until 1722 did the capital finally move to New Orleans, to the area we now know as the Vieux Carré, the old quarter.

After the founding of the city of La Nouvelle Orléans, a fine example of foresight was shown by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, governor of the colony. He wisely realized that the land surrounding the young city would become valuable, and according to the custom, he asked for a grant of land from the Company of the Indies, the agency which operated the colony for the King. He asked for “the concession of a tract situated above and at the limits of New Orleans, facing the Mississippi River, and in depth running West quarter North West to the Mississippi, in the bend above the Chapitoulas....” This would include an area roughly from Bienville street in the Vieux Carré, up the river beyond Carrollton to Nine Mile Point, and back from the river to the undrained swamps where Claiborne Avenue is today.

Hardly had he been given possession of his land than Bienville received a further ruling that a governor could not receive concessions of property except for “vegetable gardens”. Bienville, therefore, caused the first section of his land from just above Bienville Street, to the lower limit of what was later Lafayette City to be known as his “vegetable garden”. On the rest he settled German families in small farms or plantations.

Some of these immigrant farmers were successful, but most succumbed to the floods and the fevers. Others departed for healthier sections of Louisiana. In 1728 the ax fell again on Bienville’s right to hold property, and it was not until 1737, according to the best evidence, that he succeeded in having his original claim, or what was left of it, sustained. By that time, many parts of his original plantation had been sold to new owners, some even having been sold by Bienville himself. These tracts became proud plantations with lovely homes fronting the river and extensive indigo, and later, sugar cane, fields running far to the rear.

Five of these baronies were those of d’Hauterive, Broutin, Darby, Carrière, and Livaudais, roughly situated between what was known as Felicity Road and almost to Grand Route Wiltz (Louisiana Avenue).

These five plantations, called Faubourgs by the old French people, gradually became consolidated into three small communities fronting on the river, with residences built on lots into which the earlier farm lands had been divided. The communities were called Nuns, Lafayette and Livaudais. Then in 1833 these three communities joined forces to become the city of Lafayette and were so incorporated by an act of the state legislature.

Eleven years later, Lafayette annexed a small settlement on its upper boundary, the Faubourg de Lassaiz, which extended the city to what is now Toledano Street. Further expansion was blocked still later when the citizens of the next upper community, Faubourg Plaisance, voted very definitely not to unite with Lafayette City.

Although the municipal personality called Lafayette City has disappeared, the way of life it launched within the framework of greater New Orleans will remain as long as there is a New Orleans. There was the gay, industrious, hard-working, but pleasure-loving commercial part of old Lafayette; and the spacious, gracious section of the great homes, the ante-bellum and post-bellum houses of the area known as the Garden District.

Why did the uppermost plantation of those which formed Lafayette City become so desirable as a district of imposing and elaborate residences?

In the year 1816, the river crevassed at the Macarty plantation, several miles upriver from the Livaudais property, and its waters inundated most of the large holdings down to New Orleans. Among them was the great plantation of Jacques François Esnould Dugué de Livaudais, whose father and grandfather had been large landowners.

François de Livaudais had married just about the best catch any man could aspire to: Célèste, the daughter of Philippe de Marigny, the wealthiest man in Louisiana and perhaps one of the wealthiest men in all America. The marriage represented the union of two vast fortunes, and the couple began construction of the castellated, lavish plantation home on their country domain.

Perhaps the floodwaters dampened their ardor for a castle on the Mississippi to rival those of their ancestors in France. Perhaps it was something else. In 1825 the Livaudais were separated. In the settlement, Madame Livaudais received the plantation among other properties and funds. She moved to Paris, where as La Marquise de Livaudais she cut a wide swath, being among King Louis Philippe’s inner circle. Through her New Orleans attorneys she sold her plantation to a group of real estate entrepreneurs for $500,000. They engaged the eminent surveyor, Benjamin Buisson, formerly an engineer of Napoleon’s army, to lay out the plantation into streets and lots.

Thus from just below First Street to just above Ninth Street (now Harmony) and from the river back to St. George Street (now La Salle) this expanse of property, the original Faubourg Livaudais, was divided into squares and placed on the market, with one exception. Madame Livaudais retained the tract with her house on it, including her garden.

This is why the blocks between Washington Avenue and Sixth Street from the river to La Salle Street are wider than the other blocks. They follow the width of Mme. Livaudais’ house and grounds.

The house itself was never completed. For brief periods, members of the Livaudais family appear to have lived in the habitable portions. It was once used as a public ballroom, though which sections of it were adaptable for that purpose have never been specified. Itinerant wayfarers settled within its shambles as years passed. In 1861 it was briefly converted into a plaster factory when that commodity became scarce because of the Federal blockade. Two destitute, frail old crones next made it their home. These female hermits, it was said, refused all offerings of food or money. Little wonder that the ruin became “The Haunted House of Lafayette”, until it was finally torn down in 1863.

The Livaudais plantation became a valuable part of Lafayette City at its incorporation with the Faubourgs of Nuns and Lafayette in 1833. It supplied, besides more river frontage, fine residential sites, covered with the rich silt from the Macarty crevasse. It would indeed grow anything, but particularly, flowers in profusion.

The fragrance and the variety of floral abundance evoked the paeans of poet and author. It was natural that some of the wealthy “American” families and later even a few Creoles should seek these new sites for their great homes. An omnibus from New Orleans ran regularly out Tchoupitoulas. The New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad, chartered by the same session of the legislature which incorporated Lafayette, began regular service from the heart of the growing business and financial section in New Orleans proper up Nayades Street (now St. Charles Avenue) right through this verdant section on its way upriver to the town of Carrollton.

In 1834 a spur route turned off Nayades and came out Jackson Street to the river, along Lafayette City’s most elegant thoroughfare. The wealthy citizens of New Orleans and the successful merchants of Lafayette City began to spread out in the section which quickly became known as the Garden District. Although many fine homes were built on the outer fringes of the quadrangle formed by Jackson and Louisiana Avenues and Magazine Street and St. Charles Avenue, it is generally agreed today that the Garden District lies within these boundaries. However, in the 1850’s the term was not so strictly applied and Josephine and Apollo (Carondelet) Streets were included.

The operator of this mule car branch railroad which first served Lafayette City crosstown was the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad Company. In July, 1834, it was franchised to construct a “single railway commencing from the intersection of Jackson and Nayades Streets into said city running through Jackson to the site of the projected market house, thence branching around said market house and running to the river Mississippi.” The rate of travel could not, by law, exceed four miles per hour.

Historically, the Lafayette river front had long been the scene of commerce. The succession of Spanish governors, who took over the colony after 1763, failed to enforce the strict embargo against any but Spanish vessels trading with New Orleans merchants. The British, under the pretext of sailing their commercial vessels up the Mississippi past New Orleans to their own colonies at Manchac, Baton Rouge and Natchez, would tie up above New Orleans in the future Lafayette area, and carry on a heavy trade in merchandise and slaves with the businessmen and planters in and around the city. Directly across the river from the site of Lafayette, in what is now Gretna, the audacious British maintained two floating warehouses and even “built a warehouse on land to facilitate the passage of the floating warehouses of their vessels” according to a contemporary report.

We can visualize the busy river front at this point on the east bank, with merchants plying back and forth in skiffs, and larger batteaux bringing loads of the high quality English goods, including cloth, cutlery, farming utensils—and slaves. New Orleans businessmen who dared not indulge in this illicit trade protested to the Spanish authorities who continued to wink at the British until the American revolution made anti-British sympathies fashionable. Then Bernardo Galvez, the Spanish governor, on April 17, 1777, seized the English boats and warehouses, and the illegal trade stopped. But it is safe to assume that the commercial identity of what became Lafayette’s riverfront persisted, perhaps even its later competition with New Orleans having begun in that early illicit trade.

The good business prospects in Lafayette caused men to say that the city might possibly “capture” New Orleans some day. The Texas cattle trails ended their long treks over the prairies at Gretna. Cattle boats brought the Stock across the river to the slaughter houses with special landings for the pounding, snorting beasts, skittering down the gangplanks into the pens, as if entirely cognizant that the end of the trail had come now for certain.

If one could stand the smell, it was a curious and exciting vista watching the steamboats unload cattle at Lafayette. Satellite industries lined the river front, the tallow renderers, the soap-boilers, the hide merchants, the tanners, the disposers of unused parts, and the bone grinders, whose odoriferous products made tasty vegetables and sweet sugar cane grow, paradoxical as that seemed.

King Cotton considered the wharves at Lafayette one of his royal ports. The puffing, graceful white swans of the Mississippi began to nudge the rows of flatboats from the river front. In the Forties the city council decreed exclusive facilities between First and Second Streets for steamboats, with inclined landing areas. The city supplied heavy, thick planks, bound on each end with iron bands and proudly branded “L”, for the use of the steamboats calling at its wharves. By 1850 twenty piers had been constructed to accommodate the packets.

The “breadbasket” of the upper valley dumped its cargoes at Lafayette wharves also. The first grain elevator on the lower river was built at the foot of Harmony Street. Flour was an important commodity, with busy factors waiting to trade as the clumsy broadhorns, floating on the current, edged into their moorings. So crowded were the flatboat moorings—above Second Street—that flatboat captains received a $10 fine for not immediately removing the large steering oars on each side. Twenty-four hours was the time limit for unloading.

At first, 80-foot sections of the river front had been set aside for the flatboats, once delivered of their cargoes, to be broken up. But this became a nuisance, and by 1845, it was forbidden along the entire Lafayette river front.

There was always a ready market for the timbers from broken up flatboats, or “gunwales”, as the long, heavy fore-and-aft planks were called. Many of the early houses were built of these excellent, weathered timbers from the virgin forests of the upper valley. Most of the streets of Lafayette, until after the mid-nineteenth century, were “paved” with them, as were the sidewalks, or “banquettes”. The long boards would not disappear so quickly into the mud, as would rocks and bricks. Numerous cottages remaining in various sections of New Orleans near the river are built of these sturdy, enduring timbers.

Lafayette City was a complete entity in every respect, with the exception of a bank. There was a branch of the Carrollton Bank to serve its citizens, at the corner of Jackson and Levee, but it was not their own. No doubt a Bank of Lafayette was high on the list of these enterprising citizens, when annexation took place.

James H. Caldwell, the theatrical impresario, entrepreneur, the man most responsible for the development of the “American” section, the former Faubourg Ste. Marie, left his enterprising mark on Lafayette. In 1847, the City Council granted him the sole right of vending gas lighting under the name of the Lafayette Gas Light Company. He could lay pipes and conduits at the company’s expense in the city streets. For the privilege, the company had to supply gas to public lamps throughout the city as well as in public buildings at special rates. The first home reported to have gas illumination was that of Mr. E. S. Miles on Nayades (St. Charles) between Sixth and Seventh.

Lafayette was the scene of a celebrated legal case involving large and valuable sections of the city, second in local court annals only to the Gaines litigation. The original name of the faubourg which later became known as Lafayette was Faubourg Panis, after its owner, the Widow Panis. She first had this property subdivided into lots and streets. Her daughter Mme. Rousseau, a widow, inherited the faubourg. In 1818 she sold the remaining property for $100,000 to John Poultney, who died before he could pay for it. His creditors, who had advanced him part of the money to make the purchase, paid the notes and proceeded to sell lots in honest belief of clear title. Poultney’s wife, on behalf of herself and her minor children, had renounced their rights to the property. The name of the faubourg was changed at that time to Lafayette, in honor of the French patriot who had visited New Orleans.

Later the Poultney heirs claimed that their tender age and legal incapacity prevented them from accepting the property at the time of the succession. The suit was instigated in 1832 and rambled through the courts until 1855 when the United States Supreme Court upheld the Louisiana tribunal against the plaintiffs. Interestingly, one of the disappointed claimants was the then Major G. T. Beauregard, engineer in charge of construction of the New Orleans Customhouse. Mrs. John Poultney had been Emilie Toutant-Beauregard.

The city was not without its theatrical attractions. The only actual theater built for stage presentations was the Lafayette on Rousseau between Philip and Soraparu Streets. It was in the center of the block, on the lake side, directly across from Terpsichore Hall, the favorite salle à danser. The theater opened in late December, 1848, and according to the Statesman, “has already increased property values near it.” It had 100 feet of depth, was 55 feet wide, 40 feet high, and its stage was 35 feet deep, said the newspaper account. Sol Smith, one of the pioneer actors who penetrated the “frontier” communities from the East, along with Noah Ludlow and his troupe, played the Lafayette and left this comment, dated February, 1849:

“A theater in Lafayette, a suburb of New Orleans, was opened under the management of Mr. Oliver this season. The prevalence of the cholera blighted any prospects there might have been of success. This company was composed principally of new beginners and their salaries were paid in various commodities, such as the manager stipulated to receive of the citizens for tickets. It was a stipulation in each article of agreement (so the manager told me) that every actor should take a portion of his salary in coffins, should he need any!—that is to say, if he should die during the season, he should be buried on account; the style of coffin, number of carriages, and so forth, to be regulated by the amount due at the time of his demise.

“I had a fellow feeling for this manager, and when he asked me to act one night for him, assuring me that I could fill the house at double prices, I could not refuse him, though I doubted very much whether my acting would add anything to his receipts. Manager Oliver was right, however, and I had the pleasure of playing the Mock Duke in the Honey Moon to one of the most crowded audiences I have ever acted to. Of course, under the circumstances, I would take no pay for my night’s services, though the grateful manager offered me a clear half of the receipts.

“The season failed totally, the manager left for parts unknown and next season, after a vain attempt by one Hickey to resuscitate the drama by presenting some horrible representations (or misrepresentations rather) of Yankee character, the theater took fire one day and was burned to the ground. Lafayette is too near New Orleans to give an efficient support to the theater.”

The earliest homes in Lafayette naturally were built on streets closest to the river. As early as 1842, the crusty editor of the Daily Picayune in New Orleans was rhapsodic over the beautiful cottages in Lafayette City with their handsome architecture and lovely gardens. The Lafayette Spectator, by 1850, was equally enthusiastic. “The City of Lafayette”, wrote John McMillin, “at no previous time could boast of so many valuable buildings in progress as at present. Styles, finishes and materials being so vastly improved.” The cottages were becoming mansions at this point, getting away from the flatboat gunwales.

“Such is the demand for lots,” continued McMillin, “in the back part of the city that they are selling for nearly double the price of those three or four squares from the river. Lots on or near the railroad (St. Charles Avenue) sell for $1,800. Those on Jersey (Annunciation), $800 or $900. Cheapest lots are on Jersey and Laurel Streets.

“To become independent here,” he advised, “it is necessary to purchase a few lots only, at a low rate and keep them a few years when the fortunate owner finds himself well off in the world. We believe for the next five years real estate will increase 20% per year.”

In 1852, Lafayette City counted a population of 12,651 with 1,539 slaves added. This was short of the anticipated total because the city had just come through a particularly devastating yellow fever epidemic in which some 2,000 souls had been lost. One journalist felt that the census takers had not been thorough in their tally.

The city burial grounds, the Lafayette Cemetery on Washington between Coliseum and Prytania, laid out in 1833, was hard put to find space for the bodies. Apparently most of the deceased were part of the huge drifting population, newly arrived immigrants, the flatboatmen and others, for only 389 citizens of Lafayette could be accounted for by the census taker among those buried in the cemetery.

The prospects of the Garden District of Lafayette were also favorably mentioned by the editor of the Spectator, a Whig newspaper published there during the mid-century era:

“It is already the seat of fashionable residences. The property in the rear of the district has been greatly sought by merchants and bankers and professional men. Little or none has been held for speculation. It will maintain its value.”

The appearance of the Greek Revival mansions now rising from the vicinity of Nayades and in toward Magazine supported the claim that at this time, New Orleans had more per capita wealth than New York.

It appears from the best sources that the first house of consequence to be built in what is now the Garden District proper was that of Thomas Toby in 1838. He came from Philadelphia, and his father’s ships brought some of the materials for the house from his native city. This house is still standing at Prytania and First Streets. Others who built in the same general neighborhood in the following decade were F. B., T. B., and Charles Conrad, P. N. Wood, Judge R. F. Ogden, Captain Thomas Ivey, and Charles Briggs. The Fifties saw the greatest activity of construction of the great houses of the Garden District.

This section, peopled as it was chiefly by those who conducted their businesses in New Orleans, but who enjoyed the shaded gardens for their residences, rapidly developed a life apart from the teeming waterfront of Lafayette City. Inevitably a rivalry began. The catalyst was the constant annoyance of pounding hooves and the odors of the slaughterhouses and tanneries. Eventually, the early residents of the Garden District were instrumental in getting the Lafayette City Council to pass restrictive measures which removed the cattle landing. The important commerce of this trade moved upriver to the neighboring town of Jefferson, which caused the fiery editor of the Spectator, the outspoken champion of the city’s growth, to howl from his columns that the city had lost a million and a half dollars in trade a year by this act.

He belabored particularly the aldermen from the “rear of the city” who “turned up the whites of their eyes and stopped their delicate noses as they passed by with their white gloves on and exclaimed, ‘What a nuisance!’”