First a stop at the grocery store, the checkout gal asked if I had a relative who worked at the store. There are a lot of Chauvins around there. We toured Laura Plantation, a Creole Plantation near Vacherie, LA.
The house is a Creole-style house, with several outbuildings, including slave quarters, mother-in-law house, overseers cottage and kitchen. The DuParc family had the Big house constructed in 1805 by Senegal slaves. The lumber was cypress harvested from the land. Bricks were made by the slaves. It took 11 months to prepare the lumber and bricks. Then only 11 days to construct the home.
Laura congratulated by the Cardinal of St. Louis. She had sold the plantation and moved to St. Louis.
Being Of French descent, the family imported barrels of wine.
The used the empty wine bottles as edging in the garden.
Slave quarters. One family in one half, another family in the other.
The kitchen was away from the main house in case the kitchen had a fire. One could rebuild the kitchen but didn't have to rebuild the main house.
It is interesting to note that the plantation itself was run by 4 generations of women, which was not uncommon until the 1900's. This was a sugar cane plantation. As we were leaving we see and talk to our tour guide from yesterday's tour of New Orleans. Small world once again.
http://www.lauraplantation.com/sugar.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Plantation#Residents
We drove 15 minutes to see but not tour the Oak Alley Plantation. This place is famous for its live oaks. The house was built in 1837 to 1839.
The 28 evenly planted live oaks are said to be at least 100 years older than the house. We are so in awe of these huge trees the more we see them.
Try to grasp the magnitude of these evergreen oak trees!
Location:Westwego, LA.
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