Biking River Road: New Orleans to White Castle
"West Bank" - January 5th, 2008
by Taylor Lasseigne |
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Then came the unexpected segment of the trip, the part that launched my interest in my own personal culture. I figured that this side of the river would be similar to the other for better or worse: live oaks, the foul stench of industrial exhaust, modest folks, stately antebellum homes, neglected highways, and amazing food. I did not however, expect to find such a strong anchor to my Cajun heritage. Since taking this trip, I have launched into genealogy research and started to look closely at preserving the history of my lineage.
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| I realize that this isn't the exact spot where Acadians first settled, but it's still pretty neat that we can pinpoint so accurately the first location where our exiled forefathers settled in Louisiana, pre-Declaration of Independence.
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| I can sort of follow this marker, up to the part about Havana, Cuba controlling the diocese.
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Memorial dedicated to the descendants of Acadian settlers. The plaque reads:
Dedicated to the descendants of the first Acadian settlers of St. James Parish, who visited this site August 8, 1999 on occasion of the Congress Mondial Acadien - Louisiane 1999.
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| Oddly, the statue was covered in ladybugs.
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| Welcome, LA Water Tower
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| The Sunshine Bridge
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| Donaldsonville. This sign had a lot to say, so I thought it wise to simply post the photo. Notice that the town was capitol of Louisiana from 1830 - 1831.
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As I pulled into downtown Donaldsonville, LA the sun began its decent into the western horizon. Realizing that I wouldn't have the daylight to reach Baton Rouge, I called my wife and requested an earlier pick up - Nottoway Plantation in White Castle, LA. I found the following Wikipedia write-up both informative and funny (regarding New Orleans):
Donaldsonville is named after landowner William Donaldson. In 1806 Donaldson commissioned architect and planner Barthelemy Lafon to plan a new town. This served briefly as the Louisiana capital (1830 - 1831) after New Orleans was deemed "too noisy".
Although Donaldsonville is a small town, it has many historic sites. Its museum, the River Road African American Museum, has been included on the state's African American Heritage Trail. It also has parks, shopping centers, and Civil War grounds.
The official newspaper of the city is the Donaldsonville Chief, which has been published since 1871.
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| These are the headwaters of Bayou Lafourche, once connected to the Mississippi River as an outlet to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1903-04 the outlet was blocked here on this spot, cutting off the people of Lafourche Parish from all river traffic. Before the dam, riverboats actually paddled down the bayou and visited towns. Imagine a floating mall. More importantly, before the stoppage, higher levels of fresh water flowed down the bayou, cleansing the marshes and providing the people of Lafourche with constant supply of fresh water. Today, a portion of the Mississippi is pumped into Lafourche here in Donaldsonville, but the flow isn't enough to fight back the salt water intrusion. Efforts are underway to increase the volume of fresh water allowed into the bayou. I grew up on this bayou, fished in it, swam in it, but I had never been to the source. One thing that still puzzles me - what in the world is that fellow fishing for down by that pumping station? (just to the right of the small metal building in photo)
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| Bayou Lafourche at its most stagnate.
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| "The Walter Lemann, Sr. Pumping Station Fresh Water District" plaque is a testament to Mr. Lemann and his "untiring efforts" to return fresh water to this outlet.
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| I paused to take a photo of my silhouette against this sugarcane field between Donaldsonville and White Castle on Hwy. 1.
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Final destination: Nottoway Plantation in White Castle, LA. The town was named after this plantation, which claims to be the largest Antebellum specimen in the South. Some quick stats: the building was finished in 1859 for the John Hampton Randolph family, restored in 1981, has 64 rooms, 53,000 square feet, and once housed a bowling alley (now a museum and banquet area). I arrived just as the sun retired for the day.
In researching this Louisiana palace, I found one very captivating story written by a fellow Lafourche Parish native, Brian Doucet. Now the director of WDI Design in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Brian keeps up a "walking blog" titled One Foot Forward. Repeat. On September 19, 2006, as part of his virtual hike along the Mississippi, he wrote an insightful account of how Emily Jane Liddell Randolph saved Nottoway from the destructive Union army. (I love this story):
John Hampden Randolph planned and built Nottoway, but it was his wife Emily Jane who saved it from destruction.
Emily Jane Liddell Randolph was the mother of ten children when the civil war erupted. In 1862 Randolph took his slaves and went to Texas to work a cotton plantation there in order to keep himself solvent. The Randolphs sent their teenage daughters away to safer territory, and Mrs. Randolph remained on the plantation with the younger children, two visiting lady friends, and a few of her slaves. One of her daughters, Cornelia, kept a diary. It is from this diary as well as from preserved letters and documents that we know of Emily Jane's courage.
At one point in 1862, when she was 45 years old, she faced down the Union Navy. Gun boats were sailing by the house, and union troops had begun to bivouac on the lawn. Armed only with a dagger which she tucked into her belt, she went out on the front gallery. She was determined not to let the union troops into her house. Many houses along the river had been abandoned. These deserted houses if not burned, were destroyed by looting and vandalism. As she stood on the front gallery a group of Confederate soldiers opened fire on the Union troops.
The gun boats on the river returned the fire. Though they were not aiming at the house, much of the fire hit it or landed on the grounds. When the firing became heavy, Emily Jane gathered her children, friends, and slaves and took them all to the ground floor where the walls were four feet thick. When the barrage was over, she alone had the courage to mount the stairs and assess the damage. It was in that same year that Emily Jane gave birth to her eleventh and last child, Julia Marceline. Although the Union army encamped several times on the lawn in the course of the war, they never entered the house except to search for weapons.
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| After locking up my bike to a small tree, I hiked a short distance over the river levee, and spotted this cross which I surmised marks a grave. I walked down to the cross but saw no markings on it at all. My post-ride research on the matter has been to no avail. Who is buried across the levee from Nottoway Plantation? Now, with the sun all but set, the mosquitos had begun their incessant onslaught. I crossed back over the levee, ducked into the plantation office, and awaited the arrival of my ride. While I had not reached Baton Rouge on the west bank, Nottoway marked exactly 100 miles on this trip - my second "century" as a cyclist and an overall delightful ride.
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