Mr. Robb directed his carriage out Jackson to the river, turning right at Levee Street with its Belgian block pavements, made of granite blocks dumped on the levee from foreign ships which brought them as ballast. The river front as far as the boy could see was lined with flatboats, the ugly but extremely practical box-like floating storehouses, their “broadhorns” shipped and nestling so close to each other that one could walk for miles along their cabintops.
Flatboats lined riverfront in early days, awaiting sale of cargoes.
The flatboats were built to bring cargoes for sale at New Orleans, then the boats were broken up and sold as timber. The flatboat crews, a robust lot, went “on the town” while awaiting the sale of their cargoes, and before returning upriver for another cargo in another boat. John had been warned many times about becoming too friendly with the flatboatmen, although nobody ever recalled their being out of line with other than their own brood and the police.
The main problem the city government had with flatboatmen was keeping them from putting out signs and selling their cargoes “retail” in competition with legitimate Lafayette merchants.
The shiny black wheels of the elegant carriage skidded and creaked along the uneven stones, and John was glad when the driver finally turned right again and entered Washington Street. The conveyance ran relatively more smoothly now. Washington had been “paved” with flatboat gunwales laid very closely together. Just past Rousseau Street, Mr. Robb gave a sharp command and the carriage veered left, and “Oh, no,” thought young John, “It can’t be!”
But it was. The carriage pulled into the lane leading up to the most forbidding spot in Lafayette to the youngsters. This was known as the “Haunted House of Lafayette”, and no boy or girl, no matter how brave, no matter how dared, would approach it, especially in the late evening. That was when “things” happened!
And there they were, driving right up to it. Frightening, that’s what it was. Haunts and ghosts, and pirate treasures, and dead bodies!
Mr. Robb slowed the carriage by command, and he and John Layton, Sr., looked over the state of ill repair in which the once celebrated plantation house now stood.
“I can see no advantage to Madame Livaudais’ offer,” said Mr. Robb, breaking a silence that had helped terrify the young boy.