Up Rousseau toward Philip, from where the Laytons stood, they could see banners and bunting swathed all over the Lafayette Courthouse, for the city still would have its court, that of the Fourth District, and would still be the seat of Jefferson Parish, too.
In the next block between Philip and Soraparu, a drab note was added by the still uncleared ruins of the burned out Lafayette Theater, directly across the street from the equally charred remains of Terpsichore Hall, both victims of the same night’s conflagration. John had mixed emotions about the loss of the hall. He had delighted at the antics of the remarkable General Tom Thumb there; but he had also paled before the saber tongue of Monsieur Pierre Clissey, dancing master who taught “the latest dances now in vogue, with special classes for children”. His father had attended a fete for General Zachary Taylor in Terpsichore Hall; so, despite M. Clissey, its memory still held certain charms for John’s young imagination. What he did remember vividly was the great fire in March, 1850. Everybody in Lafayette, it seemed, had rushed to the scene. The fire began in the Lafayette Theater and took the entire block with it. Sparks jumped across the street and claimed Terpsichore Hall and several houses next door. A boy doesn’t forget a sight like that!
The crowd now gravitated around the towering flagpole at the river end of Jackson Market. If there was any place the residents of Lafayette City instinctively considered the center of town, this spot was it, under the 135 foot high flagpole. Although one block from the courthouse, it represented the heart of Lafayette out of pure sentiment. Within the memories of almost everyone, the seat of the city fathers had been the rooms above the market stalls. To this day some citizens still maintained that new quarters for the Council should be found further out on Jackson, mainly because of the ... well ... civic pride prevented use of the word ... “smell”.
Even though most of the slaughter houses had been moved to Jefferson City landing, above Lafayette; and even though the breaking up of flatboats with their objectionable odors had several years before been relegated to comparatively secluded sections along the river, there still wafted in from the water’s edge certain disagreeable olfactory assaults. These seemed to be at their worst whenever the city council was in session, giving rise, among the jocular Irish and German senses of humor, to all sorts of unfortunate jokes concerning the odor of the particular politics under discussion.
The Southern Traveler, published by the Rust brothers, Richard and W. E., had moved into a new building just around the corner of Levee Street, and that, some people felt, might help to sweeten the atmosphere. They were in the process of giving this a fair chance when the amalgamation of Lafayette and New Orleans was proposed. So now, it appeared, the matter was moot.
Anyway, on this particular day, at this particular hour, the two Laytons’ attention was diverted by the arrival, from opposite directions, of two parades. One, headed by top-hatted horsemen, red bands across their chests, issued from lower Rousseau Street. The blasts of the familiar brass band were the unmistakable label of the merry Germans, who for this occasion were arm in arm with their neighbors of the Irish Channel section of Lafayette, the streets closest to the upper limit of New Orleans and nearest the river, Felicity, St. Mary, Adele and Nuns. The German families congregated for excitement at the Lafayette Ballroom, St. Mary corner of Bellechasse. This day produced a delightful excuse for excitement at the Lafayette, not that an excuse was generally necessary. The merriment there was known to last as long as the poker game in the back room, which was eternal. William Toy, the blue-nosed editor of the City Advertiser and ardent temperance crusader, often thundered in print about these “sounds of revelry by night” and by morn, too.
The Lafayette was in contrast to the more sedate ballroom run by Mr. Jacob Kaiser, Josephine corner of Chippewa, across from the back of the Orphan Boys’ Home. This was more of a coffee house, where political meetings were held, and only on Saturday night did its hall echo loud and long. Early Sunday morning the good ladies of the Roman Catholic Church congregation barely had time to clean out the hall before early Mass. This was before St. Mary’s Church was built by the Redemptorists.
The other retinue, made up mostly of squeaky two-wheeled carts toting frosty barrels of conviviality for the celebration, snaked along Rousseau Street toward Jackson. This parade had no brass band, but it had collected more of a crowd than if it had. Mr. Kranz had thoughtfully supplied the refrigerant from his popular ice house on Soraparu, just off Rousseau, and the Lafayette Rum Distillery on Levee, between First and Second Streets, had provided the rest of the refreshments.
Young John Layton was taking all this in while trying to keep from being squeezed by the crowd. It was indeed another sight he’d never forget, even though all of it was not very clear to his tender understanding. He was much more interested in the Kaintucks from upriver with their long rifles and in the be-medalled guardsmen.
Then things began to happen. Mayor Francis Bouligny, his sash of office loosely tied around his corpulence, made his way through the crowd to a small wooden stand beneath the flag pole. He was followed by the other city officials: the treasurer, comptroller, city attorney, surveyor, harbormaster, commissary of streets, commissary of day police, captain of the night watch, tax collector and the 10 aldermen, all performing their last independent functions as officials of the city of Lafayette. Michel Musson, prominent Whig Party leader, was everywhere in evidence.