Yearly archives "2022"

Woodland 1837

The Woodland Plantation and Spirits Hall recently went through a name change; it is now called Woodlands 1837 after the year it was established. As per the name, Woodland 1837 used to be a plantation 40 minutes south of New Orleans in Point Sulphur, Louisiana. Before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the land this plantation stands on now was French territory. In 1793, Captain William Johnson and his partner George Bradish built a home, the Magnolia plantation, 4 miles south of Woodland 1837. Captain Johnson and George Bradish were sea pirates/captains from Nova Scotia who came down the Deep Delta in the 1700s. Both Captain Johnson and Bradish’s families lived on Magnolia for about 40 years until Captain Johnson sold his shares of Magnolia. With those funds he built the Woodland Plantation. Captain Johnson also partnered with the famous pirate Jean Lafitte. Laffitte would bring slaves up Grand Bayou through a short cut to the Gulf of Mexico from Woodland. Four large two-story brick slave quarters were built to house the slaves brought by ship and sold by Captain Johnson and Bradish. These buildings were established on the grounds that would eventually be known as the Woodland Plantation built by Captain Johnson.

Captain Johnson along with his 4 sons built what is now known as Woodland 1837. It became a flourishing sugar cane plantation with one of the most modern mills during its time. This is due to the labor of the enslaved that helped found the extensive wealth that the sugar cane plantation accomplished. George Washington Johnson, Captain Johnson’s son, inherited the plantation after his father’s death in 1849. During the 1850 slave census, he owned 181 slaves. Before Johnson inherited the property from his father, four large two-story brick slave quarters were built to house the slaves brought by ship by Lafitte and sold by Captain Johnson and Bradish. These buildings were established on the grounds that would eventually be known as the Woodland Plantation built by Captain Johnson. Although, these quarters were eventually swept away in the early 1960s by hurricane Betsy.   The only original building that stands on Woodland 1837 is the Big (main) House. The now owner, Foster Creppel, and his family moved old buildings that would have otherwise been condemned and destroyed to the property. It was a way of preserving history through the buildings that were original to the time of the plantation. But the difference is that Creppel wanted these buildings to heal and be used for a better future. Woodland 1837 became a bed and breakfast for fishers and curious visitors.

NOLA 2022 Service Learning Trip – Day 1: Levee tour (Lower 9th Ward)

We started off our trip with a bang. Historically, the Lower Ninth Ward has been home to a large black close-knit black community. This community helped to support the city of New Orleans through their production of crops. In 1927 an affluent community of New Orleans became fearful that their part of the city would flood during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. In an attempt to protect their own community, the affluent, privileged, and more powerful people decided to sacrifice the already unfortunate and less powerful historically black community of the Lower Ninth Ward. The company that built the levees promised reimbursement for the damage. After the Lower Ninth Ward’s portion of the levee was sufficiently destroyed by the hurricane, so was their community. The promised reimbursement never came. This tragically historic event sowed the seeds of distrust when the levee breached in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina.When the same storm wall broke during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there was obviously distrust. These suspicions became even stronger when reports of a loud bang were reported to have been heard as the storm wall breached. Although later evidence would reveal that it was likely a nearby unoccupied barge in the Mississippi River that smashed into and breached the storm wall. This did not quell the long-standing distrust towards those in power. To this day the Lower Ninth Ward has not recovered and returned to the state that it was even after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Many homes are left destroyed or gone entirely, amenities such as grocery stores or restaurants are absent, no schools are held, and the notorious “Brad Pitt” homes are seen as a failure. Today there are few efforts currently that hope to even try to maintain what is currently left in The Lower Ninth Ward and it continues to be neglected. It is unclear when or if their community will ever be restored.On the 2022 NOLA service learning trip we all saw first-hand the current state of the Lower Ninth Ward. We saw some of the decrepit homes, abandoned school, destructed roads, foreboding Bayou Bienvenu Wetlands triangle, and the new giant floodwall. Fortunately, the Lower Ninth Ward is not completely neglected and had/has some attempts to restore their community such as the (notorious) Brad Pitt houses, but also community members using hydroponics to sustain gardens or organizations restoring the Bayou Bienvenu Wetlands triangle, located right along the Lower Ninth Ward. We were able to visit and learn about both of these locations later in our trip.

London Avenue Canal, East Breach

From the event of Hurricane Katrina in August 29, 2005, the hurricane’s surge broke through many flood walls and levees. The houses from London Avenue were badly affected due to the flood wall that did not withstand the hurricane’s strong winds and water. According to a bulletin board that was available for the public to see, before the floods, the neighborhood was thriving with black and white middle-class home owners. Once the flood came by the flood wall failed making water and sand go through the neighborhood destroying many homes and killing hundreds of people.

There was a tiny blue house where it had books on the inside with a sign that said “Take a book, share a book.” This is a place where people from the neighborhood can share and exchange any book they choose. It is still being used today.

Because of the floods from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many homes are up on either wood or concrete poles that are about 5 to 7 feet high to help prevent flooding inside of people’s homes.

Crops for a Friend

By: Ashley Hollett and Morgan Plummer

One of the missions of CSUCI’s NOLA Service Learning experience is to help local communities combat food insecurities in surrounding neighborhoods. With the aid of student volunteers and faculty, we were able to plant a variety of crops on the Carol property in Buras, Louisiana. The process included tilling the land, establishing a canal around the plot and planting various crops including tomatoes, herbs, melons, watermelon, pumpkin, corn, cucumber, eggplant and marigold as an insect repellant.

Tilled plot