A History of the Old Spanish Custom House, continued
The land was part of a French land grant to Antoine Rivard de la Virgne in 1708, a decade before the City of New Orleans was founded. The grounds are enclosed by a cement and brick post fence with iron rails and galvanized wire. A large two room slave quarter stands separate from the house. The original carriage house stands with a granite stone driveway reportedly made from old stones retrieved from Canal Street. Bay, citrus, banana and fig trees stand in the yard with two giant old live oak trees. The original plantation grew indigo which could be processed into a purple dye for export to Europe. But the difficulties of the processing led to the development in 1795 of Etienne de Bore's commercial sugar cane processing in open kettles, resulting in refined sugar that could be loaded into barrels for shipment to the sugar loving masses of the Continent. It was a money crop that prospered Louisiana plantation families.
The Custom House stands at the corner of Moss Street beside the bayou and Grand Route Bayou St. John, the oldest street in New Orleans, having originated as an Indian portage between the bayou and the Mississippi River. Pierre le Moyne Sieur de Iberville and his brother Jean Baptiste le Moyne Sieur Bienville, founders of the French Louisiana colony, walked over this trail through swamps and cane breaks on their first voyage of discovery led by Biloxi Indians in 1699. Moss Street was named after the familiar Spanish moss hanging from old, live oak trees. The Indians thought it looked like the Spaniards' gray beards. So it got its name. The home sits in a curve of the old bayou that once flourished with flatboat shipping when Spanish Governor Carondolet built a canal from the end of the bayou to the back of the French Quarter. The ruins of the old Spanish Fort stand beside the bayou a mile away. The bayou empties into Lake Pontchartrain a few miles from the residence.
The immediate area surrounding the Custom House traces back to Colapissas Indians that lived along the bayou, planting corn and hunting the wild game. Across the bayou is the site of the old Allard Plantation, bought by legendary philanthropist John McDonogh and given to the city, now a famed city park. Metairie Bayou crossed Bayou St. John only a few hundred yards away, but was later filled in for roads, a race track and cemeteries.
It was designated in 1957 an Orleans Parish landmark and in 1984 a New Orleans Historic District landmark. Today, the Faubourg St. John is a prestigious residential area of the City. (Return to the 1300 Moss detail page)
Bill Norris |
