USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 37
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Hermit Thrush. (Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii.) Tail bright rufous, otherwise resembling the last mentioned considerably. Woodland and thickets. A win- ter resident, coming after the middle of October and sometimes remaining until April 12.
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Grive (Creole) ; Robin. American Robin. (Merula migratoria.) Medium size; gray upper parts and reddish or russet breast. Becomes very common by No- vember 15; numbers decreasing after March 1. Breeds from 35 degrees north northward.
Bluebird. (Sialia sialis.) Blue back and chestnut-colored breast. Borders of woodland, fences and telegraph lines. Seen sometimes in winter about New Orleans, but never in summer.
The Terns, called also Sea Swallows, are known chiefly in the vicinity of New Orleans through their occurrence on Lake Pontchartrain, on the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts, and in the marshes of the extreme lower part of Louisiana. The usual species are the Royal Tern (Sterna maxima), the Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri), the Least Tern (Sterna antillarum), and the Black Tern (Hydrochelidon nigra surinamensis).
Cormorants are represented on the various bodies of water near New Orleans by three species ; the Double-crested Cormorant ( Phalacrocorax dilophus), the Flor- ida Cormorant (P. dilophus floridanus), and the Mexican Cormorant (P. mexi- canus) ; the first of these is observed only in winter, the others having a more southerly range.
The Ducks of lower Louisiana have given it a reputation as a hunting ground surpassed in few parts of the country. Besides the continually present Wood or Summer Duck (Aix sponsa), there are in fall, more restrictedly in mid-winter and again in early spring, hosts of ducks belonging to a majority of the species found in North America. Important flights reach the latitude of New Orleans about October 1, a few Blue-Winged Teals having arrived shortly before that. Mal- lards and Green-winged Teals come together, sometimes being found feeding in the same spots, but such an association appears never to take place between the Mallard and the Blue-winged Teal. Of the other ducks best known and most prized among the hunters, the Widgeon, the Gray Duck, and the Pin-tail appear at very nearly the same time; the Scaups-Dos-gris, the Creoles call them-are in company with these birds, but they are indifferent table ducks. Midwinter produces a lull in the Duck season, many individuals having migrated much farther south, but Mallards, Pin-tails, Widgeons, Gray Ducks, Green-winged Teals, Dos-gris and Redheads remain in considerable numbers. Beginning in February, at least, these Ducks head northward, and migration among them is well under way in a short time. About the last of these Ducks are leaving when those birds that have wintered south of the United States begin to pass this latitude in large numbers. The
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passage of great numbers of the transients continues until April. Teals and Pin- tails are the principal species in this spring movement. The Blue-winged Teal remains in small numbers until the first part of May.
Of the species which are plentifully represented among the sets of individuals that go no further south than Louisiana, the Mallard and the Pin-tail are the first to leave after the earliest beginnings of spring.
DUCKS OCCURRING ABOUT NEW ORLEANS.
American Merganser. (Merganser americanus.)
Red-breasted Merganser. (Merganser serrator.)
Bec-scie. Hooded Merganser. (Lophodytes cucullatus.) Black and white plumage and conspicuous crest.
French Duck. Mallard. (Anas boschus.) Large size and green head (in the drake).
Black Duck. Black Mallard. (Not the bird called "Black Duck" at New Orleans).
(Anas obscura.) Resembles Mallard in size, but is of a general dark color.
Canard Gris. Violon. Gadwall. (Anas strepera.)
Zinzin. American Widgeon. (Anas americana.)
Sarcelle d'Hiver. Green-winged Teal. (Anas carolinensis.)
Sarcelle Printannière; Sarcelle Automnière. Blue-winged Teal. (Anas discors.)
Cinnamon Teal (very rare in Louisiana). (Anas cyanoptera.) General rich- reddish brown color and bright-blue specula on the wings.
Micoine; Spoonbill. Shoveler. (Spatula clypeata.) Paddle-shaped bill.
Paille-en-queu. Pin-tail. (Dafila acuta.) Greatly lengthened tail feathers and fine gray plumage.
Brancheur. Wood Duck. (Aix sponsa.) Great beauty of plumage and the habit of perching in trees.
Dos Gris (Audubon). Red-head. (Aythya americana.)
Canard Cheval. Canvas-back (not very common). (Aythya vallisneria.)
Dos Gris. Scaup; Blue-bill. (Aythya marila nearctica.)
Dos Gris. Lesser Scaup. (Aythya affinis.)
Black Duck. Ring-necked Duck. (Aythya collaris.) Generally black plumage, with white chin and brown ring about the neck.
Golden-eye. (Glaucionetta clangula americana.)
Marrionette. Buffle-head ; Butter-ball. (Charitonetta albeola.)
Old Squaw (very rare winter visitor). (Clangula hiemalis.) Largely white plum- age, and long tail.
Goddam. Ruddy Duck. (Erismatura rubida.)
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The Geese found in southern Louisiana in winter, and which are eonscquently likely to occur at New Orleans at any time, arc the Blue Goose (Chen caerulescens), the Lesser Snow Goose (Chen hyperborea), the White-fronted Goose (Anser albi- frons gambeli), the Canada Goose (Branta eanadensis), and its varicty, Hutchins's Goose (B. canadensis hutchinsii).
Two Swans, the Whistling (Olor columbianus), and the Trumpeter (Olor buccinator), winter on the Gulf, and are of possible oeeurrence very near New Orleans.
Besides the Sandpipers named in the list, the White-rumped, the Baird's, and the Red-backed are of possible, but uneertain, occurrence ncar New Orleans.
On the nearest scacoast the Willet (Symphemia semipalmata), a large tattler, is found.
The Oyster-catcher (Haematopus palliatus) is found on the Gulf Coast, but probably comes no nearer to New Orleans.
The Duck Hawk ( Falco peregrinus anatum) follows the ducks to their best feeding grounds in winter, there preying upon them.
The curious Burrowing Owl (Speotyto cunieularia hypogaea), found on the western prairies, is observed very rarely in southeastern Louisiana.
The country about New Orleans, like many other southern localities, was formerly the home of the Carolina Parrakeet (Conurus carolinensis), but the bird has not been observed for many years.
The now rare Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) is not known to occur within short distances of New Orleans.
CHAPTER XV.
LITERATURE AND ART.
BY A. G. DURNO.
L ITERATURE is ever a plant of slow growth in new soils, and notwithstanding the fact that there were among the carly inhabitants of New Orleans many men and women of elegant culture and brilliant intellect, no one of them appears to have felt any ambition to conquer new territory for the realm of letters. There were, indeed, in those early days, few incentives to authorship. Not only would the hard conditions of life in the colony, contrasted as they were with homesick memories of "la Patrie" so dear to the French heart, tend to repress any native impulse toward composition, but the total absence of facilities for pub- lication ("Le Moniteur," the first newspaper, was not founded until 1794) added an element of impossibility to any sort of literary undertaking before which the most robust inspiration must have dicd. Reports of officers and engineers, however able and accurate, can hardly be classed as literature, yet, with one ex- ception, these are the only fruits yielded to the most painstaking search among the remains of the first century.
The single exception is an epic poem-no less-which, whatever its defects, has the merit of having been inspired by an incident of colonial life. The author was a Frenchman, and the hero whose martial deeds he celebrates, the Spanish Governor of a Spanish colony, circumstances which render his patriotic fervor all the more creditable.
JULIEN POYDRAS, the first poet of Louisiana, was a native of Nantes, born about the year 1740. As a youth he served in the French navy, but being taken prisoner by the English in 1760, and carried to England, he appears to have accepted captivity as a discharge from further naval service. Escaping from durance, he hid himself on board a West Indian merchant vessel, and so reached San Domingo, whence he passed over to New Orleans, arriving, as is supposed, in the fateful year 1768-memorable for the daring but ineffectual effort of the French colonists to snatch their adopted land from the clutches of Spain. Poydras
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did not remain as a permanent resident of New Orleans, but he was a constant visitor to the little city, and appears to have taken a warm interest in its affairs, as is evineed by his generous donations to her charitable institutions. It is not probable that Poydras brought much money with him to the colony, but he had the instinct for business which quickly recognizes opportunity, and the energy and address which as quickly seizes upon it. He was soon engaged in commercial affairs which constantly increased in magnitude and importance, and to which he added the avocations of planter and banker, but in the midst of his multifarious occupations he found time to inscribe his name upon the roll of fame as author of the first poetical work printed in New Orleans. It celebrates the victory of Galvez over the English at Baton Rouge, and is entitled :
LA PRISE DU MORNE DU BATON ROUGE. Par Monseigneur De Galvez.
Chevalier pensionné de l'Ordre Royal distingué de Charles Trois, Brigadier des Armées de Sa Majestie, Intendant, Inspecteur et Gouverneur General de la Province de la Louisiane, etc.
A La Nouvelle Orleans,
Chez Antoine Boudousquie, Imprimeur du Roi, et du Cabildo.
MDCCLXXIX.
Professor Alcée Fortier, who has restored the poem to the world after a een- tury of oblivion, does not claim for it any great literary merit, but reminds his readers that in 1779 coldness and pomposity were characteristies of French verse. "The poetie inspiration of the seventeenth century," he adds, "was dying out and was only kept up by a few graceful and elegant writers. *
* Poets like Vol- taire, like Gresset, like André Chenier, were rare in Franee in the eighteenth eentury. Why should we expeet to find them in Louisiana ? Let us be satisfied with Poydras' work and let us be thankful to him for having given us a poem in 1779."
Thirty-five years elapsed before another book was added to the literary roster of New Orleans. During that time Louisiana had undergone several political changes, having been again for a short time a French provinee, then a territory of the United States, and finally a sovereign State. Two years after this last event there was issued from the press of the Courrier de la Louisiane a small volume of 58 pages duodecimo, bearing the title of "Poucha Houmma."
LE BLANC de VILLENEUFVE, the author of "Poueha Houmma," was
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an ex-officer of the French army who had been employed by the government from 1752 to 1758 among the Tchactas. While thus engaged he heard the story of a Houmma chief who gave himself up to the avenger of blood to save his son. This instance of self-devotion so impressed M. de Villeneufve that more than fifty years afterwards, at the great age of seventy-eight, he made it the subject of a five act tragedy, cast in the regular classical mould, in order to prove to the world that the Indians were not, as had been charged, destitute of all human feeling.
THOMAS WHARTON COLLENS, a native of New Orleans, born June 23, 1812, was the author of one of the earliest dramas published in New Orleans. Mr. Collens was edueated for the bar and rose to high position in his profession, being District Attorney of the Distriet of Orleans at the age of twenty-eight, and at various times Judge of the City Court of New Orleans, Judge of the First Distriet Court of the same city, and Judge of the Seventh District Court of the Parish of Orleans. While still a mere youth he wrote a five-aet tragedy, based upon the revolt against Spanish rule in 1768, and the real tragedy which followed it. The play is called: "The Martyr Patriots or Louisiana in 1769," and was suceessfully performed at the old St. Charles Theatre a short time after its pub- lication. Judge Collens was a fluent writer on serious subjeets, and the author of two philosophical works, "Humanies," and "The Eden of Labor," published respectively in 1860 and 1876.
In connection with the tragedy above alluded to, it may be mentioned as a coineidenee-by no means a surprising one-that in 1839 A. Lussan published in Donaldsonville a tragedy in five aets based upon the same historical ineident, and entitled "Les Martyrs de la Louisiane." The play would seem to have been put upon the stage, though there is no record of its having been performed in New Orleans. A difference is observed in the dramatis personae of the two plays, O'Reilly not appearing in that of Judge Collens, where Lafrenière fills the leading role, and Aubry, the former Freneh Governor, that of ehief villain. M. Lussan makes O'Reilly the persecutor of the patriots, which is historically correet, and gives the principal role to Joseph Villcré.
CHARLES GAYARRE is one of the most distinguished names connected with New Orleans literature. Born only two years after Louisiana had passed into the possession of the United States, and connected through both parents with families closely identified with affairs of the colonial era, his attention, at an early age, was drawn to the romantic history of his native city and State. Judge Francois-
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Xavier Martin's "History of Louisiana," published in 1827, was the first connected history of the then newly-made State, but aside from the fact that its severely condensed style made no appeal to the imagination, it was written in English, a language little understood among the Creoles of that day. Recognizing the im- portance to them of a history of their State written in their own tongue, and inspired, without doubt by a genuine enthusiasm for his subject, Mr. Gayarré published, in 1830, his "Essai Historique sur la Louisiane," a work of 144 duodeeimo pages. About the same date, Mr. Gayarré, who had studied law in Philadelphia under William Rawle, author of a work on the Constitution of the United States, and had been admitted to the bar both of Pennsylvania and Louisiana, was elected to represent New Orleans in the State Legislature. He subsequently oceupied the position of Presiding Judge of the City Court of New Orleans, and three years later was honored by being chosen to represent the interests of his district in the United States Senate. Failing health prevented him from taking his seat, and sent him across the sea in search of medieal adviee and remedial agencies. He remained eight years in France, devoting much of the time to historical research, the pursuit always of paramount interest with him. On his return he was again eleeted to the State Legislature for two successive terms, but gave up his seat to accept the State secretaryship offered him by the Governor. In 1846-47 appeared his "Histoire de la Louisiane," in two volumes Svo. In this work he followed the plan so sueeessfully adopted by the author of the "Dues de Bourgogne," and still much in vogue among historieal writers, of using contemporaneous records of the events narrated, whether personal letters and memoirs or official reports and documents. This method certainly makes very interesting reading, but it is criti- cised by Professor Fortier as failing to give "the philosophy of history." This initial work covered only the period of French domination. It was followed by a series of historiettes, beginning with a volume entitled "Romance of the History of Louisiana," in which the author has preserved the legends of the State, and ending with the "History of the Spanish Domination," published in 1854. All these works were revised in 1866 and included in three volumes, and in 1879 were again re-written in English, and expanded into four volumes as the "History of Louis- iana." In addition to his History of Louisiana, which is everywhere recognized as a standard work, Mr. Gayarré wrote Philip II of Spain, which, says Professor Fortier, "is not in reality a history of the gloomy and cruel tyrant of the Escurial, but a series of striking and foreible tableaux which remind us of Carlyle's 'Freneh Revolution ;' 'Fernando de Lemos,' a novel; 'Aubert Dubayet,' a sequel to the
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above; and a drama and a comedy, entitled, respectively, 'The School for Politics' and 'Dr. Bluff.'" Mr. Gayarre, however, was essentially a historian, and his fiction is inevitably cast in the historic mould. Fernando de Lemos has more claim to be considered a work of imagination than the sequel, but the pen that wrote it lacks the flexibility, and the hand, the lightness essential to romantic composition. In Aubert Dubayet is commemorated the career of a Louisianian, "who," says Professor Fortier, "shared with Kleber the glory of defending Mayence, who was a general of division in the army of the Republic, and who died at thirty-eight minister plenipotentiary of France at Constantinople."
The long and honorable life of this eminent man, the last years of which were rendered painful by ill-health and pecuniary embarrassments, came to an end February 11, 1895, at New Orleans.
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, though born in the vicinity of New Orleans, has no legitimate connection with its literature. None of his works were pub- lished here, and there is no certainty that any portion of them was even written during his brief sojourn within our gates. It was accident rather than choice that brought his mother to the little town of Madisonville, where her famous son first saw the light in May of 1780 or 1781, and he was soon removed to France, where he was educated. He was not a very diligent student of books, and at the age of nineteen or twenty, his father, who was an officer in the French navy, gave him a piece of land in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, and sent him to live on it. Here it was that he began that study of birds which was to occupy his life, and result in the two magnificent works of which every American is justly proud. He died in New York City in January, 1881.
ALEXANDER DIMITRY is a name which stands for profound scholarship and splendid ability. Without having left any body of collected works under his own name, Mr. Dimitry has perhaps done more to foster the growth of literature in his native city than some writers who count their volumes by the dozen. Not only was he the founder of the free school system of Louisiana and the staunch advocate of education, but he was in his own person an ever-flowing fountain of information, from which all were free to draw, and where more than one young literary aspirant is said to have filled his little ewer. It is greatly to be regretted that no effort has been made to gather up some of his writings into a form which would render them accessible to present day readers.
ADRIEN ROUQUETTE-Father Rouquette, as he is more familiarly and affectionately called by a wide circle of friends and admirers-and Dominique
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Rouquette, his brother, were united by closer ties than those of common parentage and early association. A passion for poctry distinguished their early youth, which, far from being dissipated by advancing years, became the ruling principle of their lives, leading them away from the crowded marts and artificial needs and pleasures of the town to dwell with Nature in her calm retreats and minister to the humble children whom she keeps ever near her heart. They enjoyed every advantage of education and travel, supplementing the course at the College de Nantes by ten years' wandering in Europe, yet they chose as their home a retired and lonely spot among the magnificent pine forests of their native Statc. About them dwelt "the remnants of the Chactas, the faithful allies of the French; and in the wigwams of the Indians the brothers used to sit to smoke the calumet with the chiefs, or to look at the silent squaws skilfully weaving the wicker baskets which they were to sell the next morning in the Marché Francais." Adrien, after a time, took the vows and assumed the cassock of a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and devoted himself still more actively to missionary work among the Indians, though he never abandoned his first love, "la Poésie." Dominique, who is accounted the greater poet, wrote only in French, but Adrien employed both French and Eng- lish. His principal work is "Les Savanes," a volume of poems inspired by Ameri- can scenes. He also wrote "Wild Flowers; Sacred Poetry," "La Thébaide en Amérique," "L'Antonaide ou la Solitude avec Dieu," "Poèmes Patriotiques," and "Catherine Tegchkwitha." But the most beautiful of his poems was his own life, and that is written only in the hearts of those who knew him. It came to an end in July, 1887.
ALFRED MERCIER is one of the best known and most prolific of the numer- ous French writers of New Orleans. He was born at McDonogh, a suburb of New Orleans, June 3, 1816. Educated in France, as was customary with the Creole youths of his day, he remained in Paris for many years after his studies were completed. It was in that city in 1842 that his first works were published, three volumes of poetry: "La Rose de Smyrne," "L'Ermite de Niagara," and "Erato." They were very favorably received, particularly the two first mentioned, and thus encouraged, the young author resolved to try his hand at a prose romance. Arrangements had been completed for its publication in a literary journal, but the morning the first installment was to appear the office was raided by the com- mune, and the forms "pied." Discouraged from further literary efforts by the disorders of the times, he now decided to study medicine, and returning to New Orleans after his graduation, he there took up the practice of his profession, but
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the virus was in his blood, and he seems to have been unable to resist the faseina- tion of pen and ink.
Returning again to romanee, he published in 1873, a novelette, "Le Fou de Palerme," which was followed four years later by "La Fille du Prêtre," an attaek upon the eelibaey of priests, which ereated mueh eommotion among the Catholies. "L'Habitation St. Ybars," published in 1881, is a story of life on a Louisiana sugar plantation in ante-bellum days. Professor Fortier says of it: "Although the work is of great interest as a novel, it is of still greater importanee for the study of philology. Dr. Mereier, who is a master of the Creole patois, uses it freely in his book and keeps thus an admirable couleur locale. *
* * It is a pity that 'L'Habitation St. Ybars' has not been translated into English, for it is a mueh more eorreet pieture of Louisiana life than is to be found in many other works better known outside our State."
In addition to the works already named Dr. Mereier published in 1881 "Lidia," an idyl, portraying the "romantie love of two noble hearts," and in 1891, "Johnnelle," a philosophieal tale direeted against the erime of infantieide. He was also an industrious and valued contributor to "Les Comptes-Rendues de l'Athénée Louisianais," the journal of a society organized for the eneouragement of the study of the French language, continuing to write for it both prose and verse, and even a drama in five aets, until well past the Psalmist's limitary of three- seore and ten. Apropos of a pretty little poem, "Message," quoted by him in his "Louisiana Studies," Professor Fortier says: "These charming verses, written by a man over seventy years of age, are a good proof that the atmosphere of Louisiana is not so stifling as it is sometimes said to be." Dr. Mereier died May 12, 1894, at the age of seventy-eight.
ALEXANDER WALKER is a name often referred to in New Orleans as that of a man of strong personality and wide and varied knowledge. A native of Fred- erieksburg, Virginia, Mr. Walker eame to New Orleans in 1840 and entered upon the praetiee of law, which, however, he soon abandoned for journalism. He was at various times editor of one or another of the newspapers of the eity, notably of the Delta, which he eondueted twelve years. His published works are: "Life of Andrew Jackson; Jaekson and New Orleans," "History of the Battle of Shiloh," and "Butler at New Orleans." Judge Walker, as he beeame by virtue of his presi- deney over the City Court of New Orleans, was the possessor of a lueid style, at onee graphie and dignified. Fond of color and of decorative phrases, he was yet too judieious to overload his deseriptions with ornament, while his eonseientious
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regard for small details was not permitted to degenerate into prolixity. Judge Walker died January 24, 1893, at the age of seventy-three.
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