A Family Connection to Plantation/Slave Ownership???


Wednesday June 5, 2019

We were off to visit a sugar cane plantation today and made an interesting discovery…more later.

We visited the Destrehan Plantation, a large plantation along the Mississippi River.  We joined a guided tour of the original plantation house built between 1787 and 1790 by only 8 men.  Our tour was with a bus tour…no we were not on the bus tour…we just had to endure the presence of a large group of people…and you know how much I like crowds…not!!!  The plantation has a long and storied history.  It began as an indigo plantation and by 1800 switched to the more profitable sugar cane.  It was large…one mile wide and stretching 8 miles from the banks of the Mississippi River.  By the beginning of the Civil War, it had 200 slaves. It continued growing sugar cane until the early 1920’s when it was sold to a Mexican Oil Refinery.  It then became their headquarters and was abandoned in the late 1950’s and sat vacant for over 20 years.  It was a mess when the River Bend Historical Society got their hands on it and restored it to its former glory in the 1980’s.

While visiting the museum building, we realized that there was first a gun on display that was a McCutcheon Family Shotgun.  While examining a map of the early 1800’s, we saw that there were two McCutcheon Plantations just upriver from the Destrehan Plantation.  Upon further examination of pictures, we came upon the story of Adele Destrehan McCutcheon.  She was a granddaughter of the original plantation owner and married Samuel McCutcheon of Ormond Plantation.  This couple were (it is documented) worth 2 million dollars when they got married, a phenomenal amount of money for that time.  He was unwilling to sign a pledge of allegiance to the Union side during the Civil War and was exiled from the plantation.  Do not feel sorry for them…They simply moved to her summer home up in Mississippi.  After the war he moved the family to British Honduras where he was credited with introducing the ‘slave plantation system’ there.  One wonders about family connection…if so, I sure married into the ‘less healed’ branch of the family!

While watching a demonstration of the firing of Civil War guns, we got talking to one of the demonstrators.  When asked where we were from and telling him Ontario, he said his ancestors were from the Walkerton area, more specifically the Mildmay area.  Small world!!!!

Distance Traveled = 55 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Great Blue Heron, Anhinga, Mockingbird, Great Egret.



Marguerite - a enslaved woman who cooked for the family... her grandsons were still cutting sugar cane at the time of emancipation


1858 map of the Plantations along the Mississippi, just north of New Orleans


McCutcheon Family Double Barrel Shotgun circa 1860


Rear of the Destrehan Plantation 'Big House'


199 year old Southern Live Oak... if this tree could talk.... the stories it could tell!

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