Destrehan Plantation

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Destrehan Plantation home located near Destrehan, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. The house is a unique example of a plantation home outliving the oil refinery that had been built around it.

1 History
2 Modern day
3 External links

[edit] History

One of the oldest homes in the Louisiana Purchase, Destrehan's construction was begun in 1787 and completed in 1790. Robin de Logny contracted with a free man of color, Charles Pacquet, to build the house and outbuildings to service his indigo plantation. Charles was given the use of six slaves to build the house, and he was paid the grand sum of "one brute negro," a cow and a calf, 100 bushels of both corn and rice, and $100 in cash upon completion. This building contract, still on file at the parish courthouse in Hahnville, LA, makes Destrehan Plantation the oldest documented house in the Lower Mississippi Valley.

[edit] 1800s

In 1802, de Logny's son-in-law Jean Noel Destrehan de Beaupre bought the home from a relative at public auction. Destrehan expanded the plantation's holdings to approximately 6,000 acres (24 km²)—1,050 of which were employed in cultivating sugar cane. He also enlarged the house, adding twin garconnieres on either side of the house in 1810.

Jean Noel Destrehan was among the men Thomas Jefferson appointed to serve on a governing territorial council in 1806. The original document, signed by then-President Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison, remains on display at the plantation today.

In January of 1811, Destrehan Plantation became the trial site for what is perhaps the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. Newspaper accounts from 1811 estimate as many as 500 slaves could have been involved in the revolt, which aimed at commandeering governmental and banking institutions in New Orleans. Charles, a slave from the Deslonde plantation upriver, conspired with other maroons to execute a revolt similar to that in Haiti a few years before. The rebellion ended when local militiamen intercepted the band of slaves near Kenner, LA.

From 1865 to 1866, Pierre Adolphe Rost had owned the farm and called it the Rost Home Colony until the end of the Civil War when the property was seized by the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. They continued to operate the plantation using slave labor until 1865 when the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments took effect. The soldiers then established a Freedman's Bureau colony to help over 700 freed slaves learn handicrafts and find jobs. In 1866, the Destrehan family regained the property and held it until 1910, when it was sold to a syndicate.

[edit] 1900s

In 1914, the Mexican Petroleum Company bought the property and built a refinery. Subsequent owners were Pan American Southern Company and American Oil Company, which closed the refinery in 1959.

The following twelve years brought rapid decay for Destrehan Manor. Thanks to an old legend that the illustrious privateer Jean Lafitte had hidden treasure in the house, treasure-seekers left gaping holes in the walls. Vandals also stripped the house of its Italian marble mantels, cypress paneling, Spanish tiles, and window panes. Fortunately, a local sheriff prevented the theft of the plantation's original 1840s iron gates and a 1400 lb marble bathtub, rumored to be a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to the family.

In 1971, American Oil donated the house and four acres of land to the River Road Historical Society, which through its all-volunteer efforts has raised sufficient funds to halt the process of decay and has begun to bring the house and grounds back to their former glory.

Recent restoration efforts have focused not only on renovating the manor house, but also on recreating the plantation community that surrounded the big house.

[edit] 2000s

In 2005, the restored house was affected by hurricane Katrina, whose winds caused minor damage to some of the roof, and flying debris broke a few window panes on the dormers, but no flooding.

[edit] Modern day

Destrehan Plantation is open seven days a week for guided tours which interpret the lives and lifestyles of the plantation's former residents—both free and enslaved. Demonstrations of period crafts like dying with indigo, candle-making, and open-hearth cooking are performed six days a week.