We passed several historic sites set back from the Old
Jeanerette Road—private residences whose interiors I've always been curious
to see but have never entered. To name a few: Alice Plantation, a home floated
down the Bayou Teche from Baldwin to its present site by a descendant of
Agricole Fuselier de Claire who first built the old home; and Bayside
Plantation, which is the Roane Home built in 1850 by Francis Richardson, a
sugar plantation owner who helped establish the Louisiana School of the Blind. Sugarcane
profits built so many of the old plantations in the area when the City of
Jeanerette was at its zenith, and the cypress lumber industry also played a
part in boosting the economy of the town.
A bit of history trivia about Jeanerette: When my friend, Dr.
Kennell P. Brown, who formerly lived in Jeanerette, was alive, he gave me a
copy of the genealogical work he had done on Nicholas Provost, Brown's ancestor
who was one of the first and largest landowners of the area around Jeanerette.
Provost owned approximately 3000 acres of land in what was then St Mary Parish
but what is now regarded as Iberia Parish. The land in the succession included
cultivated land and did not take into consideration the marais (swamp) which was described as "worth nothing and we
have found in the whole two tracts only 1788 acres of land worth anything..."
The entire town of Jeanerette lay within the property once owned by Nicholas
Provost, with a lot of extra land to spare, and at one time there was a
possibility of calling the town Provostville, according to Record of the Descendants of
Nicholas Provost by Dr. Brown.
On the ride through town, we passed LeJeune's Bakery (1884) where
I often stopped to buy French bread for my godfather from Virginia when he
visited. If he came along for the ride, he'd say, "We have to save this
for our dinner guests," but he couldn't resist the smell of freshly-baked
bread and would tear off the wrapper and begin eating one of the delicious loaves
before we passed out of the city limits. LeJeune's has the distinction of being
on the National Register of Historic Places and is managed by the fifth
generation of the LeJeune family who have used the same recipe for the bread
since 1884.
We passed another
historic site, the old Moresi Foundry (1890), while searching for Cooper Street.
The Moresi Foundry was built of old bricks from Swiss-born Antoine Moresi's
brickyard and still manufactures machinery for sugar mills in the area. Another
Moresi property on Main Street, the Albert Moresi home, is a Victorian cottage,
circa 1898, built of cypress weatherboard, a material that was prevalent during
the lumber boom in Jeanerette.
After traveling the length of the town, we finally resorted
to using the navigation system in the car to locate the Cooper Street Coffee
Restaurant. What a find! The restaurant is housed in the old Louisiana Public
Service Company building constructed in 1925, a masonry structure that has been
totally restored by Anatole and Jennifer Larroque. When we arrived, Jennifer
told us that she only prepared lunch the first few days of the week and
breakfast and coffee were the specialties of the cafe, but she went into the
kitchen and heated up homemade vegetable soup made with homegrown carrots and
turnips for us. I couldn't resist one of her pastries, a blueberry and nut bar
that had been baked for breakfast patrons. The Larroques have installed various
types of brand-new coffee machines that produce coffee equal to Starbucks, and
we sat at tables that Torger Brown, a local cabinet and furniture maker, had made
of 100-year old cypress from the area. Long windows let in light throughout the
room, giving the huge room a welcoming ambience.
A grand piano occupies space in one corner of the room,
and Jennifer told us that a local woman plays for early breakfast patrons on
Sunday mornings. Anatole, who plays a trumpet, sometimes accompanies the pianist. I also learned that the Larroque's son is an accomplished oboe player
who has been a participant in the Sewanee Music Festival held on the University
of the South campus where I live part of the year. In another corner of the
spacious room, grouped leather couches and striped fabric chairs provide a nook
for readers and writers, Fortnightly clubs, and other literary groups, but
special lunches for these groups are arranged only by appointment.
Photographs by Victoria Sullivan
No comments:
Post a Comment