Old drawing in Archives of building at Third and Levee, probably a tavern. Lamp at corner was typical of those throughout Lafayette.
THE GREAT DAYS OF THE GARDEN DISTRICT
The foregoing is meant to provide a setting for the information to follow. The scene described is not based on an actual occurrence, although it is entirely probable, and factually correct as to dates, places and people except for the Laytons. “Any resemblance is entirely coincidental,” as the usual disclaimer says. The merger of Lafayette City and New Orleans did take place under the circumstances described, although no such public event was recorded in the newspapers. This mise en scène has been contrived merely to serve as a vehicle for revealing the surroundings and events of the period, since the essence, the individuality, the physical characteristics of old Lafayette City are so important to the full understanding and appreciation of the present Garden District and its great houses.
It is equally important to go back one more step to learn how Lafayette City came to be; and it is highly interesting to anyone with the slightest historical inquisitiveness. For the area which was Lafayette City, some four miles removed from what is considered the “historical section” of New Orleans, the Vieux Carré, is still closely interwoven with the original colony’s basic story line.
Louisiana was first seen through European eyes by the Spanish conquistadores of De Soto’s expedition in 1540. The Spanish did nothing to make use of the vast territory they first claimed. Almost 150 years passed before the white man again cast an interested glance in this direction. This was the period of French exploration in the 1650’s, when Canadians began to look south from the Great Lakes and wonder if all were true that the Indians told them about the great river to the south which led to the sea through a land of wealth and plenty. This increased curiosity resulted in the famous La Salle expeditions and the claiming of the entire central area of the United States for France in 1684. Still, no colonial interest was aroused. It took the threat of war and the encroachment of English colonies from the East and Spanish from the West to make the French take Louisiana seriously as a possible source of wealth for the throne.
To secure the colony from attack, forts were built in Canada and on the Great Lakes. The distinguished French-Canadian naval officer, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, hero of Hudson’s Bay and other battles with the English, was sent to install a colony on the Gulf Coast and to build bastions to guard the great river.
The first Colony in Louisiana was founded at Ocean Springs, Miss., near Biloxi, in 1699, by Iberville. It wasn’t until 1718 that another Le Moyne, the Sieur de Bienville, succeeded his brother and persuaded the French authorities to move the capital of the colony to a site on the Mississippi River. Not until 1722 did the capital finally move to New Orleans, to the area we now know as the Vieux Carré, the old quarter.
After the founding of the city of La Nouvelle Orléans, a fine example of foresight was shown by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, governor of the colony. He wisely realized that the land surrounding the young city would become valuable, and according to the custom, he asked for a grant of land from the Company of the Indies, the agency which operated the colony for the King. He asked for “the concession of a tract situated above and at the limits of New Orleans, facing the Mississippi River, and in depth running West quarter North West to the Mississippi, in the bend above the Chapitoulas....” This would include an area roughly from Bienville street in the Vieux Carré, up the river beyond Carrollton to Nine Mile Point, and back from the river to the undrained swamps where Claiborne Avenue is today.
Hardly had he been given possession of his land than Bienville received a further ruling that a governor could not receive concessions of property except for “vegetable gardens”. Bienville, therefore, caused the first section of his land from just above Bienville Street, to the lower limit of what was later Lafayette City to be known as his “vegetable garden”. On the rest he settled German families in small farms or plantations.
Some of these immigrant farmers were successful, but most succumbed to the floods and the fevers. Others departed for healthier sections of Louisiana. In 1728 the ax fell again on Bienville’s right to hold property, and it was not until 1737, according to the best evidence, that he succeeded in having his original claim, or what was left of it, sustained. By that time, many parts of his original plantation had been sold to new owners, some even having been sold by Bienville himself. These tracts became proud plantations with lovely homes fronting the river and extensive indigo, and later, sugar cane, fields running far to the rear.