3. Two occupational strata were identified. [citation needed], Under ownership of Spain, the city of New Orleans held the strategically important location between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. The Parlange plantation is located near New Roads Louisiana in Pointe Coupee Parish. Then, have a meal at the onsite restaurant before heading off to the next stop on your trip. Archaeology of Louisiana. During the 1700s Louisiana had plantations scattered all over the state. If you have experience treasure hunting in Louisiana and have stories to tell or questions please leave them below. By the time the Civil War came to Louisiana, the once-tiny plantation had grown to a massive 2,640 acres. They were whitewashed, had brick rubble landings instead of porches, and glass windows, a rarity prior to the Civil War. In the citys French Quarter in 2004 and 2005, the former location of the House of the Rising Sun Hotel was revealed beneath the concrete floor of a tin-roofed parking shed. Now Chloe, who had such close-knit intermingling with the Woodruffs, had the opportunity to overhear certain goings on around the homestead. Chloe had particularly close ties to the family, as she did the cooking and took care of the Woodruffs daughters personally. Louisiana's planters, both white and free black, were among the wealthiest in the South. Without a sign or fence, many of these plantation cemeteries have been forgotten. Whitney Plantation has closed for the time being; the management is seeking donations for what will be expensive repairs. The Parlange plantation which still stands today was owned and is still owned by the Parlange family. The earliest evidence of Europeans in Louisiana comes from aboriginal sites containing European trade goods. The girls have been seen playing about the house, (usually upstairs), and on the grounds. OnGenealogy is a directory of family history tools and resources. Many were established near Native American villages where land had already been cleared. My name is Leland Kent and I have had an interest in abandoned places ever since I was a kid. Yet the archaeological remains of the small farms they established are rare due in part to riverbank erosion, levee construction, and obliteration by later occupation. Still today you can catch a glimpse of what Twain once saw on the riverfront by embarking on a tour of Louisiana's historichomes and museums. The artifacts used by workers of all races were surprisingly similar, reflecting workers limited access to goods and shared low economic status. Its presumed that it is still buried somewhere on the Thibodeaux Plantation. Honey Island is located on the Pearl River close to the town of Pearl River, Louisiana. The home was burned in the war, but the fortune never recovered. Albania Plantation. Historical archaeology in Louisiana reflects the international nature of the states history. The Great Mississippi River Road is about 70 miles in length, located on each side of the river between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and is home to a collection of Louisiana's towering antebellum homes nestled in . The locations of National Register properties and districts for which the latitude and longitude coordinates are included below, may be seen in a map. Scott Plantation, Wilson, East Feliciana Parish, LA If its still there it would be an amazing find. While a huge number of Union troops were on their way to his plantation Colonel loaded up two wagons with over $1 million in gold and silver coins and jewelry and also a 200-pound bell that he had cast out of silver coins that he had melted down. Many planters were good businessmen, buying and . One-Year subscription (4 issues) : $20.00, Two-Year subscription (8 issues) : $35.00, 64 Parishes 2023. There are a few buried treasure stories that come from this island. Lost Plantations of the South - Marc R. Matrana - Google Books Lousiana Plantations | Forgotten History These investigations revealed that the sinking of U-166, previously attributed to a US Coast Guard aircraft, was the result of a depth charge fired by a US Navy patrol craft. At least one cabin had a fenced-in yard for a garden and/or livestock. These are just a few of the many treasure stories of Jean Lafitte in Louisiana. At Nina, a thick deposit of alluvium from an 1851 flood separated earlier trash deposits from later ones. Brick foundations from the sawmill and planer mill were preserved at the site, as well as the levees for the log-floating pond. Agricultural commodity prices remained depressed for many years, but their eventual recovery resulted in a new wave of land clearing, which in turn triggered another depression in the late 1830s. In. Although Lafitte was headquartered in Louisiana he also visited other states that he supposedly buried treasures including Texas and Alabama. After the Civil War when she was convinced that it was safe she went to her garden to retrieve the treasure that she had buried. The sunken remains of the CSS Arrow, a wooden coastal steamboat converted into a Confederate gunboat in 1861, were located during a magnetometer survey of the West Pearl River in St. Tammany Parish in 1991. Lincecum was once a bustling lumber town. Many of them still stand as a testament to the interesting agricultural history that dotted the state. Most sites, however, exhibit nothing above ground except a scatter of brick rubble. Love Louisiana? Woodruff was a mature 35 but arrangements like this were pretty common back then. 14 Historic Plantations In Louisiana - OnlyInYourState National Register of Historic Places listings in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana Woodruff stayed on until 1834 when he sold the property and moved to New Orleans. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and metal detecting and digging is probably forbidden but it wouldnt hurt to ask. Driven out of Canadas eastern coastal provinces by the British after the French and Indian War, the Acadians initially settled on the west bank of the Mississippi in St. James and Ascension Parishes, and on the Attakapas and Opelousas prairies of south-central Louisiana. Near the Amite River which is across from the ruins of Galvez town. Of the over eighty surface features identified were several trash pits and privies and a former shell road. Archaeology is needed to answer these questions, and to document each sugarhouses size, layout, construction method, and growth over time, as well as the arrangement of the equipment within it. Farmers would bury the deceased on a portion of their land that was not farmable. Most of the artifacts from this site consisted of metal ship fittings and fasteners and cabin accouterments, but tools, engine parts, and armaments, including solid and canister shot for the ships single thirty-two-pounder cannon, were also recovered. Baton Rouge: Coastal Environments, Inc., 1991. If you have a genealogy business or resource, we'd love to add you to our listings! Subsidence and sea-level rise have also submerged many coastal sites, a process exacerbated by coastal erosion. New Orleans: US Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, 2007. Ravaged by. During the colonial period, Canadian, European, African, and Anglo-American immigrants established frontier settlements among the indigenous Native Americans. A gymnasium covered the site until it was damaged and removed after Hurricane Katrina. Unlike in many other states, documentary sources in Louisiana are not only in English, but also in French, Spanish, and sometimes an amalgamation of those two languages. The Frisby Plantation was owned by Confederate Colonel Norman Frisby during the Civil War. The main house was built circa 1791 and was enlarged and renovated in 1802-1805. The surrounding wooded areas provided game for food and furs, wood for fuel and lumber, raw materials . Truth be told Lafitte operated all over the Gulf Coast so his treasures could be scattered anywhere in that area. The high water table in South Louisiana prevented buildings from having basements, while frequent flooding required many to be raised up to a full story off the ground. As for the Big House, it lost one of four chimneys, some cedar shingles . Learn how your comment data is processed. Union General Nathanial Banks and his troops stopped at the plantation for a brief stay. Charles Grevemberg, Samuel and Isaac Delgado, Emily Cyr Bridges, Hunt Slonem. Located at Patterson Street and Merrill Street, and noted for its productive truck gardens. Frogmore has more than a fair share of stories, having been the site of a Union encampment during the Civil War, and is one of the best-preserved cotton plantations in the Mississippi River Delta. Found with the burials were necklaces of European beads, brass bracelets, an iron pot, several glass bottles, aboriginal and European ceramic vessels, and a musket. The sugar plantation ceased operations in the 1980s. Bradford was forced to flee from President George Washington's army in 1794, because of his leadership role in the Whisky Rebellion. The pirate Jean Lafitte lived in the bayous of Louisiana for many years and stories of his buried treasure have been told throughout the centuries. I released my first book, Abandoned Birmingham, in July 2018 and it is available worldwide through most major booksellers. As the river migrated, homes and other structures were regularly set back to prevent them from being eroded into the river. My goal is to showcase the obscure, sometimes historic, forgotten places I have visited across the Southeast. Their settlement was below Grand Gulf in Vicksburg, on the westbank of the Mississippi River. To contact Reference staff in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room, please use our Ask A Librarian service or call the reading room between 8:30 and 5:00 at 202-707-6394, and Press 3. Greek Revival home completed in 1833 by Simeon Smith. While prehistoric archaeologists have only archaeological artifacts, objects made and used by people, to examine, historical archaeologists use both historical records (documents, photographs, letters, newspapers, etc.) One of these house servants was a young woman named Chloe. The Plantation was owned by descendants of Ann Plater Key, mother of Philip Barton Key. History Together the couple had three daughters, Cornelia Gale, Jane, and Mary Octavia. Had been Francis Routh's cotton plantation; and the land is now part of the. Have you ever been to one of these homes? During the Civil War Virginie Parlange was the owner of the plantation. As the Goodland mill was not close to a navigable waterway, railroads were used to haul logs and lumber to and from the mill. The Confederate Officers are said to have buried this treasure on the Estate of Walter C. Flowers which was located between Madisonville and Chinchuba, Louisiana. Sites associated with the Alabama, Bayogoula, Biloxi, Caddo, Chitimacha, Choctaw, Houma, Tunica, and other Native American groups have yielded such items. Louisiana's Most Glorious Antebellum Mansions - Frommer's This would create an arsenic-like liquid she planned to pour in the batter for a birthday cake she was making for one of the children. The ruins are located on the Mississippi River close to Dupont, Louisiana. Today, a portion of the original land is still used for sugarcane farming. Magnolia Mound features a collection of locally-made furniture from Louisiana's colonial period, as well as French pieces and decorative art items including crystal, locally made textiles and English and French ceramics. Smith, Steven D. and George J. Castille III. The associated church is long gone. Other notable examples of slave housing can be found at the Laura Plantation in Vacherie and at the San Francisco Plantation House in Garyville. Photo by Kathy Alexander, 2012. The second occupation at this site was a prehistoric mound site buried under four to five feet of sediment that had been rapidly deposited by the Mississippi River through a crevasse, or break, in the rivers natural levee, several hundred years before the French settlement during the Coles Creek period (7001200 CE). Sorry, you have Javascript Disabled! According to a study by Together Louisiana, a statewide network of community organizers, from 1997 to 2016 the ITEP board approved all but eight of 16,931 corporate-tax-exemption applications. Generally used for food storage, aboriginal pottery found at these and other Euro-American sites illustrates the multicultural economy of the times. The American Civil War (18611865), Federal occupation, and the emancipation of enslaved people dramatically altered life on plantations and in New Orleans. Since then many cultures have lived and thrived in the Louisiana area. 83000554. [citation needed], Due to poor transportation and slow industrialization, plantations tended to be somewhat self-sufficient, growing most of their own food, harvesting their own timber and firewood, repairing farm implements, and constructing their own buildings. Los Adaes, in Natchitoches Parish, is the remains of a Spanish presidio and mission that served as the capital of the province of Texas from 1729 to 1770. Baileys Dam. 8. 13 The Lost Cause fantasies on offer at plantation sites are obviously a minor element in these massive issues. Therefore, the arrival and settlement of the French in 1699 is generally accepted as the beginning of the historic period in Louisiana. The Mississippi River and its alluvial valley dominate much of the landscape, and the states major waterways, regularly changed course until confined by the modern levee system. Three-quarters of the population, roughly half of them enslaved men, women, and children, resided in rural areas. Surface artifact clusters, brick piers, and several cisterns were recorded in the residential portion of the site. Over the years gold and silver coins and bullion washes ashore on these two islands which are from the two shipwrecks in the waters there. New Orleans Plantation Tours - CajunEncounters.com AtOak Alley Plantation, named for the quarter-mile entrance canopy of 300-year-old oak trees, tours are given chronicling the history of the mansion that was built in 1837. Some of the original buildings still stand here. New Orleans: Earth Search, Inc., 1995. In Lost Plantations of the South, Marc R. Matrana weaves together photographs, diaries and letters, architectural renderings, and other rare documents to tell the story of sixty of these. [citation needed] Cloth, shoes, and clothing were imported from Europe and from the Northeast U.S.[citation needed], The self-sufficiency of plantations and cheap slave labor hindered economic development of the South. The best hidden gems and little known destinations - straight to your inbox. Some years down the road, one of David Bradfords law students and family friend, Clark Woodruff married Bradfords 14-year-old daughter, Sarah Matilda. The numerous artifacts recovered from these features illustrate the commercial and domestic activities of a remote sawmill community. Aillet House Plantation. Despite widespread literacy and the advent of electronic communication in the late twentieth century, so much of every-day life in Louisiana continues to go undocumented. Archaeological and Biological Analysis of World War II Shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico: Artificial Reef Effect in Deep Water. What a story that would be to tell! The largest antebellum mansion in Louisiana, Nottoway plantation is one of the favorite spots for visitors to frequent. Extant from about 1900 to 1938, the Donner mill had separate residential areas for management and white workers of primarily Cajun descent. (You can unsubscribe anytime), by 2023 Louisiana Office of Tourism. It is believed that she and Clark were having an affair. The Bonafice plantation is located near Edgard, Louisiana on the north bank of the Mississippi River. Laura Plantationonce produced a signature Louisiana crop, sugarcane. Col. William Porcher Miles and his wife, Harriet, lost their daughter to illness at age 7. when the Mound Builders first lived here. Legend has it that miners that were coming back from the goldfields of California had buried their gold here before they were massacred by Indians. For the offence of eavesdropping, one of her ears was cut off. The main house was moved and is now located in Sherevport, and the plantation store is now located in Natchitoches. Ardoyne Plantation House was built 1894 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 1, 1982. Near Breaux Bridge, Louisiana off of County Road 31 in St. Martin Parish. Of the thousands of plantation main houses built in Louisiana prior to the Civil War, only about 140 survive. Privacy Policy. Below ground, the seven sugarhouse sites that have been extensively excavated contained hundreds of intact features. On word that Union troops were about to descend on the plantation Virginie reportedly buried 3 wooden chests containing approximately $100,000 to $500,000 worth of gold and silver coins and jewelry in her garden. Take a journey off the River Road andthere are additional antebellum homesto be found around Louisiana. Rees, Mark A., Ed. Plantation Cemetery - Abandoned Southeast While not a fortification, Baileys Dam in Rapides Parish is a unique period construction examined by archaeologists in the 1980s. Home of General Richard Taylor, son of Zachary Taylor, Louisiana statesman and member of 1861 Secession Convention. Reference staff can advise you in both how to fill out a call slip and when the item can be served. The Fusilier de la Calire Mansion also known as Alice Plantation has since been moved but it was located in Grand Coteau, Louisiana off of State Highway 167. Jean Dorville Landry. Brick and stone rubble was piled on the upstream ends of the logs, and sand and mud packed between them. French wine bottles and cosmetic, or ointment, jars, called rouge pots, are commonly found, as are Spanish olive jars and silver coins. The last major military action in Louisiana was the Unions Red River Campaign to capture Shreveport and cut Texas and its resources off from the rest of the Confederacy. The roughly thirteen thousand artifacts recovered from the village site are overwhelmingly aboriginal but include 113 glass beads, sherds of French coarse earthenware, a Spanish olive jar, English and French gunflints, lead shot, and smoking pipe fragments. The later part of the Industrial and Modern Period includes sites dating to the World War II era, such as military installations, prisoner-of-war camps, and shipwrecks. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Excavations revealed numerous alterations and additions to the main house and kitchen not mentioned in historical documents. Arcadias kettle train was originally fire heated but was later replaced with a steam train. During the Civil War just before Union Troops took New Orleans the banks there gave some of the confederate soldiers about $6 million in gold bullion and coins for them to keep safe from the Union troops. Angola: Plantation to Penitentiary. It was during the period of expanding steam transportation that plantation agriculture dominated the Southern economy, with two-thirds of the millionaires in the U.S. living in Louisiana, mostly between Natchez, Mississippi, and New Orleans. Destrehan Plantation is an antebellum mansion, in the French Colonial style, modified with Greek Revival architectural elements. In the 1800s the slaves of the plantation rose up against the white owners and killed all of them. Take a guided tour to see three memorials dedicated to telling the story of slavery in Louisiana, as well as an original slave cabin and church. He died in 1851. This shifting could quickly bury sites with alluvium (deposits of sand, soil, gravel, or clay left behind when waters recede) or expose and destroy them via cutbank erosion. She figured hed send her to the fields, rather than take a chance on her saying something to Sarah Woodruff about their torrid tryst. Free shipping for many products! Image from the Destrehan Plantation's Facebook Page Two hundred and. The treasure has never been recovered and is probably still there sunk deep in the swampy bayou near the ruins of his plantation. How a Nearly Successful Slave Revolt Was Intentionally Lost to History Thanks for visiting! Many ships went down in this area and the wrecks can be seen at low tide on the beaches there. Janie, Thank you for your support. Somewhere on this plantation, it is believed that $50,000 in gold coins, family plates, and jewelry is buried here. My guess is its probably not allowed but you can still comb the beaches there in hopes that you spot one of those gold or silver coins from the 1800s. Locations best suited to habitation were often repeatedly occupied, so that most of Louisianas historic sites have components dating to several of these time periods. Its located two miles southwest of Sunset Louisiana on the Bayou Bourdeaux. Fearing she would certainly be sent out into the fields now, Chloe hatched a plan to save her current status. Currently, it is a working sugar plantation. Inland steam navigation rapidly expanded in the following decades. Around the turn of the 20th-century, Monsieur Richarde was said to have buried his fortune in his garden, which was never fully recovered. All rights reserved. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window). OnlyInYourState may earn compensation through affiliate links in this article. Slave cabins still standing in the state are rare and quarters complexes (i.e., sets of cabins and sometimes overseers houses, plantation hospitals, and other buildings) rarer still. Lost Plantations of the South By Marc R. Matrana Hardcover : 9781578069422, 336 pages, August 2009 Hardcover $40.00 Request Desk or Examination Copy Request a Media Review Copy Ebook available An illustrated history of the grand southern plantation homes lost to war, disaster, neglect, and progress Description The mission was intended to convert the indigenous Adai to Catholicism, and the fort to counter the French military presence in nearby Natchitoches. In the late 1800s, Mark Twain noted on his adventures down the mighty Mississippi that there were so many estates and dwellings along the river that it looked like a spacious street. A silver medal, engraved, decorated, and dated 1727, was discovered in the same area. View a permanent exhibit dedicated to telling the story of the enslaved population specific to Laura Plantation. Central State Hospital is covered in depth in my book Abandoned Georgia: Exploring the Peach State. Houmas House Estate and Gardensisa Greek Revival home that, at its peak in the 1860s, was the largest sugar producer in the United States. "With all of the African-American cemeteries in this parish, we've documented over 3,500 burials," she said .
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