When vacant and crumbling plantation homes on the River Road north of New Orleans were being leveled to make way for progress in the mid-1900s, Gray plucked Evergreen Plantation in Edgard on the west bank of the Mississippi from that fate. The year was 1946.

Unmarried when her father, John Geddings Gray, died in 1921, she, not her brothers, took the reins of his oil and timber business. It was a remarkable move for the time, but she was a remarkable woman. Matilda Gray possessed a keen intelligence, a strong drive and confidence in her ability, say those who knew her.

View of Evergreen Plantation from the rear showing the formal boxwood garden.

To help her re-do her country estate, she turned to New Orleans architect Richard Koch, who was known for his restoration of historic Natchez properties and Oak Alley. Gray was one of several preservationists rescuing plantation homes from death by decay around that time. Others were the Crozats at Houmas House, the Stewarts at Oak Alley and the Judices at L’Hermitage, all on River Road.

When Gray chose Evergreen Plantation, she acquired not only a grand house in the Greek Revival tradition, but 37 other structures, mostly antebellum (built before the Civil War). Of key historic importance in the description of this historic property are the 22 slave cabins. No other plantation in the South can boast of this many. Author Richard Sexton calls them “a melancholy vestige of the institution of slavery.”

The cabins remain in their original, double-row configuration, and 82 live oak trees, estimated to be about 200 years old, shade the cabins. This allée of oaks is not in front of the house, as one might expect. Evergreen was well known for its formal garden encompassing the front lawn. The highly photographed oak allée is on the side, stretching back to the cane fields in a vanishing point. The trees were reportedly planted by a slave woman whose name has been lost to history, according to Mary Ann Sternberg in Along the River Road.

If the slave cabins give you pause, add one more statistic to Gray’s acquisition on River Road—2,263 acres of land with sugar cane fields, a swamp and even a piece of Lac des Allemands. Imagine your lot measuring about three miles deep!

The parlor on the main floor, with a portrait of an early Creole woman.

Because of the history of the house, the agricultural heritage and the slave cabins, Evergreen sits beside Mount Vernon and Gettysburg in having achieved the nation’s highest National Landmark historic designation. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places. But Evergreen was in need of a makeover, and Gray tackled it with the confidence of the CEO that she was.

When Gray acquired Evergreen, it had been sitting neglected and forlorn for about 14 years. Bought by Alfred and Edward Songy in 1894, it had been known previously as the Becnel Plantation for 100 years; the Songys named it Evergreen. Some 35 years later, hard times struck with mosaic disease attacking the cane and a record-setting flood swamping the fields. The Depression followed soon after. Farmers could not recover from that many lost crops, and many plantations were taken over by banks during this period, including Evergreen.

The Early Days

The story of Evergreen begins with the arrival of the Germans at the port of New Orleans in the 1700s. Ambroise Heidel (which became Haydel) and his five sons lived along the west bank of the Mississippi. The extended family eventually owned five miles of river frontage on the so-called German Coast. Ambroise’s son Christophe farmed the site of present-day Evergreen, where indigo was the predominant crop in the 1700s; later it was rice. Slaves did the field work and may have built the French Creole house, circa 1790, for Christophe and his wife, Charlotte Oubre. Christophe’s brother built Whitney Plantation next door.

The two raised houses were similar, with wide galleries and short wooden columnettes on the upper-floor balcony. The raised living area was one-room deep and three-rooms wide, called “en suite,” meaning no center hall. One walked onto the front or back porch to enter another room. Beneath the living area was an open space among the brick support columns. A brick “floor” was laid underneath the house over sand, which provided drainage for the seasonal flooding. Sometimes referred to as a West Indies design, the Heidel house was a striking salmon color, originating from the plaster used on the bricks.

Christophe’s daughter, Magdelaine Heidel Becnel, inherited the plantation when he and his wife died in 1799, about 140 years before Matilda would own it. There, Magdelaine raised her eight children and her young, orphaned grandson, Pierre Clidamant Becnel, whose parents died of yellow fever.

“In that day, it was customary to marry your cousins, and four of Magdelaine’s children married four Heidel first cousins who lived next door at Whitney,” says Jane Boddie, director of Evergreen.

The Becnel Plantation

Magdelaine died in 1830, at the amazing age of 75, and Clidamant Becnel bought out the other heirs to his grandmother’s home. He had a great interest in architecture and traveled to Philadelphia for a year to study Greek Revival design, introduced in the early 1800s by Englishman Benjamin Latrobe, who designed the U.S. Custom House in New Orleans.

The slave cabins remain today in their original double-row configuration.

Clidamant didn’t build his dream house. Instead, he reconstructed the ancestral family home, giving it a stunning Greek Revival exterior while retaining the French Creole interior floor plan. Boddie suggests he may have received advice from Samuel Hermann, who built the Hermann-Grima House in the French Quarter and was married to Clidamant’s Aunt Marie.

The contract with the builder, John Carter from St. Charles Parish, still exists. It called for enclosing the open basement and adding three rooms, raising the existing floor two feet and raising the roof 31 inches. There was to be the appearance of a terrace or balcony on the roof, and “two winding stairs of grace and elegance.” The contract also noted that Carter and his two assistants would receive “bed, board and washing during execution of the work.” Carter’s pay was $1,800 at the start of the job and the same amount at completion.

Clidamant was quite the recycler. He stipulated in the contract, “Do the work in such a way as to prevent a useless waste of materials.” Approximately 300,000 bricks from Uncle Sam Plantation (dismantled because the levee was being moved) were ferried across the river for use in the reconstruction.

In Ghosts Along the Mississippi, Clarence Laughlin describes the striking front façade. “A pedimented portico appears to receive the two fine free-standing staircases that curve through the air to the second floor.” That pedimented portico is a defining Greek Revival detail.

Richard Lewis in his Vestiges of Grandeur, calls the sweeping double stairway on a Greek Revival house “an unusual aspect.” Because of it, Sam Wilson suggests in Louisiana History (Winter 1990) that the designer of the Beauregard Keyes house, with its similar stairs, might have been Clidamant Becnel’s architect. But he says, “It may have been Becnel himself who drew the nine plans mentioned in the contract, which have not been found.”

John Latrobe (Benjamin’s son) wrote, “The climate in the South requires all the shade that can be procured, and to obtain it, the body of the building is surrounded by galleries.” The gallery is eight feet wide. Clidamant encircled his home on three sides with massive Doric columns of plastered brick.

Ever wondered how they made those round brick columns? “They used pie-shaped bricks,” explains Boddie. “We have one of the old molds. The columns were open in the center, first covered with lime plaster and then coated with lime wash, as we still do now.”

Standing on the gallery, one can glance at the 18-inch stuccoed brick walls, original from the 1790 French house, and see how they are scored to resemble stone. The porch floors are pine and contain an interesting detail, a bowtie-shaped piece of wood that appears to attach the planks to each other. This architectural detail is also used in the loggia in the rear, which Gray enclosed to provide more living area.
(Gray also re-did—her favorite word—the kitchen in the former butler’s pantry and put bathrooms in the upstairs cabinets (cabinays), which were small rooms at the rear corners used for bathing the children or the help.)

The Evergreen house seen today is the creation of Clidamant, including the six dependencies, ordered and symmetrical in their placement. The two garçonnières were for teenage sons who were banished from the main house and allowed to have guests in their private quarters. Lewis writes, “They provided a modicum of privacy for unmarried male members of the family.” The two pigionniers, with interesting round windows, were considered status symbols by the French and used for raising pigeons and squab, delicacies on the dining room table.

Immediately behind the big house, facing the parterre garden, was a separate building housing the kitchen and a building for the house slaves, who needed to be in proximity to their jobs—cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing and caring for the children and the sick.

The architectural “piece de resistance” was the Greek Revival privy with four seats, two on either side of a dividing wall. It holds center stage behind the mansion and is just a short walk through the garden. Two famous writers commented on the extraordinarily beautiful outhouse. Clarence Laughlin wrote, “It tells us so gracefully of the height achieved in the art of living by the plantation culture.” Richard Sexton gets more to the point, describing the privy as a “diminutive 19th century temple…to human hygiene.”

Evergreen today has an unusual combination carriage house/stable/milking barn, because architect Richard Koch joined several of these service buildings into one during Gray’s restoration. The old sugar house (mill) is gone, along with many of the other buildings that served the sugar cane factory. Plantations were, indeed, factories, and their purpose was to produce a cash crop on a massive scale for the international market.

View of one of the pigeonniers, which were used for raising pigeons and squab for the dinner table.

Before the Civil War, processing cane was a long, arduous and dangerous task that began by cutting it with a machete. Cane juice squeezed from the stalks was boiled in huge, open cast-iron kettles, which are re-used today as fountains in home gardens. Great progress was made in the vacuum-pan processing of cane by Norbert Rillieux, a scientist and free person of color from New Orleans, who spent years working in Paris. (He was a cousin of the famous Impressionist painter Edgar Degas.)  Rillieux’s invention was called one of the greatest in chemical engineering. Be that as it may, when he visited a plantation to introduce his invention to the planter, he could not stay in the big house, nor could he stay in the slave quarters. Special arrangements had to be made because of his mixed race; Rillieux was a quadroon, one-quarter black.

It is said there was a building for everything on a plantation, which, in reality, was a self-contained and self-sustaining village. The plantation store was the mall of its day, and several old stores exist up and down River Road. Steamboats and packets often docked right over the levee, bringing everything from guests that might stay for one month to fine dresses for the mistress of the house to machinery for the mill.

In redesigning the family home, Clidamant fell into bankruptcy in 1835. He no doubt filled the mansion with antiques from New York and Europe. He would have had to buy slaves, as they did not transfer with the land. Whatever the causes, he was forced to sell to his cousin, Lezin Becnel, who graciously allowed Clidamant and his wife, Desiree Brou, to continue to live in the house. When Clidamant died in 1854 without children, the house was bought back by Lezin and was owned by Becnels until it was sold in 1894 to the two Songy brothers. For 100 years, the place had been called The Becnel Plantation, but the Songys named it Evergreen.

The Songy Years

Four interesting stories have surfaced from the Songy era. Sternberg writes in Along the Mississippi that Evergreen may have had a ghost. A young teacher and frequent guest at the plantation died unexpectedly. Soon after, the piano began to play with no one seated at the keyboard.

Although the River Road planters founded a college at Manresa, the young people were often sent off to school. One young Songy prayed that something would happen so she wouldn’t have to go away to school. About that time, the Songys lost their home. Decades later, this elderly woman told Boddie that she still had regrets about what she did.

Another descendant, Sylvia Songy Davis (Alfred was her great-grandfather) says, “We always heard the buyers wanted all the family to live together.” That makes sense, because several residential buildings on the property date to the Songy era, including the one housing the Evergreen museum and ticket office. Davis also recalls that as a child, when guests were in town, her father would ask Matilda Gray if he could take them to see the house. “She always said yes. I think she understood the connection the family still had for Evergreen and felt empathy for them,” Davis says.

Amazingly, though the Songys lost the property in 1930, descendants of that family still manage and work the cane fields today. “It is leased to them, but I talk to the farmers every day,” says Boddie, whose other title is president of Evergreen.

Two Matildas

Matilda Geddings Gray died in 1971. She had no children, no nephews and only one niece—Matilda Gray Stream, her brother’s daughter, who was named after her.

And so enters the third woman to take the reins of Evergreen. Gray almost “adopted” her niece, doting on her from birth, says Boddie. “When she was born, Gray gave the parents of her heir an antique Biedermeier cradle, which is on display in an Evergreen cabinet.”

Gray groomed her namesake to one day manage and care for her many acquisitions, including the plantation and dozens of l’objets d’art. In her extensive collection, she had 59 rare and original pieces, including three of the famous Fabergé Eggs, from the House of Fabergé, which catered to the family of the Russian Czar. Pieces from Gray’s Fabergé collection are on display on a rotating basis at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Gray filled Evergreen with large portraits of Creoles painted in the mid-1800s. A “wide angle” portrait of Evergreen with all of its ancillary buildings by New Orleans artist Boyd Cruise hangs in a downstairs bedroom at the plantation.

For more than 40 years, Matilda Stream’s life has focused on the world that her aunt left her. Evergreen remained a private home for 60 years for the two Matildas until Stream opened it for tours in 1998.
Like her aunt, Stream is a world traveler and counts royalty as friends. Boddie says, “She is an ambassador for Louisiana and its culture. There is a mystique about Louisiana culture. They both took it with them wherever they moved.”

Evergreen Today

Today, Evergreen Plantation is an active archaeological site. A recent dig in the area of the slave cabins by a state archaeologist involved volunteers from St. John High School and also area citizens. Boddie wants “to involve the local community in the life of the plantation and its history.” A little museum is part of the plantation operation, with rooms dedicated to each era—the Heidels, Becnels, Songys and Gray/Stream.

“We are dependent on agriculture,” Boddie admits. “With 400 acres in cane production, I am always thinking of the weather in terms of the cane. We start planting in July and harvest through December. We never would have been here, nor be here today without cane.” She adds, “But we put the same piece of property to work in other ways, by leasing hunting rights and leasing the batture on the other side of the levee, which in front of Evergreen is the widest in this area.”

The movie industry is also a source of revenue. Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Django Unchained are two movies that were recently filmed at Evergreen. Tours are another slice of the economic pie.

It could be said there is a fourth woman guiding Evergreen through time and history, and that is Boddie, who has been at Stream’s side since she decorated the house in the late ’60s. “She asked if I could continue to work for her, and I said I could,” recalls Boddie, now more than 40 years later. “I run Evergreen for her. This place is my life.”

The post Evergreen Plantation appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

The first Covington public school, which opened in November 1901, was a wooden pavilion with partitioned classrooms at the four corners. The pavilion also served as the town’s dance hall and community gathering place. Thirsty students all used the same ladle to dip and sip water from a bucket. Some would arrive at school riding a horse or in a buggy pulled by a horse. Elmer E. Lyon was the principal at that first school, and he also taught, as there were only two teachers.

Covington High School is celebrating its centennial this year because in 1913, the St. Tammany Parish School Board passed a resolution officially designating that original little public school a high school. The old pavilion had seen many graduates, including Bertha Perre and Neff and Philip Burns, according to the History of Covington High School written by Charlene Sanders and CHS faculty member Marilynn Hawkins. Neff was a retired legal secretary and longtime archivist in the Clerk of Court office, indexing the earliest parish records.

First photo of Covington High, taken in 1925.

The town raised $35,000 in 1914, moved the old wooden building and erected a new school on the same site on Jefferson Avenue. High school classes were held on the second floor, and elementary students met in the basement and on the first floor. The new school had an auditorium with theater seating. This building served as a school for 85 years, most recently as C. J. Schoen Middle School, which closed in 2001. It now houses school board offices.

Retired Schoen teacher Charles Adler wrote The History of the C.J. Schoen Middle School Building with his 2000-01 gifted students. It notes that because the area was an agricultural community, early students attended classes only three to four months a year. Absenteeism was high, as vaccinations were not mandatory, and epidemics were rampant. There were also frequent drainage problems. But for all these years, it has been recognized by Covington area residents as the first real public school in the area.

In 1925, a grand, three-story brick high school was erected at the other end of Jefferson Avenue where William Pitcher Junior High now stands. Framed by large oak trees, it was embellished with a clock and bell tower. In 1928, it was named the Elmer E. Lyon High School, after the much-revered then St. Tammany Superintendent of Schools.

The Depression years were a tough time for the high school. State support dropped from $8 to $5 per student. The number of teachers at Lyon was reduced from 13 to nine and one-half. Teachers were given certificates or scripts for unpaid salaries, but they found they couldn’t cash them on the due date. Lyon would say of those tough years, “It seems that the more discouraging conditions became, the harder the teachers worked and the more earnest they became in their effort.” (Hawkins/Sanders)

In the 1930s, when Eleanor Rayne was principal, the school was recognized nationally for its innovative teaching methods, which Rayne learned at Columbia University summer programs in New York. The state gave the school a commendation for its extra-curricular and social activities. During the Depression, there was little money for recreation. The school became the center of social life for the town with Friday night dances. (Hawkins/Sanders)

After the Depression, Lyon asked for help in building additions and renovating areas of the school. A new stadium, affectionately called the “Cow Dome,” was built in 1941 by the WPA.

From 1928 to 1941, unmarried women on the faculty lived in rented rooms in a house called the teacherage, where they shared expenses. Rosemary Barton Pfeffer, who taught from 1935 to 1937, wrote that out of her $80 monthly salary came her share for utilities, food, the cook and the housekeeper, sometimes $25. She also had to put aside money for the summer, when there would be no checks. Shocking as it may seem today, those young teachers had a chaperone living in the house—the principal, Rayne—and they were allowed to date only on weekends!

The high school name was changed back to Covington High School after a law was passed in 1945 that an educational institution could not be named after a living person.

When Rayne became a professor of education at a Texas university, James Plummer replaced her, serving from 1939-63. He bonded with the teachers over coffee in the cafeteria and entertained them at duck and quail dinners after his hunting trips. Hawkins writes, “Plummer was his own truant officer, often taking his car to patrol the streets of Covington.”

Segregation and integration
Before black and white students were combined at Covington High, they were segregated at two different schools. The whites attended Covington High while the blacks attended Rosenwall. After a brief period during which the black male and female students attended separate schools, Rosenwall and Pine View, respectively, the black students once again formed a coed student body, this time at the newer Pine View school. Pine View High School remained open from 1965 to 1969 until it merged with Covington High School.

The fully integrated schools opened quietly with no major incidents on Aug. 29, 1970. Soon, problems did occur, however—mainly in the high school and junior highs, as teenagers who had never sat in a classroom together took sides during the many fights in the halls. The second year of integration was easier than the first. By 1973, when all incoming classes had been integrated in the earlier grades, most of the difficulty was over.

The play, What Fire Could Never Burn: A Story of CHS, written by theater teacher Gary Mendoza and performed in fall 2012 by the CHS Theater Department, pinpoints the reality that integration was a tough time. A performer recalls, “As you can probably guess, it didn’t go very well at first, but eventually they just all learned to get along …” (See sidebar.)

Tragedy strikes
Just before midnight on Saturday, Oct. 13, 1974, as the school neared its 50th year, the call came in to the Covington Fire Department—smoke and flames at Covington High. Crowds gathered on Jefferson Avenue, many weeping openly, as they watched their cherished school building burn. Oiled and re-oiled old wood floors helped to feed the flames. The cause of the blaze was never determined.

Some areas of the school did not burn, and classes continued at the site. Dividers separated large spaces into classrooms. Portable buildings were moved in, and some students attended classes in school buses. Plans had already begun for a new high school and it opened in 1975.

As another student in Mendoza’s play says, “Covington High was not destroyed by fire. It is a fire that burns inside all of us. Lion Pride is not a myth. It is something instilled in every person …”

After the fire
The years since the fire have seen many changes and additions to CHS in both its physical plant and educational offerings. Only some are mentioned here. In 1980, a new stadium was built that included a track around the football field. The theater and baseball diamond were added in 1988. Also in the 1980s, CHS began offering special education programs, including classes for gifted and special-needs students.

In the 1990s, advances included the transition from Macintosh to PC computer technology. Computer science students did the wiring and installed hubs in the school under the direction of Dewitt Perry. The ’90s also brought a new math building, expansion of the cafeteria and a new science building.

According to Mendoza’s play, 2005’s Hurricane Katrina turned the theater into “an indoor swimming pool.” A new library and a new school entrance were added in 2007.

Into the 21st Century
CHS Principal Deborah McCollum is in the lead as students and teachers prepare to meet the challenges of a new century. “Since I became principal, we’re really working on integrating technology. We’ve built a very strong technical career program, and we also offer a dual enrollment program, which was not done in the past. Students leave here college-career ready,” McCollum notes.
“I am excited about our improvement; we’re very proud. We do our best to prepare every child for life after high school.”

Lion Pride
Over the past 100 years, the components that constitute Covington High School—including, but not limited to, the bricks and mortar that have made up the physical plant; the textbooks, computers, library resources and sports equipment; and the latest in curriculum design and learning strategies—have combined to spark the fire, that Lion Pride, that is “instilled in every person,” as the line in the play notes. The school’s true history is written by the lives of the people of the Covington High community—every student, teacher and staff member. We are privileged to present some of their stories and memories.

Coach Jack Salter from the Lions’ state championship season of 1975-76.

Honored coaches
Three CHS coaches have been inducted into the Louisiana High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame: Hubert “Hubie” Gallagher, Jack Salter and Allie Smith.

Coach Hubert “Hubie” Gallagher joined the faculty in 1939 and remained until 1969, leading the boys’ basketball team to state championships in 1946 and ’60, and winning 10 district titles. His assistant coaches included Salter and Smith. Gallagher was a graduate of Notre Dame, and Smith, a member of the Lions’ football team in the late 1950s, remembers “the songs and cheers, as well as the techniques the coach brought from his alma mater.” (Hawkins)

Gallagher introduced selling ads in the football program, as a source of funds for the school’s athletic department. When he initiated practices after school, he often drove the school bus to take his players home. Gallagher was active in community life, serving on the Covington City Council for 16 years and as mayor pro-tem for eight years. He also brought Little League and Biddy Basketball to Covington. Gallagher died in 1992. A Covington City Park is named after him. The St. Tammany Parish School Board recently agreed to rename the Covington High School gymnasium in Gallagher’s name as the school celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Jack Salter is a Mr. CHS. He led the Lions to a state football championship in 1976, and no one in St. Tammany has forgotten it, especially not Darryl Graham, current CHS athletic director. (Graham quarterbacked that team, and behind his desk in the administrative wing of the school hangs his framed black jersey, No. 10, from that very game.) Salter was named National (High School) Football Coach of the Year in 1981 and recognized in 1996 by the Nokia Sugar Bowl and New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame for outstanding achievement on the football field. His alma mater, St. Paul’s School, Class of 1949, inducted him into its Hall of Fame. The Louisiana Sports Writers Association recognized him, and in 2001, the St. Tammany Parish School Board named the Cow Palace the Jack Salter Stadium. His 34-year coaching career with the Lions produced a 258-110-8 record. Thousands of students burst with Lion Pride because of Coach Salter.

Allie Smith is yet another former Lion Coach to garner accolades while coaching at CHS from 1964-2002. Taking the reins as head football coach upon Salter’s retirement, he led the Lions to state playoffs five times, winning runner-up three times. His track and cross country teams were consistent district winners and often captured the title of state champions or runner-up. He was named District Coach of the Year in two sports, track and cross country, a total of 32 times.

Homecoming Queens
Stephanie Riley Boudreaux writes, “This story begins in 1984 when I was elected Homecoming Queen for Covington High School. With this honor came the fun of getting outfits ready for the parade, the game and the dance. It was a tradition that members of the court wear suits to the game, so my mother sewed a suit for me to wear that night. Years later, my niece, Beth Cooper, was a senior member of the 2008 Homecoming Court. When it came time to shop for her suit, conversation led to the question, ‘Could she wear the suit my mother had made for me?’ I pulled the suit out of the closet; Beth tried it on, and it fit. Beth was also crowned Homecoming Queen.”

There is a story behind Beth wearing the suit that her aunt had worn. “My mother, Beth’s grandmother, is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, so we treasure anything that reminds us of the person she was before ‘Alzie’ attacked her memory. Because this was a special night for my niece and my mother and me, my brother Yancy Riley wrote a song as a gift to Beth. Our memories of serving as Homecoming Queen are even more special because we wore the suit that was made by the loving hands of Lois Riley, mother and grandmother.”

Mark Thompson
As a Lions football team member in the early 1980s, Mark Thompson says, “Community activities for all generations revolved around Covington High and Lions football. When playing at the small, old stadium (called the Cow Dome—the new stadium was called the Cow Palace), families and students hurried after school or work to get their seats, bringing fried chicken or poboys to eat while they waited for the game. That was THE place to be on Friday night. Young boys grew up dreaming of playing football for the CHS Lions. Support was strong. A large contingent of family and friends travelled to all the away games.”

Many other traditions surround CHS football. Mane Event is a night during Homecoming Week when the school invites the public in and showcases all that CHS has to offer. One of the coolest traditions is the lighting of the CHS letters before a home football game, followed by the band striking up with the alma mater. Covington High still holds a Homecoming Parade, which closes with a bonfire.

The Pfeffers
Rosemary Barton met and married Philip Pfeffer (Lyon High, Class of 1927), when he was the CHS band director and she taught Latin. Their twin daughters, Susan Pfeffer Latham and Elizabeth Pfeffer Williams, were majorettes in the 1960s. Elizabeth remembers the majorettes twirled fire only twice a year—at Homecoming and at the game with arch rival St. Paul’s. She served as assistant principal and principal at Mandeville and Madisonville junior high schools, respectively, and was with the school system for 33 years. Their brother Philip Pfeffer played basketball under Coach Hubie Gallagher in the ’50s.

“Our father never missed a basketball game, even after Phil graduated,” says Susan Latham, who taught for 32 years in St. Tammany. She married Kenneth Latham, member of the Lions football team in the ’60s, whose architectural firm would design several schools in St. Tammany. Their daughter was the first CHS graduate to make the LSU Golden Girls dance team, and their son Daniel was on the all-state baseball team, played for Tulane, was drafted by the Minnesota Twins and is now the pitching coach at SLU.

Belinda Stein Pennison
“One of my fondest memories at Covington High (Class of 1995) was a volleyball match against Mandeville for the district title. Coach Jack Salter always supported female athletics, and encouraged his team to support us as well. The football team had a game later that same night. Coach got his team dressed in uniform (no pads), and they entered the CHS gym single file, proudly wearing that old ‘gold and navy.’ They sat together in the stands and cheered for us, the way crowds rallied around the Lions on Friday night in the Cow Palace. It was awesome. We won. I will never forget the roar of that crowd. Friends on the Mandeville team told me later that it was quite intimidating.

“My grandfather, father and brothers, Blake and Ben Stein, were all graduates of CHS. My brothers played college baseball, and Blake went on to play professional baseball for the Oakland A’s and Kansas City Royals. Both now serve as high school administrators, in Alabama and Mississippi.

“I went to the University of Mobile in Alabama on a full softball scholarship, and now teach and coach at CHS. [Belinda is one of 37 alumni who have returned to teach at Covington High, out of a faculty/staff of about 160.] I remember the pep-rallies, especially the ones where the teachers did a spirit dance. I now participate in those as a teacher, because I enjoyed them as a student. The gym would be packed; we wore ribbons, painted our faces and never missed a game. Friday night football at CHS was a given!

“The role of CHS was to prepare all of us for the real world and for college. It is much the same now, with different challenges, but the same goals. We had our fair share of problems, but nothing more than any other school. We have always had a diverse school population, ranging from high economic class to low economic class, from country folks to city residents. It didn’t matter. We were ONE at Covington High School.”

Ralph Menetre
Many know Ralph Menetre, Class of 1945, as the “Voice of the Lions.” He served as teacher, coach, principal, supervisor and assistant superintendent for St. Tammany Parish School Board for more than 39 years. He also announced the CHS football games for 40 years.

Menetre remembers four graduates older than he who died in World War II, like so many others from St. Tammany. Raymond Schroeder perished in Guam; George Koepp died as his Navy plane crashed while landing on a carrier; and Ivan Huval went down on the battleship Arizona on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. Brandon Fuhrmann graduated from Lyon High in 1936 and joined the Army in 1940, because he saw the need for volunteers. He survived the Bataan Death March, but died in a Japanese prison camp.

Living through the war while in high school, students were involved in scrap metal drives and suffered through the rationing of certain foods, recalls Menetre. “Triple dating was the norm, cramming as many friends as possible into the car borrowed from Dad, and then having to secure a ‘C’ ration stamp to purchase gas, which was then about 17 cents a gallon.”

One memory Menetre has of the old high school is the long, metal, tube-like fire escapes on both sides of the building. “Every guy yearned for the lucky chance to be in one of the classrooms on the top floor near the fire escapes when a drill was called, because you got to climb out of the window into the tube and slide down.”

The Fuhrmanns
A CHS graduate of 1947, Pat Fuhrmann Clanton broke barriers in her hometown of Covington. She was the first woman on the city council, the first woman president of the council and the first woman executive director of the Greater Covington Chamber of Commerce. The 83-year-old just published her memoir. As a majorette for all four years of high school, she remembers, “When they would strike up the band, and we would parade down the field, it was always a thrill. Learning to twirl the baton meant days of bruised elbows and sore muscles. Learning to throw the baton was easy, but learning to catch it was another story. Finally, it became second nature.”

Pat Furhmann Clanton, class of 1940.

A 1940 graduate of CHS, Rosemerry Fuhrmann Hanian was born on New Year’s Eve, which her mother thought was a “merry time of the year.” Rosemerry was a gifted, talented and beautiful dancer, who studied with the best that New York had to offer, and danced her way onto the Broadway stage, appearing in Camelot with Julie Andrews and Richard Burton.

Returning to Covington, Rosemerry opened the Creative Dance Center and touched the lives of the many young women who studied with her. The community enjoyed dozens of ballet performances, with original choreography, including the moving presentation of the Christmas story in dance, which was staged at several churches each December. The Fuhrmann Auditorium in the Greater Covington Center is named in honor of Rosemerry and her father, Sidney Fuhrmann, who opened a silent movie theater in 1912, no doubt attended by decades of CHS students. He would later own four theaters in western St. Tammany, and encouraged the development of young talent by sponsoring regular competitions.

Jimmy Inman
“I vividly remember the old school burning. We lived in an upstairs apartment across the street. My aunt, Monica Lane (now Monica Lloyd), a student at the school, was in her room with friends. What struck me was their extreme sadness as they spent the night watching and crying.

“An outstanding classmate of mine (Class of 1985) is Dr. Robert ‘Bo’ Landry, who is an equine veterinarian with a practice at Churchill Downs. He shoveled stalls at the track during summers while attending LSU Veterinary School. His work ethic was noticed, and upon graduation, he went to work there for the owners and trainers of the horses. He was the vet for three Kentucky Derby winners: Monarchos in 2001, Funny Cide in 2003 and Big Brown in 2008. Bo and I played baseball together and joined the Navy together. Another gentleman of note is David Fortman, a music producer who has overseen the work of such artists as 12 Stones and Evanescence. He was in the band Ugly Kid Joe and was the guitarist on the hit remake of Cats in the Cradle. After traveling the world with his music career, he set up shop as a producer. David and I rode the ‘Cheese Wagon’ (school bus) together for a number of years.

“Nursery owner Mrs. Bea Fussell donated tulip poplars to the school; they are referred to in the first line of the alma mater. When she was in school, the ‘stately poplars’ on the school grounds were killed by Dutch Elm disease. Ms. Sammie Whittington, an alumna and former teacher, shared with me her memories of the aroma of bananas and nutmeg coming from the magnolias in the old school courtyard. I planted some of those around the school, and have requested that both trees be planted at the site of the new Centennial Tower.

“The action of Mrs. Fussell and the memory shared by Mrs. Whittington are examples of how the school is part of the heart and psyche of this community. It’s what makes Covington High so special.”

Mike Strain, DVM
“When I look back at CHS (Class of 1976), I am thankful not only for a first-rate public education, but also for the teachers who had a distinct influence in my life.

“Emile ‘Chic’ Danna, my FFA Advisor, guided my path to a college education and veterinary medicine. FFA develops character, leadership and a sense of duty greater than oneself. Mrs. Alford, geometry and calculus, challenged our intellects with a kind sternness, and prepared me for mathematics at LSU. Mrs. Ward, English, demanded excellence and gave me the skills to navigate college courses. In short, Covington High gave me the foundation that enabled me to excel academically.

“The lowest point was when our school burned. I have heartfelt sadness to this day at the loss of the facility where I, as well as my parents, attended school. Upon graduation from vet school, I was welcomed back home and started my practice. My wife and I were greeted by CHS FFA members helping us to landscape our first clinic. Although I work in Baton Rouge, Covington High is never really far away. I have fond memories ‘of the way we were.’”
(Mike is the Louisiana Commissioner of Forestry and Agriculture.)

Judge James J. Brady
Judge Brady, Class of 1962, recalls that there was “a good mixture (of students), although all of us were Caucasian.” He remembers carefree years, but the events of the ’60s loomed. “The old un-air-conditioned building was warm, and we sweated in the steam heat even when it was 30 degrees.” He was “blessed with a number of good teachers … and felt well prepared to enter college.” Especially vivid memories are participating in sports under Hubie Gallagher and winning state in basketball. “I am proud to be an alumnus of Covington High School.”
(Judge Brady is a federal district judge serving in Baton Rouge.)

Kenneth Byrd
“When I began teaching at Covington High School in 1978, I found myself in awe of some of the teachers who were at CHS when I attended (Class of 1967.) I wasn’t sure that I belonged because of the enormous respect that I felt for those people who had taught me years earlier. Another aspect of my teaching at Covington High is watching former students return and become part of the faculty and CHS family. I am extraordinarily proud of these young people who have chosen educational professions.”

Stanley Jacobs
“My most memorable teacher was Lela Menetre in English. I had opportunities for a basketball scholarship at other colleges, but knowing me, she recommended LSU, and it was great advice. CHS gave me the educational background to graduate from both LSU and Loyola Law School.”
(Stanley is a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors.)

Groundbreaking for the commemorative Centennial Bell Tower will be held April 19 at 6 p.m. at Covington High School.

Upcoming Centennial events
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Covington High School, ground will be broken for a Centennial Bell Tower on April 19 at 6 p.m. at the school. The tower will house the old school bell that hung in a cupola on the building that burned. Funded solely by donations from alumni, parents, grandparents and friends of CHS, the tower, designed by Fauntleroy/Latham, will not only beautify the campus and serve as an identifying symbol for all who drive by on the Hwy. 190 Bypass, but will also bind together generations of alumni who have memories of attending the schools. The bell is a piece of history, not only of the school, but also of the city of Covington.

On May 8, 2013 at 7 p.m., CHS will hold its 100th graduation ceremony.

DVDs of the production of What Fire Could Never Burn: A Story of CHS, written by theater teacher Gary Mendoza and performed last fall by the CHS Theater Department, are being sold by the school along with other CHS Centennial items.

Check the Covington High School website (covingtonhighschool.stpsb.org) for more information about the Centennial.

The post Lion Pride appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Porcelain tea set from the John Slidell family at the 1850 House.

Corralling the up- and down-river sides of Jackson Square, the Pontalba Buildings represent the culmination of one family’s public building spree that spanned two generations. Don Andres Almonester y Roxas and his daughter Micaela parlayed their talents as shrewd real estate investors and developers with a sincere sense of civic duty to become, for all practical purposes, solely responsible for the vision of the city we see today.

As noted in IN’s previous feature stories on the St. Louis Cathedral, Cabildo and Presbytere, Almonester donated a new church and the Presbytere, intended to serve as home for the city’s clergy, and provided financing for a new government building, the Cabildo, in the 1790s. Almonester’s goal was to help the city recover from the devastating fire of 1788. The three structures facing the river, on the Chartres St. side of the then Plaza de Armas, as the square was known in Almonester’s day during Spanish rule over Louisiana, became a welcoming sight to travelers at the end of their journey to the international seaport.

The land along the square’s side streets, St. Peter and St. Ann, was originally owned by the colonial government. Almonester persuaded the town fathers to give him the ownership of both blocks in return for his promise to improve and maintain the streets and sidewalks in front of the buildings—at his expense, of course.

The St. Peter and St Ann blocks presented a mixture of commercial buildings, shops and rooming houses. The rents collected from these buildings over the years, along with those from properties all over New Orleans that Almonester owned or had an interest in, provided a handsome income to his family after his death in 1798.

Architecturally speaking, those two city blocks were quite mundane and run-down, when, in 1849, Micaela Leonarda Antonia Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba, arrived for her last visit to the city of her birth. Before her departure in 1851, she revitalized the old square by enveloping it with her vision of Parisian elegance. In what was becoming more and more an American city, the Baroness also spearheaded an effort to name the square “Jackson Square” and transform it from a military parade ground to a formal garden.

The Lower Pontalba Building at St. Ann and Chartres streets.

An Extraordinary Life

The Baroness’ life story, literally the stuff of legends, has inspired plays, operas and novels. Her biography, written by Christina Vella and appropriately entitled Intimate Enemies, tells the tale in astonishing detail.

Young ladies who dream of a fairytale life—of marrying a handsome nobleman and being swept away to a Disney-esque castle in the French countryside—might want to learn from Micaela’s story and think again.

Micaela had just such a fairytale beginning. At the age of 15, on Oct. 23, 1811, she married Célestin Delfau de Pontalba in the most Creole of weddings in St. Louis Cathedral, which her father had built a decade before. Attended by the cream of Creole society, the ceremony was performed by Père Antoine, and the bride was given away by Bernard de Marigny.

Micaela and Célestin arrived at his family’s chateau, Mont-l’Évêque, near Senlis, France (about 50 miles east of Paris), in July 1812. She and Célestin had a relatively happy marriage, having four sons and a daughter together over the years. But, rather than an evil stepmother shattering this fairytale’s pleasant plot, it was her father-in-law who guaranteed that an atmosphere of misery and despair would surround Micaela until the day of his death.

It was all about money. As with many marriages between noble families, the union of Micaela and Célestin was developed more as a business transaction than a love affair. Micaela had inherited a tidy fortune from her father, and, as the only surviving child, she was also set to come into even greater wealth upon her mother’s death.

Célestin’s father, Baron Joseph Delfau de Pontalba, was never satisfied with the dowry. Although Micaela had agreed to turn over one-quarter of her inheritance to the Pontalba family, he would not rest until the remainder of her fortune, and that of her mother, who died in 1825, became his. Wives had few property rights in early 19th century France, and for years, the Baron attacked his daughter-in-law’s estate through the courts in both Louisiana and France.

It all ended when, on a fall day in 1834, the Baron confronted Micaela. She was suing for a legal separation from Célestin and was living in one of the many properties in Paris she inherited from her mother. Micaela was visiting the chateau when the Baron, wielding an elegantly matched pair of dueling pistols, shot her four times. It is reported that she screamed, “Don’t! I’ll give you everything!” after the first shot. He is said to have replied, “No, you are going to die,” before shooting her again and again and again. He then locked himself in his study and, after several hours alone there, committed suicide, shooting himself twice in the chest with the same pistols.

The elegant staircase in the 1850 House is a design found throughout the Pontalba Buildings.

Micaela miraculously recovered, although one hand and her chest suffered disfiguring wounds, and she continued for years to fight for her separation and control over her estate. She did build a spectacular home in Paris after the tragedy, the Hôtel de Pontalba, which today is the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to France. She was personally involved in all aspects of building the mansion, experiences she took with her to New Orleans in 1849 when she began revitalizing her properties on the old Plaza de Armas.

Revisiting and Revitalizing

The French political climate became increasingly restless leading up to the Third French Revolution. In 1848, Micaela (now the Baroness de Pontalba) made plans to return to New Orleans. Part of her plan was to deal with diminishing rents from deadbeat tenants living in the decaying structures that comprised her properties.

When she and her sons Alfred and Gaston arrived in 1849, she was armed with a full set of set of architectural drawings, which she intended to see realized as soon as was practicable. First, there was a matter of getting some concessions from the city. She asked the city for tax incentives, a common practice for developers today and, it turns out, not uncommon back in her day, either. She negotiated a 20-year waiver for paying property taxes for the apartments.

Within a year, the buildings were completed. Micaela supervised the construction and acted as her own vigilant general contractor, often fighting with the builder over materials and costs. Her use of visually appealing lacy decorative wrought iron railings set the style for balconies throughout the French Quarter. Famously, the railings feature the intertwined letters “A” and “P” signifying the two families, Almonester and Pontalba, who were so responsible for the face New Orleans presents to the world.

Her dual-use buildings anticipated “new urbanism” design by a century. Each building had 12 commercial spaces on the first floor and 23 apartments on the second and third floors. They quickly became the most fashionable and desirable rental properties in the city. The Baroness and her sons promptly moved into No. 5 St. Peter St., in the up-river or, as it’s known today, “Upper Pontalba” building.

The matching red-brick buildings faced each other across the square, soon to be re-named Jackson Square after much influence by the Baroness. She also provided some of the funding for Jackson’s planned monument in the center of the square, for which Old Hickory himself had laid the cornerstone in 1840 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. Micaela fought with the Creole politicians over its landscaping. She prevailed, of course, and a double-row of trees that blocked the view of her new buildings was removed and the paved circular walkways we see today were put in.

Cast iron balcony railing featuring the intertwined “A” and “P” monogram.

The Baroness took advantage of a celebrity visit to garner a tremendous amount of buzz for her investment. When Jenny Lind, “the Swedish Nightingale,” visited New Orleans, she was the guest of the Pontalbas, who gave the singer use of one of the apartments during her one-month stay. The Baroness then auctioned off all of the furniture and household items Lind had used. Not long after, the family traveled back to France in 1851, and Micaela never visited New Orleans again. She died in 1874.

The 1850 House

The Pontalba Buildings have stood since their completion, although they themselves eventually became old and unfashionable, faded in their grandeur. Passing out of the Pontalba family in the early 20th century, the Lower Pontalba is now owned by the Louisiana State Museum and the Upper by the City of New Orleans.

The State Museum maintains its visitor’s welcome center and gift shop at 523 St. Ann. The 1850 House consists of the apartments above the shop, which have been preserved and furnished to reflect Creole life during the 1850s.

The first piano sold by Werlein’s in New Orleans in the 1850 House parlor.

Before the renumbering of the city’s addresses during the 1890s, the address of the 1850 House was No. 8 St. Ann. A few different families were known to have occupied the apartments. While the individual furnishings on display did not belong to the occupants, Tony Lewis, Ph.D., curator of visual arts, says, “The effort was to make sure that everything would be consistent with what would have been here in 1850.”

“We’ve researched similar locations, and everything here dates from the 1830s to the 1870s. You wouldn’t necessarily start with things bought in 1850, because people kept things,” adds Katie Hall Burlison, curator of decorative arts. She notes the arrangement of the living quarters roughly corresponds to the way the Cammacks lived, from 1853-1856. Amelia Cammack was a widow living with her son and four daughters.

Lewis paints a picture of what life would have been like for merchants, such as the Soria family, and for the banker and railroad president William G. Hewes, who also resided at No. 8 St. Ann during this time period. He says, “Most of the merchant and bankers likely had their offices over on Canal St. Every day, they’d get up and take their constitutional walk up to the office. I think that was the Baroness’ whole vision … to anchor the city’s revitalization. To make it a modern city, attract the most modern and up-to-date merchants.”

Royal St. was the most fashionable shopping district and home to many of the city’s wealthiest citizens. “Just as in Paris, the walk up Royal St. was characterized by a sort of fashion show; you took your time, you saw your friends and said hello,” Lewis says.

Visitors ascending the charming staircase from the ground floor shop to the 1850 House first view the formal dining room, with its grand table setting under a large, elaborately decorated gasolier, evidence of the Baroness’ wish for the most modern of conveniences. “The difference between it and a chandelier is that the chandelier would have been lit by candles. You can see the little knobs [on the gasolier] to turn on the gas to each light. This building was fitted out with gas lines when it was built,” says Burlison. “That definitely represented something very modern.”

Of special note in the dining room is a porcelain tea set that belonged to John Slidell. While typical of the china sold on Royal St., the gilt monogram “S” on each piece is indicative of a custom order, says Burlison. “A lot of things that were sold on Royal St. or Chartres St. were sent over from France. Many advertisements from shops of this time period boast of ‘the best in European fabrics’ or ‘the best European furniture.’”

When not attending the opera, theatre or balls, the Creoles spent their evenings calling on their peers, perhaps for coffee and sweets, conversation, some music or a game of cards. The 1850 House parlor reflects this. “You have these separate areas for entertainment and activities,” says Lewis.

Near the front of the parlor, Burlison notes, “Here is an area for musical entertainment with the harp and piano.” She points out an elaborately carved piano and says, “It’s called a ‘cocked-hat’ grand piano, which refers to the way the strings are arranged inside.” (The piano was made by Timothy Gilbert of Boston and is reputed to be the first piano sold by Werlein’s in New Orleans, in the 1840s. The music store would become part of life for generations of New Orleanians, with the last Werlein’s location closing in 2000.)

Paintings are Lewis’ forte, and the dining room and formal parlor walls of the 1850 House display a mixture of decorative landscapes and the finest examples of Creole portraiture. Artists Jacques Amans and Jean Joseph Vaudechamp were the premier portrait painters of Creole New Orleans. Having a portrait done meant you had arrived. “Vaudechamp supposedly made $30,000 his first year painting here,” says Lewis. This was quite a fortune at the time. “Amans, a French neoclassical artist trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, came to New Orleans and painted as much as he could until he made enough money that he could buy himself a plantation.”

Vaudechamp’s portraits of Edouard Forstall and his wife and Amans’ painting of Gabriel Montegue overlook a room furnished in a variety of styles. The 1850s were a period of revivals—Rococo, Gothic and Classical—and each is represented in period pieces from the most prestigious of New Orleans furniture suppliers, the firms of J. and J.W. Meeks and William McCracken among them. An upstairs bedroom is furnished with a six-piece set of armoires, dressers and half-tester bed attributed to Prudent Mallard’s shop. Mallard’s furniture is perhaps most identifiable with ante- and post-bellum Louisiana homes.

The Past is Present on Jackson Square

The Baroness’ architectural and monumental legacies and those of her father, Don Almonester—whether born of crass commercialism or pure philanthropy—have defined New Orleans’ visual character for over two centuries. With care, they will remain its heart, soul and crown jewels for generations to come. A and P, we salute you!

For the unabridged story of the Baroness’ dramatic life, as well as a thorough history of colonial and early 19th century New Orleans, Intimate Enemies by Christine Vella is a must-read and was an indispensible resource for this article. You can visit the 1850 House at 523 St. Ann St. in New Orleans, Tues. through Sun., 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. or call (504) 568-6968 for more information.

Caroling in Jackson Square

For 66 years, crowds have flocked to Jackson Square to celebrate the holidays with shimmering candles and a hearty round of Christmas carols under the bedecked balconies of the Pontalba Buildings.

Caroling in Jackson Square is sponsored by the Patio Planters du Vieux Carré, a volunteer organization of French Quarter residents and property owners. Member Julie Hunt-Juneau says, “It’s a great event and lots of fun. Many families come year after year. We usually have local celebrities participate; for years, Archbishop Hannan led the crowd in singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Now they pick children from the crowd to come on stage and lead it.”

Volunteers, including local musicians, make it all happen, but to keep the event free, Patio Planters holds two fundraisers: a courtyard tour in October, Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carré; and a white elephant and auction sale. “Hotels, artists, galleries and other French Quarter businesses donate items for the sale,” says Julie. The fundraisers pay for the candles, the keepsake songbooks that are given to each participant and clean-up.

The group’s white elephant sale and auction will be held Saturday, November 10, at 10 a.m. at the corner of Royal and St. Phillip streets.

Caroling in Jackson Square will take place Sunday, December 16. Gates will open at 6:30 p.m. Participants are encouraged to come early if their children would like to help lead the crowd in singing Rudolph.

Visit patioplanters.org for more information.

The post The Pontalba Legacy appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Bronze bust of Charles Cate at Cate Square in Hammond.

A New Englander by birth, a Southerner by choice and an astute businessman by anyone’s standards, Cate was born in 1831 in New Hampshire, the oldest of six children, two of whom died in early childhood. His penchant for business may well have been passed down from his father, Samuel, who ran a prosperous mercantile store in New Hampshire. A man devoted to family and dedicated to his job, Samuel died when Charles Emery (as he was accustomed to being called) was only 8 years old. In Louisiana, edited by Alcée Fortier in 1909, the passing of Samuel Cate was recorded in words that were both blunt and graphic. The article unceremoniously says that he died suddenly while at work. “He had just written in his books these words: ‘Mr. Wilken’s oxen weighed 3,340 lbs,’ when he dropped dead.” In later years, Cate cherished the aforementioned memorandum and had it and the old quill pen his father used to write it framed as a family heirloom.

Charles Emery Cate was not a stranger to education, attending nearby public and private schools as well as a literary institute and an academy. With formal schooling under his belt, Cate, then 15 years old, moved to Boston, where he served a two-year apprenticeship in a dry goods establishment. Upon his return home, he and his stepfather worked as partners in a country store, but after four years, Cate grew tired of small-town business. With a burning desire to become bigger and better, he picked up roots and headed to New Orleans. There, he worked in dry goods for a few years before partnering in a shoe manufacturing business with Daniel Tillotson.

Cate also formed another, long-lasting “partnership” while in New Orleans when he met and married Massachusetts-born Mercy “Mertie” Ann Waterman, of Waterman Steamship fame. Mertie had moved south because of a bad lung condition, a fortuitous decision for Cate, indeed. The couple married (in either 1857 or 1858—sources give different years) and had six children, but three (Nellie, Susie and Charles) died at an early age. Their surviving children were Thomas, who worked in his father’s business; Lulu, who married E.P. Dameron, treasurer of the Illinois Central railroad; and Samuel, who became a professor of music and organist at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Montgomery, Ala.

For the young couple, life in New Orleans was good until the spring of 1861, when a yellow fever outbreak, the threat of a Union attack on New Orleans and the loss of northern supply lines forced Cate to move both his family and business. Attracted to the ozone-rich air, natural spring water and lush timberlands north of Lake Pontchartrain, they settled in an area that was not much more than a railroad crossing amid a wilderness of pine trees.

Cate purchased land for 35 cents an acre from Peter Hammond, the area’s first settler; he also bought additional acreage from the state, ultimately acquiring an impressive 15,000 acres of property. His first priority was to set up a sawmill on what is now the 100 block of E. Thomas Street to produce the lumber needed to build houses for himself and his workers and to construct other businesses. Knowing the value of an educated workforce, he also built schools for his crew and their children.

The C.E. Cate Lumber and Brick Co. in Hammond during the 1880s.

In his first year on the northshore, Cate put up housing and erected the shoe factory at the site of the current post office. He also built a brickyard and established a tannery to supply leather for shoes, boots and saddles. Ironically, during the following year, Cate, a New Hampshire Yankee, produced an astounding 45,000 pairs of shoes for the Confederate Army. According to Stan Dameron, Cate’s great-great grandson and president of American Bank in Covington, Cate saw no conflict with a New Hampshire native manufacturing shoes for the Confederacy. “It was just what you do,” says Stan. “The Confederacy didn’t force him. He was in the South, and he thought that eventually there would be a North and a South, that there would be a split.”

When Union troops seized Hammond in 1863, one of the first things they did was burn down the sawmill and the shoe factory. They did, however, spare the brickyard. Suzy Graham, Cate’s great-great granddaughter, adds, “The Yankees were also going to burn down Charles Emery’s house, but when they found out he was from New Hampshire and Mertie was from Massachusetts, they changed their minds.” (The Cate house did burn down years later. Workers re-wallpapering the house set the old wallpaper afire only to have a gust of wind blow the flaming paper under the house, reducing it to smoldering cinders.)

Suzy heard many details of Cate’s life from her grandmother, Mertie Camilla Dameron Fourmy, who was Cate’s granddaughter. “My mom moved us in with my grandparents in Hammond during World War II, and we lived there about seven years. Even after we moved out, I lived with them every summer and for all the holidays. My sister and I actually considered this our home. We lived in the house across from the former homes of Lue Cate [Cate’s daughter] and Thomas Waterman Cate [his son].”

Despite the setback of losing his shoe factory, Cate rebuilt a smaller one and continued to produce shoes until the end of the war. At that time, Cate assessed the situation and knew that if he were to succeed in Hammond, Hammond had to succeed, too. To that end, one of his first orders of business was to survey and lay out its streets. Methodically, he named east-west streets after family members (among them, Charles, his deceased son, and another son, Thomas); and north-south streets for area trees, a tribute to his lumber business.

To build the streets, Cate hired African-Americans who had formerly worked in his first Hammond shoe factory. This workforce, at Cate’s direction and expense, built the streets, lining those on the west side of the railroad with transplanted young oaks from nearby forests. Many of these trees still stand today, a fitting and natural monument to Hammond’s premier developer.

Unfortunately, by the time he completed laying out and landscaping the streets, Cate was land-rich and cash poor. His finances greatly reduced, he was forced to return to New Orleans to earn more money. Selling his struggling shoe manufacturing business in Hammond to his partner, he parlayed the proceeds from that sale into another shoe factory and a wholesale and retail crockery partnership in New Orleans. Within 10 years, Cate sold these businesses, and, having amassed sufficient capital, returned to Hammond.

In her 1873 diary, Cate’s wife, Mertie, presents him as being ever involved in business, vocal in state politics and an extraordinarily loving husband and father.“Up by time to get the husband off on the six o’clock train. He seems really to enjoy the cozy breakfasts his wife gets together right here in our sanctum.” (January 2, 1873)

She also tells of the political climate during the Reconstruction. “Charles took the early train [to New Orleans] as this day demands the presence of every noble and true statesman. Poor Louisiana, may she have power to shake off the hounds that are sucking her life blood. Never had the colonies more cause for rebellion against their mother country than this downtrodden South has against Grant rule.” (Monday, January 6, 1873)

Despite the politics of the time, Cate, a determined businessman, once again turned to sawmilling. This time, however, in addition to producing lumber for houses and businesses—he built at least 100 structures in the town—he expanded into manufacturing hewn timber and supplying wood to the Illinois Central railroad, something he continued for the next seven years. The small lumber plant burned down in 1894, but not before it earned the distinction of being one of the finest ever to operate on the Illinois Central railway.

Cate further developed his relationship with the railroad when, through a shrewd business agreement, he gave the railroad right-of-way through his property as long as they made Hammond a regular stop for all passenger trains passing through the area. This enhanced Hammond’s status from that of a railroad crossing, as negotiated by Peter Hammond years earlier, to one of a regular railroad stop.

According to Stan, “Cate’s whole thinking in having passenger trains stop in Hammond was that if they stopped there, then people would come. In order to build the city, he worked with Illinois Central, because what was good for IC was good for Hammond and vice versa.”

With the assurance of regular stops by all passenger trains, Cate launched a marketing campaign aimed at bringing new settlers to Hammond. Boasting of Hammond’s newly developed Iowa Addition, Cate visited cities in the Midwest, touting the rich soil, plentiful land, long growing season and snow-free winters of Hammond. His efforts paid off as Midwesterners traveled to the city to visit, many ultimately staying and setting up farms. Even today, the Prairie-style home architecture in the Iowa Addition reflects more of a Midwestern flavor than the Southern-inspired houses in the rest of the town.

Cate’s rationale that the town would grow in proportion to its access to the railroad proved prophetic. Railroad records confirm that in 22 years, income from the Illinois Central’s Hammond station rose from less than $500 a year in 1885 to $40,000 in just one month in 1907. Figures such as these make it easy to understand Cate’s next business venture—finance. In 1906, he helped to establish the Hammond Building and Loan Association, serving as its president until his retirement.

Having laid out, named, developed and marketed the town of Hammond, it seems inevitable that Charles Emery Cate would be drawn to public service. A zealous advocate for education, Cate served on the parish school board as well as the town council. He also accepted appointments from Gov. Nicholls and Gov. Foster to the state board of education—something family members feel he would have regarded as his greatest accomplishment.

Education for everyone—regardless of race—was important to Cate. As great-great-grandson Stan explains, “Education was the underlying premise in Cate’s life. People had to be educated. He built the first school in Hammond for white children, and he donated and built the first African-American school after the war. He believed in educating everybody, for he knew that if a person could read, write and do math, he would be a better worker.”

Religion played a major role in the Cate family, with Mertie conducting the town’s first Sunday school in her home in 1866. Mertie died on Dec. 7, 1887. Grace Memorial Episcopal Church, built just blocks from the site of Cate’s home on land and with bricks and labor donated by him, was consecrated in Mertie’s memory in 1888.

The church’s exquisite stained-glass windows were dedicated to Cate family members. The baptismal window, depicting Jesus with the children, modeled the little ones after Suzy Graham and her sister, Mertie. When Suzy first saw the window, she realized that she had been positioned on Jesus’ left hand while Mertie was on his right. “After hearing all my young life about how everything good was on the right hand of God, I realized I was on the wrong side of Jesus. From then on, I reasoned that I had to live an exemplary life in order to get into heaven,” she laughs.

Cate also donated land on J.W. Davis Drive for Hammond’s first African-American church, Greenfield Baptist. When Suzy was in college, church officials invited her and her family to their rededication service. A conservative Protestant, she was unaccustomed to the free-spirited worship there. “I remember that a well-dressed lady dropped to the floor during the service, and when someone went to pick her up, the preacher cried out, ‘Leave her lay where Jesus flang her!’” With a smile, Suzy adds that, since then, her family has been using that phrase to mean “Let it be the way God wants it to be.”

And, when it comes to Charles Emery Cate and his dreams for Hammond, it seems that’s the way God wanted it to be, too. After spending much of his life building the city, Cate died in his beloved Hammond in 1916 at the age of 85. He and Mertie, along with other family members, are buried in the cemetery on the grounds of Grace Memorial Episcopal Church.

Inside Northside gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the LSU Library Archives in acquiring copies of Mertie Cate’s diary. The diary is included in the Charles E. Cate Papers, Mss. 2421; Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections; LSU Libraries; Baton Rouge, La.

The post Charles Emery Cate appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

But one thing we do know is that once made, his choice stuck. As the area right in the middle of the bend that became New Orleans was cleared, fortune-seeking colonists of all professions arrived. Back then, being French meant being Catholic, and the Catholic Mass was first celebrated outdoors or in tents and then in a warehouse on Toulouse Street near the river. In 1720, the parish of St. Louis was established, and in 1724, construction began on the first church building erected where the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, now stands as the jewel of the French Quarter.

A Famous Face

Nearly three centuries after Bienville, Mass is still being said in St. Louis Cathedral, now one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. “It is the only cathedral in the world that is a symbol of a city. Almost everything you see, even in abstract, relating to the city of New Orleans, has the triple spires,” says Monsignor Crosby Kern of the church’s familiar silhouette. Kern is the Cathedral’s rector; he jokingly wishes its image would generate licensing revenue. “I wish I had a penny for every time they use it in advertisements. Just a penny!”

The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France.

Although he can speak with a light-hearted air, Kern takes his job very seriously and conveys the sense that he is very aware of the weight of the church’s history and of his responsibilities. “When you’re rector here, you’re not only pastor of a parish, but you’re sort of a curator of a living museum,” observes Kern. “The old Ursuline Convent a few blocks away, part of the complex of this parish, is the oldest building in the Mississippi Valley. You have to take care of these things; you live and work with the history.”

There are probably only a few, if any, people who have a deeper connection to the Cathedral than Kern. “My own ancestors have been here since the beginning of the city. In the marriage records from the 1720s, my 10-times-great-grandparents were married here in 1728. Later on, other ancestors were married by Père Antoine in the Cathedral. Here I am, the rector looking at that, and it’s really humbling,” Kern says, as he launches into a brief history of the church.

“The present building is the third rendition on the site, but it incorporates parts of all the other buildings. Remember, the city was founded in 1718. St. Louis was made a parish in 1720. We know there was Mass going on before that, but in 1720, it was firmly established as a parish.”

Kern notes that the first church was completed by 1727. He says it was “a rather substantial building that lasted until the great fire of 1788, when it burned to the ground. Rebuilding took until 1793, when it reopened as a cathedral, and it was a larger building.” Don Andres Almonester y Roxas, who financed the building of the Cabildo, also donated the funds to rebuild the Cathedral and the Presbytere.

The monsignor explains that the church was designated a cathedral upon reopening because it had become the seat of the newly created Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas, and its first bishop, named Peñelvar, was installed. (That it is home of the bishop’s chair, the cathedra in Latin, makes a church a cathedral, not its size).

“The foundations of part of the first building were part of the foundation of the new Cathedral, which [later] went through some variations,” Kern continues. “There were originally two steeples, then a third was added and they were rounded, more in the Spanish style.”

The iconic face of the Cathedral today is a design that has lasted since 1851. Kern says that by the 1840s, the 1793 building was in disrepair and was too small to hold a still-growing congregation. Another consideration for remodeling the Cathedral was aesthetic; the Cabildo and Presbytere had been increased in height with the additions of their third floors and mansard roofs, and the Cathedral appeared shorter and no longer to scale in comparison.

First used in 1819, the large bell called Victoire, in honor of the victory at the Battle of New Orleans, rings each hour; the smaller bells, from 1851, ring the quarter-hours.

French architect J.N.B. de Pouilly designed the new building with its three spires, a lengthened nave and a taller façade that incorporates the lower part of the 1793 building. The new Cathedral was consecrated in December 1851.

Kern says that de Pouilly’s first plan called for a radical departure that would have changed the city forever. “What they were going to do was tear the whole thing down and build back at the other end of Orleans Street where the Municipal Auditorium is. Orleans was the street in those days, so the Cathedral would have been there with a grand avenue leading to the river. But the people wanted their church and wanted to add on and rebuild where we are now.”

Luckily, the city planners prevailed and nixed de Pouilly’s plan. The iconic view from the river toward the Cathedral, flanked by the Presbytere, Cabildo and Pontalba buildings, has been unchanged ever since the addition of Andrew Jackson’s statue to the public square in 1855.

A Neighborhood Church

“This is a wonderful neighborhood,” notes Kern. “Besides the tourist attractions, people live here in the French Quarter, people who contribute greatly to the community.” Although he likens himself to a curator of a museum, Kern is leader of a parish populated by what may be one of the most eclectic flocks anywhere in the world.

“It’s a living house of prayer,” he says. “We celebrate the sacraments here. I say we are a living museum, in the sense that it’s a witness to history, but primarily it’s a house of prayer. People of all faiths come here. People are here at Mass; they’re here to worship. That’s always been part of this place. Since 1718, when the city was founded, Mass has been said on this site. People were coming here as men and women of faith. It humbles a person to sit there and understand that.”

Almonester’s tomb, as well as those of many other of the city’s civic and religious leaders, is located in the Cathedral.

As a working church in the middle of what seems, at times, a Disney-esque setting, St. Louis Cathedral has seen a regular procession of weddings over the centuries. As mother church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which covers the entire state, Kern says every Catholic in Louisiana has the right to be married in the Cathedral. How many people have exercised that right? He doesn’t care to guess. “We have two or three weddings a weekend, every week. That’s been going on for ever and ever and ever, which is important,” he says.

Baptisms are another rite of passage in the life of Catholics. The baptismal font at the Cathedral, one of its oldest artifacts, is believed to date back to Almonester’s cathedral, which was dedicated in 1793. Thousands of babies have been christened in it, from slaves and mayors to saints and voodoo queens.

Of course, thousands of funerals have been performed in the Cathedral as well, with many of the city’s earliest leaders buried beneath the church, including Almonester and Pierre Marigny, the father of Mandeville’s Bernard Marigny. (Bernard is buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.) Twelve bishops and archbishops have their resting place in the Cathedral around the altar. Most recently, the very beloved Archbishop Phillip Hannan, who retired to the northshore and died in 2011, was laid to rest at the side of the altar. Marble tablets installed along the walls of the church memorialize the bishops who have served and are interred there.

The port city of New Orleans’ phenomenal growth in the early 1800s is reflected in the Cathedral’s baptismal and funeral registries from 1820. In addition to natives of New Orleans, the registries list persons from 35 different countries, 12 states and Washington, D.C., who came to New Orleans and either died or gave birth there.

While the Cathedral’s image was worked into the New Orleans Saints championship ring design, real saints—not the NFL variety, but those who have been venerated or beatified by the Roman Catholic Church—have worshiped here, Kern says. “St. Francis Cabrini, Blessed Seelos, St. Catherine Drexel, Mother Henriette DeLille (whose cause is up before the Church) and Blessed John Paul II have been here. So it’s been a place of saints.”

Saints have worshiped in the Cathedral, but sinners, too, seek out the church, two blocks from infamous Bourbon Street. “We come here as sinners to seek God’s love and forgiveness and to live his forgiveness as part of our faith. It’s a marvelous and wonderful paradox, almost,” says Kern.

The Cathedral’s Symbolism

St. Louis Cathedral is an important symbol of an entire city. As the center of faith for a neighborhood and mother church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, it has its own symbols that signify various tenets of the Catholic faith.

Immediately noticeable are the double-barred crosses on the steeples’ roofs, which indicate that the Cathedral is a metropolitan church. “Well, yes, it’s a big city,” one might think. However, the term “metropolitan” has a specific meaning in the Church; it is the home of an archdiocese. The double-barred cross is found inside the Cathedral as well, over the bishop’s chair, and, as Kern points out, “The processional cross on the left side of the altar as you are looking at it is a double-barred cross. It belonged to the first archbishop, Antoine Blanc, and has been used by every archbishop here since 1850.”

Inside, the Cathedral’s display of flags catches the eye, as do the stained-glass windows and the murals covering the ceiling and walls above the choir loft and altar. All carry their own religious messages. The large mural above the altar, painted by Erasme Humbrecht in 1872, shows King Louis IX announcing the Seventh Crusade.

While the murals draw the eye skyward, the stained-glass windows in the outer walls dominate the Cathedral during the day. The panels depict scenes from the life of St. Louis, King of France, the only French monarch beatified by the Church. Louis IX reigned from 1226 to 1270 and was canonized in 1297. St. Louis is the patron saint of architects; one of the windows depicts him working on plans for La Sainte-Chapelle, a major Parisian landmark that he built to house his collection of relics. One of those relics is a portion of the crown of thorns, and his statue standing in the rear of St. Louis Cathedral, like many statues of St. Louis, depicts him bearing a crown of thorns atop a pillow.

Other window panels show his coronation; his role as crusader (he led two crusades); his work as a healer, administering to lepers; his death; and, in the final panel, the pope discussing his canonization.

In 1964, Pope Paul VI elevated St. Louis Cathedral to the status of Minor Basilica. An honorary title, it comes with its own symbolism. The designation recognizes a church’s importance in history and to the region where it’s located. Kern explains, “It becomes, in a sense, a papal church attached to one of the major basilicas in Rome. Ours is attached to St. Mary Major. Certain privileges that are attached to the major basilica are attached to this as well. You might notice there are symbols on either side of the Cathedral, two glass display cases, one with an umbrella and one with a bell on the end of a pole. Those go back to antiquity as well, symbolizing the pope when he comes.”

Of the papal visit by John Paul II in 1987, Kern says, “He’s been by far the most important visitor ever to the Cathedral—and we’ve had kings and emperors, prime ministers and presidents. You name it, the high and the low.”

New Orleans’ Center

Physically and spiritually, the Cathedral has always been at the center of New Orleans. As Kern says, “In triumph and in tragedy, people from the beginning have come to the Cathedral. It is a point of faith. After the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson brought everyone here to sing a praise of thanksgiving. Zachary Taylor, after the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War, came to the Cathedral in New Orleans.

After hurricanes, this was a rallying point. After Katrina, the city was devastated. One of the first things that happened was a public Mass about a month after Katrina, as soon as we could get everything together.”

Citizens of all faiths come to the Cathedral during the Christmas holidays with caroling in the church and in Jackson Square. Each year the Cathedral also serves as the venue for a free concert held by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and the Historic New Orleans Collection.

Kern reflects further on his tenure as rector at the jewel in the center of New Orleans. “It’s been the neatest thing to be part of it all during my time here,” he says. “I’ve hosted a president, a prime minister, Prince Charles, the inauguration of mayors, the installation of new archbishops, the death of an old archbishop—all of these things happened—so it’s been a privilege to be able to be here to witness these expressions of faith and realize that you are looking at history as it happens.”

The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, has stood for generations—a tourist attraction, a neighborhood church, a gathering place, a living museum and a burial ground; a place of joy and sadness, a place to give thanks, seek solace and above all, to find redemption.

As to its future, Monsignor Kern says, “So we stay here, despite all of the problems, despite some of the seedier things. We are going to stay, as we always have been, as an anchor of faith, the anchor of hope, life and the fulfillment of life. It’s much more than what you get from Bourbon Street, and we hope we’re the symbol of that.”

To learn more about the Cathedral, visit stlouiscathedral.org. The books Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, by Charles E. Nolan (available in the Cathedral gift shop) and The Basilica on Jackson Square: the history of the St. Louis Cathedral by Leonard V. Huber and Samuel Wilson, Jr. (available at online booksellers) were invaluable resources in producing this article.

The post St. Louis Cathedral: The Jewel of the French Quarter appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Even in her quiet hometown of Somerset, England, McNeely heard bombs drop and saw their destruction. “Only when the German planes were jettisoning their bombs to get back to Germany were we sometimes targeted,” the soft-spoken Covington resident says. “I can remember coming home from school and seeing great big bomb craters and pieces of furniture hanging up in the trees.”

A young Marigold ready for duty with the WRNS.

At 17, McNeely joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS, pronounced “Wrens”). “During the war, all the girls and boys were called up when they were 18 if you hadn’t volunteered,” she says. “And I didn’t want to go in a factory, which was one of the options. So I volunteered for the navy.”

The navy interviewed and tested all the new recruits extensively in order to place them at various posts. Though she’s not sure what their requirements were, something about her stood out. “You had to be able to keep secrets. I know they gave us some psychological tests, but I don’t know what they were looking for,” she says. “I didn’t know where I was going, or what I was going to do.” McNeely was eventually placed at Bletchley Park, code-named Station X, the site of Britain’s top-secret code-breaking operations.

The Germans encrypted transmissions on troop and supply movement using a sort of high-tech typewriter called an Enigma machine. The Enigma produces highly complex codes with virtually endless translation possibilities. It was thought to be unbreakable. Unbreakable, that is, until eccentric Cambridge mathematician Alan Turing broke the code. Turing developed an electromechanical machine called the bombe, which could reveal the daily settings for the Germans’ encrypted messages.

Marigold revisits Bletchley Park.

The large code-breaking effort at Bletchley was divided among various huts at the Bletchley complex, where workers would intercept encoded German naval messages, decode the messages, and finally translate them into English. McNeely was assigned to program the code-breaking machines.

The Bletchley Park efforts, according to some historians, may have shortened World War II by up to four years and was a significant part of the Allied victory. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once described the workers at Bletchley as “the geese that laid the golden egg but never cackled” because they stayed tight-lipped about their important contributions.

McNeely and her fellow Wrens worked eight-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, programming the enormous machines that Turing had invented to decipher the encrypted messages. At the start of each shift, they were presented with a menu that showed them how to align the settings on the bombe machines with the code corresponding to each encrypted message. Then they would run the message through the machine. After the machine decoded the message, it would be sent to another hut to be translated into English.

“Once it got started, the machine went on until it suddenly stopped. And everyone let out a cheer because we had broken that code for the day,” McNeely says. “All this had to be done 24 hours a day. The machines made an awful noise clicking as they got to each position. And the variations of the combinations of the numbers and letters were unbelievable.”

Because the work was intelligence-related and extremely important to the war effort, everyone at Bletchley Park was sworn to secrecy. Britain’s Official Secrets Act dictated that they couldn’t speak to anyone—including their families—about their work. Nor could they discuss it with their fellow Bletchley workers. So while McNeely knew what she was doing was important, she had no idea what the decoded messages said or the larger significance of her work.

“All we knew was that we were doing a very important job, and we did know when the machine stopped, we had broken a code. We knew we were code breakers. Everybody clapped, but we had no idea what it was all about,” she says. “We just knew it was good, and then we’d go on with the next menu. We had all these friends, but we couldn’t talk about what we were doing.”

There was an ongoing fear that Germany might invade England and discover the code-breaking operations at Bletchley. “We always had the idea that we might be invaded and the Germans might come and torture us. That’s why it was important for each person not to know what the next person did—so you couldn’t really help [the Germans] too much,” McNeely says.

Though England was far from the front lines of the war, McNeely remembers being aware of the danger around her. She admits, though, that she was also probably a bit too young to fully understand the realities of the war. “That’s the funny part about it. Looking back on it, we were all into ‘Oh, we’re going to win the war,’ and we were all so enthusiastic. It was the older people who were worried to death about what was going to happen. Now, as a grandmother, I can certainly understand how my mother felt,” she says.

The stress of the war and keeping secrets eventually took its toll on some of McNeely’s fellow Wrens. “Our work and not being able to discuss it with anyone—even our friends we worked with—was quite stressful,” she says. “So some [people] kind of went off the deep end. Instead of being discharged, [they were put into mental hospitals so they could not] divulge what they knew.”

Other aspects of life at Bletchley Park were strict, too. Punishment for arriving late to a shift or breaking minor rules involved either peeling potatoes or sitting on the roof of a hut and manning a stirrup pump to extinguish any incendiary bombs that might fall in the area. McNeely says that because it was an undiscovered secret, Bletchley wasn’t a target, but the fire bombs would still occasionally fall nearby. Her punishment of choice? Bomb duty. She remembers once having to extinguish a fire bomb that dropped on her shift.

Though the broken codes aided the effort, the Allies did not always act on their knowledge. “As we found out later, the sad thing about it was that they couldn’t act on some of the codes we broke; if they did, the Germans would know that we had broken the code,” McNeely says. “Some ships and different battles had to be sacrificed. Although they knew what was happening, they couldn’t act on it.”

McNeely worked at Bletchley until the war ended. Still in the navy, she was sent to the HMS Royal Arthur, a navy shore establishment. There, she transitioned out of her code-breaking duties and worked as an interviewer, administering psychological tests to new naval recruits. Prince Philip, who was a first lieutenant in the navy, was also stationed at Royal Arthur. McNeely remembers Philip as an aggressive field hockey player and a frequenter of London. “He was always dashing up to London to see Elizabeth; we didn’t realize there was this big romance going on,” she says.

Years after the war had ended, McNeely came across an intriguing coincidence regarding her work. She eventually learned that her work included breaking code involving German submarines, which were attempting to sink supply ships delivering rations to England. McNeely met a German man who served as a captain on a submarine in the Atlantic at the same time she was breaking code about the submarines’ positions. To add to the coincidence, Richard McNeely, the man McNeely would later fall in love with, marry and start a family with, was one of the Merchant Marines running supplies back and forth across the Atlantic.

McNeely’s post-war chance meeting with her future husband is the stuff of fairy tales. She was invited to stay with an American family in Houston after her tour with the navy ended. Six months into her visit, she received a call that her mother was very sick in England. McNeely quickly obtained a spot aboard a freighter traveling from Houston to England. On board was Richard, the ship’s chief officer and a native New Orleanian. As the ship’s 12 passengers were boarding, McNeely caught Richard’s eye. “That’s mine,” Richard said to his cousin, the ship’s second officer. He pursued McNeely, and before the 12-day journey was over, they had decided to marry.

It was a quick courtship. Richard’s orders took him to Singapore after the ship docked in England. They kept in touch while McNeely cared for her mother and were later married in New Orleans, where they raised their four children. Now retired, McNeely and her husband, who worked as a Crescent River Port pilot on the Mississippi River, have been married for 63 years and recently welcomed a great-grandchild into their family.

All this time, though, McNeely has kept her secret. The Official Secrets Act was finally lifted in 1974 as the Cold War dwindled to a close, but McNeely didn’t find out about it right away. “This was a terrible shock to us because no one had told us it was lifted. All of a sudden, we saw the movies and articles coming out about Enigma,” she says. McNeely heard the news when a fellow Wren from Bletchley called her. After decades of keeping quiet about her important role in World War II, McNeely could finally speak out.

And that meant she could also receive recognition for her work. The British government awarded the Bletchley Park workers badges and certificates of appreciation. Hollywood caught on to the story, releasing the movie Enigma, starring Kate Winslet in 2001.

McNeely says that even decades after the war, fellow Brits are still showing their appreciation. “If you wear these badges in England, they give you free cups of tea—still!; get on a bus and it’s free, go into a museum and it’s free,” she says. “It’s unbelievable. They’re still appreciating what you did.”

The post Code Breaker: Marigold McNeely appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

INFINITY board member and Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise.

INFINITY brings the best of three generations together. First, the engineers and astronauts of the 1960s and ’70s who paved the way for space exploration, fulfilling in less than 10 years President Kennedy’s 1961 promise of putting a man on the moon and bringing him safely back to earth. Then there’s the generation who were gape-mouthed kids planted firmly in front of the nation’s TV sets as they watched those American pioneers begin their giant leaps into space. And now their children, who grew up during the era of a hundred-plus Space Shuttle launches, as the miracle of freeing ourselves from the bounds of earth’s relentless gravity became almost routine.

With the final launch of the Space Shuttle in 2011, and the next planned U.S. human space launch system tests set for 2016, it’s imperative that this current generation have something that will help keep them connected to space and the opportunities it offers.

That’s where INFINITY comes in. In the works for more than seven years, the center opened April 11, 2012—not an insignificant date. It’s the anniversary of astronaut (and INFINITY board vice chairman) Fred Haise’s memorable Apollo 13 launch in 1970. Though he was slated to pilot the lunar module and become the sixth man to walk on the moon, an oxygen tank explosion scuttled the mission. The heroic actions taken by the crew and ground-control personnel to bring Haise and his fellow astronauts safely home were dramatized in Ron Howard’s film Apollo 13.

Haise, a Biloxi native, has been involved with INFINITY’s development since its inception. He explains that after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, security at Stennis was tightened, making it more difficult for the public to access the StenniSphere at its location deep within the campus. Visitors could not drive directly to the StenniSphere, but had to board buses at the Mississippi welcome center and rest area to tour Stennis’ rocket-testing facilities and visit the StenniSphere.

“The actual brainstorming on the new center was initially done by Leo Seal, who was head of Hancock Bank,” says Haise. “His father had a lot to do with the acquisition of land to build the Mississippi Test Center, which became Stennis Space Center.” Roy Estess, who was the director of Stennis for many years, and Myron Webb, who was head of public affairs, were also involved from INFINITY’s beginning, as was Tommy Munro of Munro Petroleum.

Haise continues, “NASA took the first steps and acquired the land. We have a 30-year land-use agreement with NASA for the property. It’s very similar to the arrangement made for Space Center Houston at the Johnson Space Center. From there, under the leadership of Mr. Seal, a not-for-profit board was set up, of which I’m vice chairman. This board’s mission was to raise the money to build it and to operate it, which is where we are today.”

Visiting INFINITY

The first thing visitors see is a large sculpture of an eagle, carved from a single tree and incorporating metal used in the test stands at Stennis and in rocket engines used to propel the space shuttle into orbit around the earth. Soaring over the walkway leading from the parking lot to the center, the sculpture, by artist Marlon Miller, features a plaque with Haise’s likeness and text recounting his accomplishments.

While Stennis is mainly known for its spaceflight connection, the 125,000-acre federal facility is also home to several agencies and contractors, including the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command and the Navy’s Special Boat Team TWENTY-TWO. Exhibits at INFINITY’s entrance reflect that, mingling with two massive rocket engines used in the Apollo program, equally massive buoys used by Stennis’ oceanographers and one of the riverine patrol boats used by the special ops naval team.

Haise stands next an Apollo F1 engine. Five of the massive rockets powered Apollo 13 off the launch pad.

One of the rocket engines is an example of the most powerful ever built, an F1 engine designed by NASA’s Wernher von Braun. Five of these engines, each 18 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter, powered the first stage of the Saturn V moon rockets. Altogether, they burned 15 tons of fuel per second while driving the almost-seven-million pound vehicle to a speed of 6,000 miles an hour and an altitude of 36 miles.

Haise, via a video presentation, greets visitors as they enter the center. While the exhibits are geared toward “science” in general, the main goal is to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers and, hopefully, Mars-bound astronauts. The first exhibit, Great Nations Dare to Explore, helps accomplish that by leading visitors on a maze-like tour featuring interactive displays that examine how different cultures have set about exploring the world around them.

Starting with the Egyptians, visitors wind their way through passages containing displays of artifacts and dioramas, sometimes dead-ending as the culture being examined (the Vikings, for example) either ceased to exist or stopped sending out explorers into the world. Linda McCarthy, of the Hancock Chamber of Commerce, which markets and manages the center, says, “The coolest thing about the exhibit is that you can touch, hear and even smell things that will throw you back in time through the experience. Each one of the areas has at least one of these features. A display box contains replicas of artifacts.”

Following the exploration of Egypt, China and beyond, the visitor continues into the development of flight, from the Wright brothers to our first forays into space. “We’re examining where humans have gone, where we’d like to go and the possible future of space exploration. While we have been exploring space, there is still a long way to go,” says McCarthy, adding, “Mars is the ultimate goal.”

Next up are demonstrations of Stennis’ multi-tasking place in NASA’s Applied Sciences Program. Using the latest technology, a multimedia touch screen showcases the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Nation Coastal Data Development Center and its Gulf of Mexico project. Exhibits closely examine the effect of weather and changing sea levels on the coastline and coastal marshes. “Visitors can come through and explore what it is NOAA does and how the information they’ve developed is being used. They can see different sea creatures, the variety of life in the ocean and how scientists explore the undersea world,” says McCarthy. “It’s really a great system because for any age it’s both educational and entertaining. The 8-year-olds play with sea creatures, and teenagers get engrossed by the sea exploration presentations.”

A theater that’s very much “in the round” features Science on a Sphere, a giant sphere suspended in the middle of the space that serves as a projection screen for any number of presentations. “It’s actually the first spherical movie screen in the country,” McCarthy says. “It had been at the StenniSphere for a couple of years, and we’re lucky to have it; it’s probably one of our most popular exhibits. We can do a number of different things with the unique screen, and we can actually control it with an iPad or a Wii control system.”

Up Into Space

Scale-model Apollo rockets tower over an atrium with a curving staircase and elevator leading to the second-floor exhibits. It is here that the exciting early days of human space exploration are celebrated side-by-side with present-day technologies and some glimpses into future plans.

Greeting visitors is a wall of more than 100 mission patches donated by the individuals who reproduced them in needlepoint, one from almost every U.S. spaceflight mission. “To have dedicated all of that time and effort and then donate them is incredible. My favorite is the Apollo 13 mission,” McCarthy notes. “It’s exceptional work.”

Display of embroidered NASA mission patches at INFINITY.

Adults who as kids watched the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and early Space Shuttle missions will get a kick from seeing Wernher von Braun’s office re-created at INFINITY. McCarthy says, “Dr. von Braun had an office at Stennis Space Center. The tower that’s at the old visitor’s center was actually his office. He could easily see the test stands from the viewing windows there. We call him the father of the modern rocket engine. He was responsible for the F1 engines for the Saturn program—that huge engine on display outside. If it weren’t for his engine design, it could have taken a lot longer to get to the moon, and maybe we would not have met our goals.”

A space suit worn by Fred Haise, on loan from the Smithsonian, is displayed next to a video presentation on Apollo 13. Visitors unfamiliar with the mission’s harrowing tale can learn about it through the presentation, told in part through TV news clips from 1970.

A reproduction of the first rocket of the modern age, Robert Goddard’s liquid-fueled invention, stands near a sample from the farthest reaches of human spaceflight to date: a sample of rock from the moon brought back from one of the Apollo missions.

Rounding out the spaceflight exhibit are displays which show the evolution of food brought into space, from inedible-looking freeze-dried, vacuum-packed packets and MRE-type entrees to what scientists and engineers hope will be the future for any moon base or Mars mission explorers: aeroponically grown produce nurtured by precise artificial light with water and nutrients delivered to the plants by a spray of fine mist. The stacks of different butter lettuce varieties grown at INFINITY are periodically harvested—they grow fast; from seed to harvest in a matter of three to four weeks—and served to visitors.

Getting a feel for what it would be like to live and work aboard the International Space Station is possible when touring a reproduction of the Destiny module, the U.S. laboratory that also serves as a control station for the ISS’s robot arm.

Other Attractions

A moon rock sample on display at INFINITY.

Though the center’s INFINITY Café has a permanent presence by Domino’s to assure a steady supply of pizza for the kids, it is the serving area set up to feature different regional restaurants that brings a unique
and appetizing offering. “Five of our local restaurants take turns presenting menu favorites, a different one each day. This brings a sampling of the best of our local cuisine to visitors and staffers alike,” says McCarthy. In the brief time the center has been opened, it’s become a favorite for workers at Stennis looking for a quick lunch getaway.

McCarthy notes that INFINITY is intended to be more than an educational destination. It’s also a corporate meeting place and an event facility capable of hosting large crowds for receptions. “In addition to the five classrooms downstairs, we have four meeting rooms on the second floor that we rent. Response has been tremendous. Companies based at Stennis can hold meetings here offsite, which makes sense as their guests won’t have to drive from the interstate to the security checkpoints.”

Future Plans

More exhibits are in the works, and fundraising efforts continue. Haise is very excited about INFINITY’s next phase, called the Earth Gallery, which is highly interactive. He explains, “Visiting children will come on field-trip missions tailored by their teachers to fit their current class curricula. Originally designed by engineers and scientists at Stennis, the missions can be fine-tuned by teachers with the assistance of outreach training from NASA staffers. It will be a capstone to what they’ve been doing in the classroom.” Haise adds, “I think that’s very exciting. There’s no other museum in the country that’s orchestrated this way—directed to science learning to enhance what they get in the classrooms.”

That INFINITY offers opportunities to learn about earth sciences such as oceanography and meteorology and combines this with a celebration of NASA’s 50 years in space is important to Haise. “Here are magnificent things that have been done in all fields that can put a spark in children’s heads—‘maybe I can do some exciting things.’ Not necessarily in space, because not everyone can be an engineer or scientist, but to take advantage of what talent they have in a field that is best for them.”

INFINITY Science Center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Located right off I-10, at Miss. Exit 2 (South), next to the Mississippi Welcome Center near the Miss.-La. border. (228) 533-9025. Adults (18-54), $8; seniors (55+), military and children (6-17), $6; 5 and under, free. Ticket price includes a free bus tour of NASA Stennis Space Center.

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St. Tammany Clerk of Court Archivist Robin Perkins. Photo by Fielding Photography.

The St. Tammany Archives Department is known as the largest and best-preserved document source in the state, besides Orleans Parish. The parish courthouse has never burned or flooded; most of the document series date back to 1810. They provide information for researching the history of St. Tammany and its citizens. Genealogists can obtain data such as names, addresses, occupations, marital and family status, citizenship and property holdings of their ancestors.

The archives show that St. Tammany has always been a hard-working, industrial parish. Bricks were made, sugar was grown and rice was produced—all right here. Early Revolutionary War veterans who settled in the area brought their work ethic and entrepreneurial vision with them. Robin says, “We’re keeping their memory alive by making people aware of all their contributions. It’s definitely a heritage to be proud of.

“History always surprises us and delights us with the things you can find out,” Robin says. For example, during the 19th century, it was possible to ride a horse from Mandeville to Covington and be in the shade throughout the duration of the trip because of the amount of forestation.

Robin enjoys speaking to the community about the history she cares so much about. She credits Clerk of Court Malise Prieto with providing the opportunity for her to do so. Malise says, “We are most fortunate to have Robin on our staff. She loves what she does, and it shows. She looks at history in a different way. She can entertain you with history.”

Robin engages children who come to see her on field trips by researching their last names. What at first may seem like any other school trip turns into a trip back in time where students learn about their personal ancestry.

We cannot forget about our past. Robin and the archives help us to remember.

The Archives Department is located in the St. Tammany Parish Justice Center, Basement Level, in Covington, (985) 809-8700. Appointments as well as walk-ins are welcome. Copies can be mailed.

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The Southern Hotel soon after it was completed. Photo courtesy Rusty Burns.

The hotel was built in 1907 during the glory days of the “Ozone Belt,” when the area enjoyed immense popularity as a resort. The cool air flowing out of the piney woods was welcome in the days before air conditioning, and area waters, whether from springs or deep wells, were reputed to be medicinal. The Southern Hotel and others on the northshore thus attracted guests from all over the country.

Lisa Condrey Ward purchased the Southern Hotel along with her husband, Joseph, her brother Ricky Condrey and his wife, Gayle, in 2011. She is familiar with its history, noting, “It catered to northerners during the winter and New Orleanians during the summer.” They purchased the building last November, but it had been on her mind since she first saw it. “We moved here from New Orleans in 1999. I started talking about it, probably the day after we moved here, ‘Gosh, why hasn’t somebody turned that back into a hotel?’”

The Southern Hotel. Photo courtesy Rusty Burns.

Their plans are to renovate the mission-style, 34,000-square-foot building and open it as a boutique hotel. Ward has hired architect Peter Trapolin of New Orleans, a veteran of several successful historic hotel renovations.

While it’s still on the drawing board, Ward says, “It’s going to have 41 rooms and a restaurant on the New Hampshire corner. We’re looking for an exciting restaurateur to work with on the build-out.” She hopes her plans for the property spark as much interest in what the area has to offer today’s visitors as the elements did at the turn of the century. “I want people to come here and enjoy things like the bike path—we’re going to have bikes available and kayaks for the river.”

Renovations include facilities that Covington residents will be able to take advantage of as well as the hotel’s guests. “We’re going to have a ballroom and space for business meetings.” Ward notes the building is in the shape of a “u” that opens onto the alley that runs from New Hampshire to Vermont. “We’re going to close that in and have the ballroom and all those spaces spill out into a really beautiful courtyard. It will be a very nice party space. The hotel bar will be open to everyone, and that’s going to have access to the courtyard, too.”

Echoing Mayor Cooper’s optimism in the project’s role in the revitalization of downtown Covington, Ward says, “I think there’s going to be a renaissance. Covington is already a great little town. My personal vision is to expand the types and diversity of businesses into something similar to what Magazine Street has in New Orleans. If we put that together, get the movie theater open—and hopefully the hotel will be an ideal catalyst for that—it will become a really wonderful, pedestrian-friendly city that has a lot to offer.”

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Napoleon's Death Mask. Photo courtesy Lousiana State Museum.

A historical constant, the land the Cabildo is built on has been set aside for government use since the first plan of New Orleans was laid out in 1721. Also designated at that time were plots for the church (St. Louis Cathedral and the Presbytere, or priests’ home) and the public plaza, now Jackson Square.

Built during the time of Spanish rule over Louisiana, The Cabildo, completed in 1799, was properly known as the Casa Capitular, or Capital House. The new home of “The Most Illustrious Cabildo” (the city council) was commonly called “the Cabildo building,” or, as we now know it, “the Cabildo.” Like the cathedral and Presbytere, it was financed by Don Andrés Almonester de Roxas, a member of the Illustrious Cabildo. While the religious buildings were gifts to the church, the city agreed to reimburse Almonester—in the end, his widow, as he died in 1798—for the Cabildo’s construction.

The later years of Spanish rule were followed by a brief period when Louisiana was returned to France, which famously sold the colony to the fledgling United States in 1803. That led to the most historic event in the history of the building—and, perhaps, of the country—the ceremony transferring ownership of Louisiana from France to the United States. Taking place on December 20, 1803, in the room on the second floor where the Cabildo had met (the Sala Capitular), this ceremony was the final act in a process which nearly doubled the size of the United States.

What’s remarkable is that we can stand today in that same room, under the gaze of a wall-size painting commemorating the transfer. After that historic day, the Sala Capitular was home to the New Orleans City Council and, from 1868 to 1910, the Louisiana Supreme Court. Several historic cases were heard there, including Plessy v. Ferguson and the Slaughterhouse Cases, which went on to become landmark constitutional law cases ultimately decided by the United States Supreme Court.

The Cabildo Today

The Cabildo, along with the Presbytere, the 1850 House in the Lower Pontalba building, Madame John’s Legacy on Dumaine Street and the U.S. Mint, are all historical properties owned by the Louisiana State Museum. The LSM is part of the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism under the ultimate direction of the Lt. Governor’s office—as is the committee planning the state’s bicentennial celebrations in 2012.

The Cabildo's second floor gallery provides a great view of Jackson Square.

Luckily for Louisianians, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne happens to be a big history buff who has traveled the state giving presentations on our unique history. When asked about the Cabildo’s place in the LSM system, which includes properties in Baton Rouge, Patterson and Thibodaux in addition to the New Orleans properties, Dardenne said, “It’s the bell cow. It is absolutely the real treasure. All these great buildings in New Orleans, but certainly the Cabildo and the Presbytere, flanking the St. Louis Cathedral, are part of the iconic landscape of New Orleans and therefore of Louisiana.”

Standing in the gallery on the Cabildo’s second floor overlooking Jackson Square, Dardenne observed, “You look out of these windows and you see the first plat of land in New Orleans—Jackson Square, the place New Orleans was born. The Cabildo not only overlooks the magnificent river and the first settlement in New Orleans, it is also the repository for so many great Louisiana treasures that are representative of our colorful, unique and rich history and culture. This is the place where you find it all.”

Dardenne was speaking within a few feet of where, at least for me, one of the building’s most significant and tragic events took place. On July 18, 1826, a drunken wretch named Zephir Canonge staggered up the stairs to the building’s second floor. As he encountered Judge Gallien Preval, a Creole lawyer and veteran of the Battle of New Orleans—and my great-great-great-great-grandfather—Canonge chose to insult Preval verbally. Exactly what he said isn’t known; the insult rolled off Preval like the proverbial water on the duck’s back. Preval’s 19-year-old son, Theodore, however, took great offense at the slur and, on the Cabildo’s grand, curving staircase, challenged Canonge to a duel. It didn’t end well for the young Preval, as one of the local newspapers described:

“The friends of the family of Mr. Preval—the friends of virtue and justice—are informed that Mr. Theodore Preval, aged nineteen years, terminated his career yesterday afternoon at 4 o’clock by a frightful fatality. His corpse will be exposed at Mr. B. Marigny’s, Faubourg Marigny, from whence the convoy will start for the church.”

This tale was not far from my mind as I toured the Cabildo with the LSM’s historian, Dr. Charles Chamberlain. Chamberlain notes that the building now houses an exhibit of artifacts spanning the state’s history, from prehistoric times up until the end of Reconstruction in 1877.

The first-floor exhibit starts, interestingly enough, at the beginning. A history of the Cabildo including drawings and plans of the various buildings that stood on the site can be seen as the visitor walks in the entrance, as well as plans and photos of the present building as seen through the years.

Chamberlain points out that the Cabildo’s appearence, except for the 1840s addition of the third floor, remains basically unchanged from the day it was transferred to the United States. One change occurred almost immediately, however. The Americans didn’t appreciate anything to do with royalty, it seems. “They blasted the Spanish colonial symbol off of the pediment. It was blank for about 20 years, and they hired Pietro Cardelli, an Italian sculptor, to create the very patriotic scene we have now of an eagle, the flag, the cannons and cannonballs,” says Chamberlain.

One royal reminder that—maybe by design, possibly by ignorance—escaped the Americans’ ire was the iron balustrade surrounding the building’s second floor. “We know Marcellino Hernandez was the Isleño artisan who oversaw the balcony work, and he used a crown and a rosary design. That reflects the key Spanish institutions of the crown and the church. The funny thing is, I don’t think the American officials ever really got that. I think that if they tore down the Spanish seal, why would they also support the idea of a monarchy and the Catholic Church? Americans were greatly opposed to those ideas. Had they really known what those symbols were, they probably would have taken them away. I think it’s funny.” (Chamberlain also notes that local jewelry designer Mignon Faget has a collection incorporating some of Hernandez’s design elements called, of course, the Marcellino collection.)

The museum's third floor examines aspects of life in Louisiana from its founding until the 1870s. Photo by Stephen Faure.

Moving on into the exhibit, early artifacts include Native American baskets, one of which, Chamberlain says, is a Chitimacha basket considered one of the finest examples of Native American basketry in the country.

Stone left by Iberville to claim Louisiana for France in 1699.

Nearby is one of the most important artifacts that mark the beginning of European influence in Louisiana—a marble stone recovered from Fort Maurepas, the first French outpost, founded in 1699 at present-day Biloxi. More artifacts from colonial days include an armoire dating to the 1790s made by Celestin Glapion. “It’s one of the finest artifacts we have,” notes Chamberlain. “It’s an example of Creole-style furniture. The French influence, the cabriole legs, the scalloping of the bottom is Rococo, and the crown molding at the top is Second Empire style. It’s kind of a mixture. The Glapions are buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1; his brother married Marie Laveau, so it’s a very interesting story.”

These exhibits are housed in a part of the Cabildo that incorporates the arched walls and brick floor of the Corps de Garde, built in 1751. The structure survived the great fires of 1788 and 1794 that destroyed much of the city and were the impetus for Almonester’s building spree.

Portraits hanging in the first-floor foyer include one from 1822 of Father Anthony Sedella, “Pere Antoine,” who was pastor of St. Louis Cathedral for many years, and Phillipe de Marigny, father of Bernard Marigny, founder of the town of Mandeville.

The Sala Capitular is located on the second floor, along with its display commemorating the Louisiana Purchase and the Louisiana Supreme Court; this is also where Napoleon’s death mask resides. Next to it is an exhibit featuring the Battle of New Orleans. An enormous painting depicting the battle overlooks a display of artifacts. Chamberlain explains that unlike other exhibits featuring items that had been dug up after years underground on the field in Chalmette, “This is really the best Battle of New Orleans exhibit because it has large objects that were kept in the families and then handed down to us. So we have a rifle and bayonet registered to the Tower of London that someone recovered right after the battle, and an English drum major’s baton. We also have reproductions of uniforms that were handed down to us but are too fragile for display. We have a drum that belonged to Jordan Noble. In 1815, he was a 13-year-old slave who then went on to serve in three other wars. He won his freedom in the 1830s and was a military hero throughout the 1800s.”

The third floor houses a sprawling exhibit that illustrates various aspects of the commercial activity that drove Louisiana’s economy through the years. It’s a large, striking and open space. The Cabildo’s roof and the third floor were heavily damaged by a fire in 1988. It was rebuilt using the original mansard construction of heavy wooden beams and trusses and trademark dormer windows. The beams are left exposed so the public can see how this great space would have been achieved using building techniques that pre-date power tools and particleboard.

Painting depicting the raising of the U.S. colors signifying the transfer of the Louisiana Territory from France. Photo courtesy Louisiana State Museum.

The story of commerce and agriculture in Louisiana can’t be told without reminders of less savory times. A wooden block that was once used in slave auctions dominates this floor’s entrance. “New Orleans was the center of the domestic slave trade in the pre-Civil War years,” Chamberlain notes. Other artifacts, such as elegant furniture, clothes and bedding, are displayed among the more crude items. “Slavery produced the wealth and allowed planters to have china, silver, glassware and silk clothing. We also have the artifacts of slavery itself—the slave collar always elicits a reaction in people.”

A notable item is a life-size carving of an Indian maiden. “This would be put outside a tobacco shop to let people know what they sold,” says Chamberlain. “It is probably the most beautiful tobacco shop sign I’ve ever seen. Most people are familiar with crudely carved, male Great Plains Indians. This reflects a Southeastern Indian, and it’s female, in the most intricate and elegant presentation.”

Nearby is an interesting and odd piece of wood, rounded and with a hole in the middle. “This is an actual pipe from the Latrobe water works,” explains Chamberlain. “They basically used cypress logs, hollowed them out, made male and female ones and then joined them together. Benjamin Latrobe was the architect of the U.S. Capitol. He came here in 1819 to build a waterworks—a private, subscribed waterworks. It was located where Latrobe Park is now, by the French Market.” During his stay in New Orleans, Latrobe also designed the Louisiana State Bank building, now a reception hall called Latrobe’s on Royal, just a few blocks from the Cabildo.

Rounding out the third floor and ending the Cabildo’s collection spanning 200 years of Louisiana history are items from the Civil War and Reconstruction, including a lottery wheel from the great Louisiana Lottery scandal of the late 1800s and a display explaining one of the last struggles of Reconstruction in New Orleans, the Battle of Liberty Place. Chamberlain notes, “Honestly, it’s kind of awkward to end the exhibit of the history of Louisiana in 1877 because it’s an awkward time, the end of Reconstruction.” However, he explains that most of the museum’s artifacts are from the 1700s and 1800s and the exhibits are kept within that time period.

Secret History

An area not included in the Cabildo’s exhibit reflects its use over the years as a police precinct and prison. At one time, the city’s prison extended back behind the Cabildo along St. Peter Street to the corner at Royal. Over the years, it was demolished, remodeled and diminished, with only a few holding cells remaining in the courtyard once the large parish prison was built at the site where the Municipal Auditorium is presently located.

Known as the “Calaboose,” its most famous occupant was perhaps the pirate Pierre Lafitte, brother of Jean Lafitte. He escaped on September 5, 1814, and a $1,000 reward was offered for his return. At the same time, Jean Lafitte was in negotiations with the governor, offering his assistance in repelling the coming British invasion that culminated in the Battle of New Orleans the following January. Pierre was never returned to the Calaboose, and the pirates won pardons for their actions in defense of the city.

To learn more about the Cabildo, see The Cabildo on Jackson Square by Samuel Wilson and Leonard Huber. The Cabildo is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Visit louisianabicentennial2012.com for upcoming Louisiana Bicentennial events.

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