SEARCHING FOR A GHOST TRENCH

Last weekend, I went searching for a bayou’s ghost.

When the French arrived on the scene back at the end of the 17th century, a small trickle of water connected Bayou St. John with Bayou Gentilly—an even smaller, more sluggish slip of liquid, even more deserving of the term “bayou,” than the waterbodies it linked together. There was no indication that the waterway was used for navigation, or much of anything at all, but it appeared on early maps snaking along what would eventually become the heart of Faubourg St. John. Its claim to fame might have been that the old portage route followed its basic arc from Bayou St. John to Bayou Gentilly (to the site of the Place Bretonne Indian market) before continuing on its way toward the present-day French Quarter.

map by author, used in previous post on Place Bretonne

The official name of this bayou (I’ve come across several), and when exactly it got filled in, remain a mystery. But during an interview with a Faubourg St. John resident, I was told that a slight declivity along N. Dupre street marks the old trench of this long-forgotten bayou. And, of course, I wanted more—I wanted to trace the ghost-bayou’s bed from start to finish!

Alas, the results of my adventure through the neighborhood are not all that impressive. Nothing definitive. No ghost-bayous jumping out to spook me. Just small dips along the relevant roadways that may or may not have anything to do with said trickle of yesteryear. As any New Orleanian knows, irregularities in the elevation of the city’s streets are not exactly rare….

I walked from Moss to Crete streets, zig-zagging between DeSoto and Bell along Hagan, N. Rendon, N. Lopez, N. Gayoso, N. Dupre, and N. White—searching all the while for indications of the ghost-bayou’s wanderings.

It is said that the bayou broke off from Bayou St. John around present-day 1222 Moss Street. It’s as if the house itself—hiding behind its lush foliage—seeks to hide its watery underpinnings….

photo by author

photo by author

Does this puddle along Hagan Avenue indicate a bayou-related dip?

photo by author

What about this driveway’s slope on N. Rendon?

photo by author

Or this mansion’s sunken drive?

photo by author

Is it just me, or does N. Lopez look a little concave right here? (My dog’s second photobomb…he was helping me look.)

Photo by author

What about here? The slightest of dips along N. Dupre….

photo by author

Here is the clearest indication of the ghost trench (shown to me by the same Faubourg St. John resident mentioned above), where Crete meets Esplanade.

photo by author

Ok, like I said, nothing too terribly amazing. But was the journey worth it? You bet! And maybe someone reading this post will have their own bayou ghost story to share, and will tell us all where to look next time we’re in the neighborhood….

FLUNG ROSES AND STOPLIGHT GRAVEYARDS

After a long hiatus, bayou posts are back! I know you’ve been waiting on tenterhooks….

After four months of more general Bayou St. John research, I am about to start focused research for the first chapter of the book—on the bayou’s geomorphic/geographic and Native American history. If anyone has any advice for me—ideas for what to read, who to talk to, etc.—reach out! I get to talk about former Mississippi River pathways, sediment deposits, pirogues, trade routes, slight-but-significant ridges.… CAN’T WAIT.

The past couple weeks, I’ve been on a few bayou adventures.

I biked the almost-100%-completed Lafitte Greenway—a 2.6-mile bicycle and pedestrian trail extending from N. Alexander St., near the base of City Park, to the French Quarter.

New Orleans residents may or may not realize that the Lafitte Greenway follows the path of the former Carondelet Canal, a waterway hand-dug by slaves in the late 18th century, when New Orleans was still under Spanish control, and utilized throughout the 19th century as a commercial conduit between the bayou and the French Quarter. This meant ships laden with goods from settlements north of Lake Pontchartrain or along the Gulf could avoid navigating the Mississippi River altogether and travel through Lake Pontchartrain, down Bayou St. John and into the Carondelet Canal in order to off-load their goods at the rear of the French Quarter.

A vew of the Lafitte Greenway between the bayou and Broad St.

If you ever wondered where old New Orleans stoplights ended up….

The open canal that runs between Broad Street and the bayou, positively gushing as it exits the Broad St. pumping station. Doesn’t it look almost turquoise? Don’t let that fool you. It stinks.

The giant locks at the Broad St. pumping station that control whether water flows up the underground culvert beneath Broad St., or else out to the Orleans outfall canal, via the open canal along the greenway.

There is much more I could (and WILL, in the book) say about the Carondelet Canal. But for now: there is a fabulous (free!) exhibit at the Pitot House on the history of the Carondelet Canal, curated by the Louisiana Landmarks Society, in celebration of the opening of the Lafitte Greenway. So many beautiful old maps and photographs!!! It is both succinct and intensely interesting. I HIGHLY recommend it.

After biking the greenway, I checked out the historic Ossorno House in the Quarter, at 913 Governor Nicholls.

This house was built on the Bayou St. John sometime before 1781 and apparently dismantled and transported, most likely via mule and cart, along Bayou Road to its present location—as were all goods traveling from the bayou to the Quarter before the Carondelet Canal was dug. According to geographic historian Richard Campanella (one of my heroes), in his Geographies of New Orleans: Urban Fabrics Before the Storm, the house is a fine example of a French Creole-style plantation house (although the roof was remodeled sometime in the 1830s)—one of only two plantation-style houses to be found in the French Quarter (the other being Madame John’s Legacy)—which testifies to its rural birth on the bayou. Campanella tells us it’s “the oldest extant structure in the rear of the original city” (106).

I then decided to bike the approximate path of this all-important route along Bayou Road, one of the principal reasons why New Orleans was founded where it was (for access to the river without having to navigate its mouth, as was mentioned above).

In traveling along the (approximate) portage route, one follows Bayou Road, which ends at the crazy, navigationally-nightmarish, odd-angled intersection of Bayou Road, N. Dorgenois, Desoto, Bell, and Kerlerec streets (thank god there’s delicious food right there, at Pagoda Cafe, for the weary, confused traveler) and continues along Bell Street (approximately) to the bayou. The exact location of the original route’s intersection with the bayou was probably somewhere between Bell St. and Desoto (more on this once I continue more in-depth research on the subject).

This terrible panoramic photo (thanks iPhone!) taken from next to Pagoda Cafe, while inaccurate in perspective, I think does justice to the psychological experience of navigating this intersection….

While in this neighborhood, I found…

A historic cornstalk fence at the historic (1870) Dufour-Plassan House.

The approximate general region where Almonaster built a leper hospital in the late 18th century.

An awkward spot where Barracks Street and Bayou Road diverge at a bizarre angle, since Bayou Road does not adhere to the grid plan the rest of the streets in the area adhere to—following, as it does, a natural ridge, the one the Native Americans used to cross the uncrossable swamp between the bayou and what is now the French Quarter.

Finally, I arrived at the bayou itself. Here are a few spots of interest along its banks, a couple of which I was lucky enough to get to go inside of (!!), courtesy of the generous, unsuspecting homeowners I found busying themselves in their front yards.

The house, at 1222 Moss Street, that sits atop what was once a small bayou connecting Bayou St. John and Bayou Sauvage, long since filled in.

What is referred to as “the old Spanish custom house,” although it never officially served as a custom house (there are various theories as to why people refer to it as such). I was lucky enough to get an in-depth tour of the inside of this home (!!!), the owner of which has been painstakingly renovating it for six years. Beneath layers and layers of renovations that have been done over the past two and a half centuries, he has made some amazing discoveries—like anactual iron jail cell, apparently dating from the Spanish colonial period, that the current owner suspects was used to hold folks who were smuggling illegal goods up the bayou, or who perhaps couldn’t pay the toll. ARE YOU KIDDING THAT’S AMAZING.

Below is the plaque that explains a bit more about the house.

 

Roses that someone had flung into the bayou near the Magnolia Bridge.

And, last but certainly not least, what is perhaps my favorite historic house along the bayou, built in the last decade of the 18th century: “The Sanctuary.” Walter Parker, former mayor of New Orleans, who spearheaded the “beautification” of the bayou in the 1920s and 1930s and who is therefore responsible, in large part, for the bayou as we know it today, once lived in this house. I wasalsolucky enough to be able to see the back courtyard of this home—guarded by a three-hundred-year-old live oak tree that predates the house, and other amazing, old, beautiful things. More on this house, and its many previous owners, to come.