In 1851 the architect J.N.B. DePouilly designed this raised masonry center-hall residence in the Greek Revival style for Angel Xiques. A broad front gallery, a portico, and a curving iron stairway dominate the façade of this building, which is a 1882 façade donation.
Angel Xiques was a Spanish-born merchant, from Cadiz. He was a partner in Laborde and Xiques, importers of Cuban goods, notably tobacco.
The Painting
Cruise painted a number of homes and buildings in the Vieux Carré from 1938 to 1941. While many were associated with Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) projects, his Xiques Mansion appears to be a stand-alone. He continues the pattern of visualizing these homes as they would have appeard in the 1850s. The Xiques Mansion is currently painted all-white, and the exterior ironwork is black. Here, Cruise adds color to both. Notice the walls and (Corinthian) columns are shades of tan/brown, and the ironwork is green. Since green metal implies copper, many homeowners chose green as the color of their ironwork. It was a keep-up-with-the-Joneses sort of thing.
Most depictions of the mansion harken back to the 1870s. Xiques passed in 1859. His family sold the house to Carlos Victor Pie, who later became the Spanish Consul in New Orleans. He designated the mansion as the Consulate office.
The mansion’s colored history truly begins after Pie’s death (by poisoning). While we may return to those stories at another time, Cruise places the house into his vision of antebellum New Orleans. Unlike his HABS paintings, however, there are no people in the scene. The painting also lacks the precision of his survey images. Perhaps that was Cruise’s way of taking a break from the detail work of, say, his LaPrete Mansion or Arsenal paintings. Still, the scene invites the viewer in, imagining a walk up Rue Dauphine a few blocks, possibly turning towards the river at the end of the block onto Rue St. Louis, and from there, to Dinner at Antoine’s.
We lost one of New Orleans’ best this week. Frank Perez passed. From Ambush Magazine:
It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our friend and Editor in Chief at Ambush Magazine!
Frank Perez was larger than life and his contributions to the LGBT+ Community were immeasurable. Gone too soon and forever in our hearts.
May his memory be a blessing.
Vintage Ad of the Week
“Miss New Orleans Contest – Tonight at Pontchartrain Beach”
Long before the POP (Pay One Price) era, admission to Da Beach was free. Folks would come out, enjoy the evening’s entertainment, and (hopefully) a hot dog and a beverage. Before and after the show, they would ride the Zephyr roller coaster and other rides, buying individual tickets.
Ad in the Times-Picayune, 13-August-1953. Was your maw-maw one of the contestants?
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Podcast 63 presents the Allard Plantation, now New Orleans City Park.
Julius Robert Hoening’s 1898 painting by titled “Plantation and Oak Tree“ (Allard Plantation).
The Allard Plantation
The land along Bayou St. John, from Lake Pontchartrain to the “Great Portage” attracted members of Bienville’s exploration party from the first trips they made to what would be their Crescent City colony. While most of the French worked to establish the city, a few individuals broke off, heading back up the bayou, living with the indigenous. Small shacks evolve into farms, eventually becoming full plantations by the time of Spanish control.
One of those farms that becomes a plantation was owned by the Allard family. It’s the origin story of our beloved City Park.
Plan book 95, folio 26, New Orleans Notarial Archives, February 16, 1853, unsigned. Royal between Canal and Customhouse, backed by Bourbon Street. The lot size is about 36 feet by 159 feet. The estimated building date is 1830. The sign over the wide door on the left reads, “Sewell T. Taylor.” This porte-cochère storehouse features handsom, double-paneled, square-headed doors on the right, opening to an elliptical arched passageway.
Many townhouses in New Orleans feature a porte-cochère in lieu of a classic front door. Here’s Toledano’s description of the feature:
Two or three story building with a wide carriageway is especially suitable for the twenty-first century. It allows off-street parking and a courtyard or patio, with a rear entrance stairway to the living quarters above.
While it’s referred to as a carriageway, Creole townhouses didn’t usually store a carriage in the back. The more common use case was to back a carriage into the entrance, to provide cover for riders during inclement weather. Most Quarter residents didn’t stable horses at their homes, either. Horses occupy a lot of space. There were a number of buildings that served as stables. Your coachman dropped you off at home, then took the horse and carriage off to another location.
Additionally, residents of the townhouse accessed the building via the door on the left side. This door led to an alleyway connecting the sidewalk to the courtyard. Household staff, usually enslaved people at the time of this plan book, could come and go through this separate entrance.
Now a hotel
Alas, this “store-house” Ain’t There No More. This block of Royal now contains the Wyndham New Orleans – French Quarter Hotel. Many will remember this location from when it was a Holiday Inn.
Step back in time
Stepping through the Porte-cochère at Sylvain on Chartres Street. (Sylvain photo)
My favorite example of a porte-cochère is Sylvain Restaurant, located at 625 Chartres. We pass by Sylvain when I lead the Friends of the Cabildo French Quarter Walking Tour on an “up-river” walk. Since the building is a restaurant, it’s easy for visitors to walk through the carriageway to the courtyard (and the restaurant’s entrance). Close your eyes and imagine the master of the house coming into the porte-cochère on his horse, dismounting, and continuing into the courtyard. As we know, the courtyard was the center of family life in these New Orleans homes.
Many families bury their loved ones in-ground. It’s more than just “the water table.”
Branighan family coping in St. Patrick Cemetery Number One (Edward Branley photo)
For the most part, we bury our dead above ground in New Orleans. The conventional wisdom on this practice is, “the water table is too high.” As is the case with many “conventional” wisdoms, yes-and-no. Yes, we have a high water table. No, it doesn’t mean you can’t do in-ground burials here. You just have to make sure the coffin doesn’t pop up on a heavy-rain/flood day.
High ground
There’s a trend with cemeteries in New Orleans. They’re built on (relatively) high ground. The original St. Peter Cemetery, at the back of the Vieux Carré, is higher than the neighborhoods along the Old Portage. The Metairie Ridge, at the foot of Canal Street, also stands higher than the surrounding neighborhood. Additionally, the Metairie Ridge was well out of town when the archdiocese and Firemen’s Benevolent began cemetery construction there. That extra distance allayed fears of the spread of yellow fever.
The Gentilly Ridge also appealed to congregations looking for cemetery locations. The archdiocese expanded to the end of Esplanade Avenue, building St. Louis Number Three at Bayou St. John. Jewish congregations chose Gentilly Road, along the route of the Pontchartrain Railroad. This later became Elysian Fields Avenue.
Tradition and expense
For Jewish New Orleanians, the desire for in-ground burials was a religious one. For Christians, cost was the driving factor. St. Patrick’s church parish, located in the American Sector, Faubourg Ste. Marie, desired a burial ground separate from the Creole cemeteries. They opened St. Patrick Cemetery Number One on Canal Street in 1841. There were a large number of in-ground burials in St. Patrick Number One. The Irish community was, at the time, not well-off. They were immigrants who worked the riverfront, as well as jobs owners of the enslaved would not allow their property to do. It would be a generation or two before the Irish developed the means to build above-ground tombs in numbers. Additionally, New Orleanians in the 1840s-1850s feared disease epidemics. Burying yellow fever victims in the ground put folks at ease.
Higher Ground
Even though cemeteries were built on the ridges, extra measures were taken to maintain safety and dignity. In-ground burials were done using “copings.” Rather than just digging a hole and lowing the coffin, a concrete rectangle was built around the grave. This “coping” raised the ground for the grave by a foot or more. This ensured that excessive flooding wouldn’t push coffins up.
St. Patrick’s parish purchased a parcel of land that started at Banks Street and extended across Canal Street and City Park Avenue, into Lakeview, next to Canal Boulevard. So, the section between Canal and City Park became St. Patrick’s Number Two, and the third section, Number Three. As concerns over disease ebbed and the Irish acquired more financial means, more classic, above-ground tombs appeared in these extensions.
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Buy my books! Edward Branley is the author of six books on New Orleans history. They’re available from local booksellers and all the usual online suspects.
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Boyd Cruise painted 936 Calle de San Pedro in 1941.
936 Calle de San Pedro
This story is a classic example of falling down a rabbit hole. I parked in the “Red P” parking lot (IYKYK) at Rampart and Conti one morning, to work the information desk at the Cabildo. I walked up Calle de San Pedro, as the Spanish Colonials would have said St. Peter Street. When I came to the 900 block, I encountered some nice holiday lights at 936, including Mr. Bingle. I took some pictures and headed home.
Fast forward to after the holidays, and working on the current podcast series featuring the paintings of Boyd Cruise. It turned out, Cruise had painted 936 St. Peter. It didn’t feel like enough material for a podcast episode, but would certainly be a fun story.
Excavations
As you can see, 936 St. Peter is a simple cottage on a small lot. When I did a basic web search on the cottage, I found a fascinating story about excavations by the University of New Orleans Archeology Department at the location. Some backstory: St. Peter and Rampart was the location of the city’s first cemetery, one that pre-dates St. Louis Number One. The property owner of the house at that location found human remains when doing renovations. They halted the work and called in UNO. The archeologists were again called in for 936:
What stood out most during the excavation of the privy was the abundance of animal remains, especially the number of elements from skulls. When a rough count was taken of the entire assemblage, the privy feature was found to contain a total of 147 Caprine (goat or sheep) skulls.
Well, OK, it wasn’t human remains, but still. The article explains that the cottage was used at one point in the 1860s to extract goat brains for re-sale. It’s an incredible story.
The painting
Back to the cottage and Cruise. The building went up in the 1840s. Cruise visualized the house around 1850. Here’s the THNOC caption:
Facade view of a creole cottage at 936 St. Peter Street in the Vieux Carre. The building has Corinthian pilasters, green shutters and a single dormer on the roof. The time period depicted is ca. 1850 and shows a man and woman wearing the dress of the day, an African American wood hauler, and a boy with newspaper in front of residence.
They forgot the cat in the upstairs window! How rude! As with many of Cruise’s paintings, he adds people on the street out front. The lady on the left appears to be bundled up for chilly weather. The gentleman caller carries a bouquet of flowers. A white boy holds a newspaper on the right. It’s unclear if he’s bringing a single paper to the house or if he’s selling papers. A black man hauls a cart of wood down the street. His lack of a coat is inconsistent with the dress of the white adults, but there are a number of possible explanations. A very-regal orange cat observes the scene from the dormer window.
The house displays “130” for its address. Prior to 1895, street addresses were assigned per house, not per block. So, the Number 1 St. Peter would be the Arsenal, behind the Cabildo. The numbers incremented from there. After 1895, address numbering shifted to blocks, hence its present 936 address.
Podcast 47 is the first of a four-part series on early New Orleans street railways. We’re talking about streetcars that pre-date our iconic arch roof streetcars from 1923, and the red streetcars from 2004. Beginning with the origins of public transit with omnibuses to steam railroad lines, to mule-drawn streetcars, we present getting around before electrification.
The New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad (NO&CRR) launched the first street rail line, from Baronne Street to Carrollton in 1835. This was a steam-powered line. This 1830s illustration of the Carrollton Hotel shows the steam locomotive for the Carrollton line on the left.
As Uptown expanded, residents complained about the smoke and noise of the train. NO&CRR switched from steam railroad operations to mule-drawn streetcars in the 1840s. They used Stephenson Co. “bobtail” streetcars pulled by mules.
Downtown Bobtails
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The New Orleans City Railrod Company (NOCRR) inaugurated the Canal and Esplanade lines in 1861. While trying other streetcar models, they quickly settled on the Stephenson bobtails as well.
Facilities
After switching from steam power to mule power, NO&CRR built a barn at St. Charles and Napoleon Avenues. This is the layout of that corner, via the Robinson Atlas of 1883.
Esplanade streetcar approaching the Esplanade barn, 1864
Esplanade Station, 1883
Four Ways to Support NOLA History Guy
Buy my books! Edward Branley is the author of six books on New Orleans history. They’re available from local booksellers and all the usual online suspects.
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi dot com. I just love this concept as a way to say thank you/tip creators you enjoy. Our idea of monetization is buying books and having us come to speak. If you see me at a coffee shop, stop and say hi. Otherwise, I’ll raise coffee cup to you if you treat me.
Become a patron. Yes, we’re on Patreon. A lot of creators use the platform for direct monetization, and that’s great for them. We don’t have “exclusive content” for patrons. Still, if you think our history stuff is worth a dollar a month, go join!
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