The Spanish in the sixteenth century made various evanescent
explorations of the Gulf coast and the entrances to the Mississippi,
but never gained a permanent foothold. La Salle descended the great
river to its mouth in 1682, took possession of the country for France
and named it Louisiana, in honor of his King Louis XIV. The first
colony planted in the Province by the French was at Biloxi Bay on the
Gulf coast, about eighty miles northeast of New Orleans, in February,
1699, by Commander d'Iberville. Biloxi is now a quiet town of five
thousand people, having a good trade and some manufactures. A short
distance to the westward is Beauvoir, which was the home of the
Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, where he died in 1889; and
about ten miles farther westward is the extensive Bay St. Louis, where
at Pass Christian is one of the most frequented pleasure-resorts on
the Gulf coast. The French built a fort at Biloxi, and for years
d'Iberville and his younger brother, the Sieur de Bienville,
maintained their colony under serious difficulties, de Bienville
finally deciding to change the location, and removing to Mobile bay.
After considerable exploration, however, he determined upon a
permanent location within the Mississippi River, and entering the
passes in 1718 he ascended to where he found the most eligible fast
land and founded the colony of New Orleans, naming it in honor of the
then Regent of France, the Duke of Orleans. Thus began the city, which
in 1721, being then described as "a village of trappers and gold
hunters," was made the capital of the French royal Province of
Louisiana. In 1732 it had about five thousand population, and after
the transfer of sovereignty to the United States it was chartered a
city in 1804, then having ten thousand. There are now two hundred and
seventy-five thousand people in New Orleans.
This noted city is about one hundred and seven miles from the Gulf of
Mexico, and the older portion was built around the outer curve of a
grand crescent-shaped river bend, which gave it the popular
designation of the "Crescent City." It afterwards grew far up stream,
and stretched around another reverse bend, so that now the river
passes through in form much like the letter S. The surface descends
from the river by gentle slope towards a marshy region in the rear,
and is several feet below the level of high water, the levee being a
strong embankment about fourteen feet high and fifteen feet wide on
the surface, effectually protecting from overflow. Its magnificent
position near the mouth of the river, where an enormous interior
commerce, coming by railroad and steamboat, has to be transhipped to
ocean-going vessels, has made the prosperity of the city. Its event of
chief memory is the battle of January 8, 1815, when General Andrew
Jackson defeated the British under General Pakenham. The battlefield
was at Chalmette in the southern suburbs, on ground stretching from
the Mississippi River bank back about a mile to the cypress swamps.
The war with England had already been ended by a peace concluded at
Ghent December 24, 1814, but neither side then knew of it. The British
advanced from the eastward to attack the city, and a hastily
constructed line of breastworks formed of cotton bales was thrown up,
behind which Jackson's men were stationed to receive the attack. The
result was a most disastrous defeat, Pakenham, his second in command
and twenty-six hundred men falling, while the American loss was only
one hundred. A marble monument on the field commemorates the victory,
and a National Cemetery, with many graves of soldiers fallen in the
Civil War, now occupies a portion of the ground. In the Civil War, in
April, 1862, Admiral Farragut ran his fleet past the forts commanding
the river at the head of the Passes, and appearing before the city
compelled its surrender, when it was occupied by the accompanying land
forces under General Butler.
There is, in the older town, so much of characteristic French and
Spanish survival, that New Orleans is a most interesting and
picturesque city, though it has not very much to show in the way of
elaborate architecture. The streets have generally French or Spanish
names, and there is a distinctive French quarter inhabited by Creoles,
where the buildings have walls of adobé and stucco, inner courts,
tiled roofs, arcades and balconies, the whole region being lavishly
supplied with semi-tropical plants. The chief business thoroughfare,
Canal Street, is at right-angles to the river bank, and borders the
French quarter. The levee for over six miles is devoted to the
shipping, and in its gathering of ocean vessels and river steamboats,
loading or unloading, is a most animated place, impressing the
observer with the idea that tributary to this great mart of trade is
the richest agricultural valley in the world. The hero of New Orleans,
General Andrew Jackson, has his equestrian statue in Jackson Square,
which was the old-time Place d'Armes, and adjoining is the French
Cathedral of St. Louis, built in the eighteenth century, but since
considerably altered. The chief institution of learning is Tulane
University, having fine buildings and a thousand students, the
benefaction of a prominent citizen. In Lafayette Square there is a
statue of John McDonough, whose legacy for school-houses has built and
equipped thirty spacious buildings, accommodating twenty thousand
pupils. Around Lafayette Square are various public edifices and
churches.
New Orleans has two fine parks, the City Park and Audubon Park, both
displaying collections of live oaks and magnolias, which are
picturesque. The city cemeteries also have many good trees and are
attractive and peculiar. The soil being semi-fluid at a depth of two
or three feet, nearly all the tombs are above ground, some being
costly and beautiful structures. Most of them, however, are buildings
composed of cells placed one above another to the height of seven or
eight feet. The cell is only large enough to receive the coffin, and
as soon as the funeral is over, it is hermetically bricked up at the
narrow entrance. These cells are called "ovens," and bear tablets
appropriately inscribed. The Cypress Grove Cemetery, near the City
Park, is one of the most interesting. In Greenwood Cemetery, near by,
is a monument to the Confederate dead, and General Albert Sidney
Johnston is interred in Metairie Cemetery, which also has his
equestrian statue. In some cases the graves are in earthen mounds,
while occasionally, where the interment is in the ground, the
grave-digging is so arranged as to be completed just as the funeral
arrives, and the coffin thus gets placed and covered before there is
time for much water to ooze into the grave. The most uniquely
picturesque sight in the city is furnished by the old French Market,
near the levee, in the early morning, when business is in full tide,
and the mixed population in peculiar costume and language is seen to
advantage. A favorite resort of the people is Lake Pontchartrain, five
miles north, the spacious inland sea covering nearly a thousand square
miles, to which fine shell roads lead.