Strange True Stories of My Louisiana Ancestors Part III

A pilgrimage to plantation country.

by

Read Part I of Nina Flournoy's "Strange True Stories" series,  here. 

Read Part II of Nina Flournoy's "Strange True Stories" series, here. 

It was November 2020, in the thick of a global pandemic and following back-to-back hurricanes, when hI found myself driving through South Louisiana, down I-10, then I-310. On River Road in Destrehan, I stopped to view Hans Geist’s massive “Mile of History” mural spanning the wall outside River Road Market, illustrating 300 years of St. Charles Parish history. I jumped back in my car, proceeding south on Hwy 90 towards Morgan City. 

Elevated sections of highway ribboned the damp terrain, preserving the natural beauty of bayous, swamps, and rivers below. I passed a sign for Des Allemands in St. John the Baptist Parish, where Highway 90 parallels the Old Spanish Trail, weaving through craggy cypress trees draped with moss, like shadowy George Rodrigue paintings. I crossed Bayou Lafourche near Raceland and the Atchafalaya River bridge into Berwick before bending north toward Patterson. Along the way, historic markers staked the plantation-dotted landscape, some bearing the names of my ancestors. 

They were, after all, why I came. I had followed the spiritual pull to connect to these places that figured so prominently in my lost family history. I wondered if historic markers might be the only thing left to link me here. 

My ongoing quest to trace the history of the Charpantiers, who fled the French Revolution and settled along Bayou Teche in St. Mary Parish, now expanded to ancestors throughout South Louisiana, including the “German Coast” of the Mississippi River. In the 1720s, French leaders lured German settlers to Louisiana to help tame the wild, unruly land. Despite severe hardship, the Germans flourished and blended with the French, sprinkling my French line with German names.

Tracing my paternal Planchard/Roussel line through the region, I found several properties once owned by relatives, some still standing. I created a map, intending to visit as many as possible. 

Mostly, I wanted to visit the original land where Joseph Charpantier and his wife, Marie Adelaide de Tavanne, (or Alix de Morainville) built their plantation. Researching Attakapas region land grants in the Library of Congress, I stumbled across a rare 1795 map charting planters in the region, and an obscure document referring to “Charpantier’s Bend,” which corresponded with land records for Charpantier Plantation. Magnifying the planter map and turning it sideways, I could barely make out the names of property owners. Then, bam—I spied the name "Charpantier" scrawled at a bend in the river where Bayou Teche meets the Atchafalaya River. 

Comparing the bend on the old map with the same location on Google Earth, I zoomed in, searching for houses or businesses—finding nothing, just a vast sea of sugarcane fields stretching for miles, with only one dwelling—a steel fabricating company. The guy who answered the phone told me the land next door might be owned by the Aucoins or Hymels. An online phonebook for Patterson listed several Hymels and Aucoins, but gave no addresses. 

Going down the list, I politely relayed my spiel about tracing ancestors again and again. Some assumed I was a scammer or trying to sell something, but after about six calls, I hit pay dirt. Merry Hymel listened patiently before asking, “So wait, you’re who and you want to do what?” 

I started over. She seemed to remember mention of the Charpantier Plantation associated with her family’s land, but she didn’t know the history. “I understand,” I conceded. “I only want to walk on my ancestors’ land and maybe take some dirt as a memento. I’m coming through Patterson next week and I need permission to be on the property.” I pictured a shotgun-toting farmer taking aim at me, unleashing a pack of snarling hounds.

“Okay, I guess that’s fine,” she said in a weak voice, still leery. 

I hung up feeling like I’d won the lottery. I had. An hour later Hymel called back to say that her family could show me where they suspect the old plantation had been. “That’s the dirt you’ll want to get.” She called again the next day with a few names and numbers of residents who would know the history of the area. “Tell them I told you to call.” Hymel also gave me the number for Idlewild Plantation, directly across the bayou from the Hymel property. As luck would have it, Idlewild was already on my planned map, as it was built by my ancestor, Georges Haydel (Heidel).

By the time I called Idlewild, I had repeated my speech so many times I sounded like a robocall, but now I held an ace. “Hi, Merry Hymel gave me your number. I’m researching my family history in St. Mary Parish. My fourth great grand-uncle built Idlewild Plantation, and I’d like to see it when I visit the area next week.” He agreed to meet with me. The trip was on.

Deeper south, the drive started to take on a middle-of-nowhere vibe. I punched in GPS information for Idlewild Plantation on the Lower Atchafalaya River, southeast of Patterson, where I had set up the first appointment of my trip.

Even the GPS screwed up the directions, leading me down a series of dead-end roads before I found the quiet tree-lined lane leading to Idlewild—a classic white-columned raised Greek Revival plantation home, guarded by enormous oaks. When I called the week before, a man who went by the name Captain Caviar (or John Burke, owner of Captain Caviar Swamp Tours), told me his mother lived at the plantation, so it wasn’t open to the public. “But tell you what, come on by and we’ll give it a try.”

The epitome of a sea-faring captain, with full, graying beard and navy cap, he showed me around his quaint white house on the grounds of the property. Unusual items on the walls and shelves included nutria slat boards used by Acadian fur trappers, and a taxidermy plaque of a Choupique (Shoepick)—a 200-million-year-old species of fish still thriving in the Bayou Teche, which flows about ninety feet from his back porch. Most fishermen consider Choupique a “trash fish,” but Captain regards it as a treasure. 

Having grown up traversing the bayou, he discovered that the Choupique’s eggs made delicious caviar. After learning how to harvest and package the eggs, he created the Louisiana Caviar Company in 1986. Area seafood connoisseurs discovered his successful enterprise, including famed New Orleans Chef Emeril Lagasse, whose wife Alden Lovelace bought the company a few years ago along with partners Amy Hollister Wilson and Alison Vega-Knoll. 

Now with time on his hands, Captain started a swamp boat tour from his backyard dock, retaining the name “Captain Caviar”.

As he escorted me across the lawn toward his mother’s home, I hooded my eyes to admire a towering live oak, with one grand limb sloping to the grass. Captain nodded, “Yeah, people pull off the road to take photos of our tree all the time.” 

When I stepped back to get a photograph, he matter-of-factly stated that the 477-year-old tree is haunted, as is his home and the main plantation house, since long before his family moved there in the ‘70s. A ghost-hunter crew for the Travel Channel’s Ghosts of Morgan City  had even allegedly captured an image of a female spirit in the main house, moving across his mother’s dining room.

“We didn’t need anyone to confirm it. We’d seen for ourselves. Others have too,” he said, recounting a crawfish boil when a guest pointed up to a young girl peering out of the top window of Captain’s house. “Everyone saw her. Then she vanished. That’s the attic. No one goes up there.” He said a few psychics and a shaman believe at least three hangings took place from the oak tree.

“I’m not surprised, considering the history of the area,” he shrugged. 

No telling when or if those hangings occurred, but Burke’s right about the history. In this corner of Louisiana known as the “sugar parishes,” vigilante lynching went on well beyond Reconstruction. From 1877 to 1950, 549 “racial terror lynchings” were reported in Louisiana, the fourth highest rate in the country, according to The Equal Justice Initiative. More than one hundred took place here in sugarcane country, where lynching statistics tell only a fragment of the larger story—starting with the enslaved labor-dependent plantation system itself.

You can’t walk beneath oaks like the one at Idlewild without sensing the weight of history each ring holds.  The numbers make it tangible. In 1795, the year Joseph and Adelaide settled on Bayou Teche, Louisiana’s enslaved population numbered less than 20,000. By 1840 it climbed to around 168,000, soaring to more than 331,000 in 1860—rising with the sugar and cotton industry in the region, which made Louisiana’s 22,000-plus planter/slaveholders the wealthiest in the nation. The year the Civil War broke out, Louisiana produced about one-sixth of all the cotton grown in the United States and all of the sugar. This is where the planters in my family line made their fortunes.

The high-risk, high-cost business of sugar cultivation did little to deter planters who knew sugarcane’s enormous potential for profits, and the subsequent generational wealth it guaranteed families. They understood the human cost of their business, too, and proceeded regardless. Sugarcane cultivation was brutal, demanding numerous hands to carry out often back-breaking labor. Enslaved families working on cane plantations in Louisiana died at a substantially higher rate than those working in cotton, tobacco, indigo, or rice farms. To keep sugar production going, sugar barons simply replaced the enslaved who succumbed with a steady flow of young Black men coming through the auctions in New Orleans. 

Of course, I knew my Louisiana planter ancestors were unapologetic slaveholders, but until I was here, standing on their soil, I had never allowed the horrifying reality of that history to thoroughly wash over me. But here it is, everywhere.     

Walking toward the main house, Captain pointed out a rut in the grass, running the length of the lawn. “You’re walking on what was once the Old Spanish Trail.” The system of east-to-west trails dates to the 1600s, when Spain controlled all of Louisiana, and once extended through swamps, deserts, and mountains, linking Florida and California. Confederate and Union troops took this path during the Battle of Bisland. During that campaign, Union General Nathaniel P. Banks used Idlewild for his command post, forcing the Haydel family out. After the war, Union Captain I. D. Seybern, who had served in the vicinity, bought the property. It remained in the Seybern family until the Daniels purchased it in 1977.

My ancestor Georges Haydel (Heidel) had originally built the house for his daughter in 1850. His Heidel ancestors, whose name became Haydel, arrived in Louisiana in the early 1720s. They were among the first to settle the rugged German Coast. In time, they became wealthy planters, building several significant sugarcane plantations, including two that are still standing: Evergreen and Haydel Plantation, better known today as Whitney Plantation. 

Today, Whitney holds the title of Louisiana’s only former plantation site to exclusively center its activities around the history of enslavement that took place on its grounds, and at every plantation in this region. There is little doubt that Georges Haydel depended on enslaved labor to construct Idelwild (and certainly on the riches their labor created to fund it), which was once situated on an 800-acre dairy farm and sugarcane plantation. The 1850 slave census listed him as the “owner” of thirty-four enslaved people, all of whom worked at his sugar plantation in St. Mary Parish. He died before Idlewild was completed in 1854. 

Though of German descent, Haydel designed the plantation house using English and French features, while incorporating Dutch details, reflecting Patterson’s stint as a Dutch settlement in the early 19th century. Idlewild’s hall-less layout features French doors between rooms, front and rear galleries, five fluted Doric columns, a full entablature with denticular cornice, a continuous brick wall encircling the foundation, three dormers, a graceful roofline, and ornamental cast-iron balustrades. The enslaved people who lived at Idelwild stayed in quarters beneath the main house. 

Captain peered into the French “guillotine” sash windows before knocking on the door. Through transomed side-light windows, I could see his mother, Pam Daniels, releasing the locks. 

“Mom this is Nina Flournoy. The house was built by her great-great-great grandfather or something,” Captain began.

I apologized for the bad timing, with a pandemic sweeping the country. “I totally understand if you’d rather I stay outside. I could just walk around the grounds if that’s okay.”

Sizing me up for two seconds, she graciously pushed open the screen door. “After you’ve come all this way? Please, come on in,” she said.

Stepping onto the varnished hardwood floor, I felt instantly transported. Worn brass knobs, heavy paneled cypress doors, cypress aedicule motif mantels, and crochet table clothes all denoted a place lost in time. Daniels eased through each room, pointing out the tall gallery windows with jib doors, an upholstered “shaving chair,” chandeliers, and a vintage etagere displaying an exploded Civil War musket ball discovered on the property by Daniels’ late husband Dr. Walter H. Daniels.      

A gable at each end of the 5,800 square foot “cottage” has a balustraded balcony resting upon slender columns. Captain led me through one rear room to a narrow, enclosed staircase. As we ascended the dimly lit stairs leading to the attic, he relayed the “blue shirt” story.

"Maybe time simply overlaps." 

“One night I rounded this corner and saw a blue shirt going up the stairs. Just a blue shirt.” When he tried to flip on the light, it didn’t work, and hasn’t worked since that night, despite electricians’ many attempts to fix it. “The Union army wore blue shirts,” he noted. The Travel Channel medium concluded the apparition was most likely a nurse from the Yellow Fever epidemic named Nina Nordoff.

A group of Ursuline nursing nuns also occupied the house for a time, living on the upper floor when it served as a Civil War hospital. Daniels pointed to a rectangle cut-out on one wall, where nuns scrawled a message in French. The former owners added a translation underneath: “Study your profession with care and you will become wise, work hard and you will become rich, be frugal and temperate and you will preserve your wealth, be just and you will not fear eternity.”

Among the abandoned items Daniels’s family found in the attic were pieces of early 19th-century apparel: pantaloons, lace frocks, a silk bustle, and hats—which she carefully restored and displayed—alongside the elaborately beaded ball gown she wore as queen of a Mardi Gras krewe in New Orleans, where she grew up. She mentioned that, like I, her brother had long researched her Normand and Goudeau family lines in New Orleans.

She showed me a rare photo she’d found of Union officers and nurses posing on the front steps when the house served as a hospital. In the shot was Captain Seyburn, who bought the house after the war. Daniels called my attention to a nurse seated in the middle of the shot. “We’ve identified her as the woman we see walking through rooms from time to time,” she said     .

“Are you ever afraid here?” I asked, and immediately wanted to kick myself, since her husband had passed just the year before and she now lived in the house alone.

“No,” she shook her head, theorizing, “Maybe time simply overlaps. I don’t think they know we’re here.”

Daniels said many residents of old homes in the region report similar spirit sightings, and most consider it part of the terrain. 

After admiring a mural she painted depicting the view of Bayou Teche from her kitchen window, we said our goodbyes. Outside, Captain pointed toward the bayou. “You can see the Hymel land right there.” I held my throat, struck by the sight of the banks where Alix and Joseph first set down their American roots. 

Captain told me to take Main Street through Patterson, turning north onto Bridge Road, and crossing the short bridge over Bayou Teche. From there I followed Merry Hymel’s directions, heading east on Par Road 108 before turning up the dirt road. I smiled recalling her South Louisiana accent on the phone. “Dirt? You want dirt?”

I explained that after searching for years, I had finally pinpointed the location of the Charpantier land. “I’m going to put some dirt in a container to represent my family’s little piece of the original property.” She liked the idea and mentioned that her son and niece also have a house on the land.      

"My French ancestors and their descendants reflect the south Louisiana story—a bitter-sweet blend of Cajuns, European immigrants, and enslaved Africans, culminating in a Creole bloodline steeped in struggle, glory, tragedy, pride, and shame. War and hard times sent them scattering, letting time erase any sign that they ever lived on this spot. Yet, here I was." 

Going up the long dirt finger toward her son’s house, Hymel’s daughter-in-law Ashley approached my car, wiping her hands on her jeans. “We’re boiling crabs out back,” she smiled. “You’re welcome to join us.”

Ashley walked me out to where they estimated the original home might have stood. I told her my relatives were among the first sugarcane planters in the area. Regional historian Shane Bernard told me that the Union Army badly damaged the Charpantiers’ main house during the war, but I don’t know what happened to their sugar operation. 

We approached a shed where the Hymels had collected several corroded hand-forged pieces discovered over the years. “They made their own tools,” Ashley said, as her husband, Bill, approached. “Take whatever you want. If it means something to you, feel free to take any of it.”  

I picked up a rusty metal nut. “I’ll just keep this small one. Anything more might be tough to explain to airport security.” I wrapped the crumbling metal piece in my eyeglasses cloth and stuffed it in my pocket like a chunk of gold. 

Strolling the expansive landscape felt like walking inside a painting. Laced oak, pine, and cypress branches formed a natural boundary at the water’s edge, where smooth black cypress knees poked out of the bayou. The sunset’s gold-orange light rippled atop the inky water and streamed through trees, throwing shadows across the grass. Just beyond a thick growth of ferns, a lady glided toward us. 

Hymel wasn’t at all what I expected from her voice on the phone. A lovely woman with wavy salt-and-pepper hair, she looked at home in her worn jeans and denim shirt. I pegged her as a beauty who brushed off lifelong compliments and, rather than paint her nails, chose to get her hands dirty. Literally. As I gushed over the picturesque property, Hymel divulged that she’d studied landscape design at LSU. This place was her masterpiece.

The two women pointed out indentions on ancient trees, deep ruts, wells, and other clues as to how the Charpantiers might have lived. Hymel suggested a particular spot where I should dig. Scooping dirt with the screw-top lid, I packed the jar to the brim. I imagined generations of Charpantiers—Marie Adelaide, Joseph, their son Michel, their grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—milling among us, tickled that blood kin made the effort to acknowledge the land where they thrived. My French ancestors and their descendants reflect the south Louisiana story—a bitter-sweet blend of Cajuns, European immigrants, and enslaved Africans, culminating in a Creole bloodline steeped in struggle, glory, tragedy, pride, and shame. War and hard times sent them scattering, letting time erase any sign that they ever lived on this spot. Yet, here I was, one of their own, kneeling beside the Bayou Teche in the very dirt where they first began building their family after leaving France.

Maybe Daniels was right. Maybe time does simply overlap.

Driving away with dirt under my fingernails, I swore that if I did nothing else that week, I’d be gratified to have just done that. But, as it turned out, my trip had just begun to get interesting. 

Post script: Upon returning to Dallas, I discovered that I’m a distant relative of the Hymels through my St. Mary Parish relatives. This means that the Hymels are related to the Charpantiers—the original owners of the land on which they now live. And, not only am I related to the Feltermans, but the Normand branch of Pam and Captain’s line intersects with my paternal line—not through my St. Mary Parish relatives but linked to my New Orleans family. Small world.  —NF