After the air BnB from hell, I was in search of the earliest opening coffee shop. Birdman fit the bill and this original artwork there was kind of how I felt. After a belting Americano and a breakfast sandwich I almost felt human again. I had to finish my coursework and prepare for a host of work meetings.
I took a break to drive to the street with the most historic homes and three lovely old churches. On the way, I passed chic boutiques and other nice shops. This area has Mississippi river ships dock and bring in passengers, thus the better than average commercial district here. Unfortunately due to the Mississippi being really low, right now passengers have to disembark on the other side of the river and they are bused around the bayou and across the river to town.
I also stopped by the Benevolent Society. These sprang up across the south after the Civil War. Second only to the church, the society was a gathering place for former slaves and primarily formed to help them with funeral costs, and they became a support in other ways and central to the black community. Sadly, this one is in disrepair.
It was more work calls and then I had time to fit in a tour of Oakely where John James Audubon spend many months tutoring his patroness' daughter Eliza and capturing and painting birds. If you go to Wiki, it says Audubon was an "American" artist who created the definitive Birds of North America. What you learn on on the tour and further reading is that he was born in Hati, the result of a union between his profligate ship captain father and a woman who was a servant or slave in the home and mulatto or black. The stories about her are numerous but unclear. She died when he was young and he was sent to France to live with his step mother who doted on him.
When the French Revolution was heating up, his dad got him a fake passport to leave the country and sent him to a property he had near Valley Forge, PA. His dad took the side of the Americans during the Revolution and spent several years in jail in New York. He was also involved in the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution -- the only successful overthrow by slaves of their enslavers. From the amount of wealth the dad had, he must have taken the sides of which he felt would be most lucrative.
Back to Bayou Sara and Oakley, it stayed in the family until the 1960s. No wonder, since the original owner, Lucy managed to keep the property after her husband, Ruffin Gray, died. It has been obtained as a type of land grant from the Spanish so there were three requirements -- farm at least 10% of the land, convert to catholicism, and be married. Lucy remarried a Scottish man and it is thought he was responsible for the name Oakely as a nod to his Scottish heritage. With him, she had her daughter Eliza who studied with Audobon.
The house has a southern raised basement as many do. It was the coolest place in the summer. Although, this house was designed with the hot weather and mosquitos in minds. Jalousies or louvers kept out the sun and rain but allowed air flow. The had beds that could be dragged out on to the sleeping porch in the heat of the summer. I have to admit thought the third story of the house is a little bit like a tilting ship. The floors are uneven and sloping. It was not my favorite part of the house.
Final fun fact, in the men's gaming room where they drank brandy and played cards while the women were in the parlor reading poetry, they had a chamber pot under the table so they didn't have to leave to go to the necessary. The cards also did not have numbers on them, because it they were caught gaming the fines would be lower.
My next stop was Amite, LA to stay at a real bed and breakfast called Blythewood. I arrived after dark but was greeted by the lovely Ellen who immediately made me feel at home in my huge room. Another woman who worked at the house had made a pot roast and it smelled amazing. Ellen asked if I could have some rather than having to go scrounging dinner. She said, of course. Yum! I had a can of a Arkansas IPA which complemented the meal nicely. After a hot shower to ensure that all grime from the previous night was removed, I was out like a light.
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