Julienne

Julienne was born a slave on the Becnel sugar cane plantation in St. John the Baptist parish, Louisiana.  The plantation, now known as Evergreen, was run by wealthy widow Magdelaine Haydel Becnel.  The Widow Becnel’s family was so interconnected that family trees overlapped; Haydels and Becnels routinely intermarried, partnered with each other on various plantation ventures, and inherited slaves from each other.  Fair complected and a true product of Creole society, Julienne would be raised as a French speaking Catholic.  Her owners, Louisiana Creoles, were descended from the first French, Spanish, and German settlers of Louisiana and as practicing Catholics felt compelled to baptize their slave.*  Julienne was baptized at St. John the Baptist church in Edgard on October 30, 1818.  The priest listed Julienne as three years old and her godparents as Maximilien and Zelamire Haydel.  Maximilien Becnel was their owner’s son.  Zelamire was probably Aimee Zelamire Haydel, the daughter of Francois Haydel and Felicite Becnel.  Julienne’s sister Esther, born just four days prior, was baptized on the same day.  Elvirasse or Elvire, their mother, was a mulatresse.** 

 Evergreen Plantation

Upon Magdelaine Haydel Becnel’s death in 1830, her estate, including her large plantation and numerous slaves, was inventoried and sold.  Debts were settled, and then the profit was divided between the heirs.  Her son-in-law Jean Jacques Haydel Jr. and his brother Marcellin witnessed the inventory and assisted in the settling of the estate.  They also participated in the auction.  Jean Jacques Haydel Jr. purchased several slaves from the succession, including Julienne.  He would the fourteen year old Creole mulatresse just up the road to his plantation, where she would serve as a domestic.  Her mother Elvire, described as a fifty year old American mulatresse, was sold together with Elick, a sixty year old American mulatto.  Though Elick possessed valuable skills as a blacksmith, he suffered from a cancer, greatly reducing his value.  It is unclear whether Elick fathered Julienne and her sister Esther or if Elvire became his spouse later in her life.  Also, records have yet to indicate whether or not Julienne and Esther shared the same father.  Esther, listed as an eleven year old Creole mulatresse, was sold separately from her family.  Placide Perret purchased her for $785.  For the first time, the sisters would be forced to live apart.  As the Perrets would eventually relocate to St. Mary parish, it was unlikely that Esther and Julienne would see each other again.   

Slave cabins on Evergreen Plantation

By May of 1834, Jean Jacques Haydel Jr. and his son Belfort had over extended their credit.  An inventory was made of their plantations, two of which they shared together and one shared by Jean Jacques and his brother Marcellin, and presented to their creditors in order to apply for an extension.  Julienne was included in this list.  Now eighteen years old, Julienne’s value had increased from the $400 Jean Jacques paid for her to $900.  Julienne had her first child on February 21, 1841 at 8 p.m.*  Julienne named her Elvire after her mother, who died just a few months later, on April 3, 1841 at around sixty years of age.  Julienne’s next child, Edouard, was born in April 1843, and was baptized both at the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans and at St. John the Baptist Church in Edgard on June 7, 1843.  His godparents were Leonard and Babee, both free people of color.  Most baptisms occurred several months after the birth of the child.  Edouard’s early baptism at the cathedral indicates that Jean Jacques had brought Julienne to New Orleans and also that Edouard may have been sickly at birth.  Three years later, on March 25, 1846, Julienne gave birth to another daughter whom shr named Constance.  Less than a year later, on January 25, 1847, at 4 a.m., she had Esther, who was listed as a “mulatresse quadroon” upon her baptism one year later.  This child was named for the sister she had lost 17 years before.  Julienne’s last child, Ursin, was born on February 6, 1849 at 11 p.m. 

Certain details—the fact that the exact time of the birth of her children were recorded, that the godparents for her children were in many cases whites or free people of color, that she was brought to New Orleans with Jean Jacques Haydel at the time of the birth of one of her children, and that her children were listed as quadroons or griffes on various documents—indicate that Julienne’s children were in all likelihood fathered by a white man, quite possibly Jean Jacques Haydel himself.

 

On the night of January 11, 1851, Julienne died, leaving behind children ranging in age from ten to not quite two years old.  The next morning she was interred in the cemetery of St. John the Baptist Church in Edgard in the presence of her master, Jean Jacques Haydel, Ursulus Faure, and others.  Listing those present at the funeral of a slave was uncommon and usually occurred only upon the death of a slave who was important to the family or the community.  The priest listed her age as 35 years old.  As often occurred after the loss of a mother at an early age, Ursin, Julienne’s youngest child, died on March 10, 1853, a little over two years after Julienne’s death.  He was listed as the son of the late Julienne, age 4.   

Jean Jacques Haydel sold his plantation after a devastating cholera epidemic killed a substantial number of his slaves.  He then relocated permanently to New Orleans.  By that time, he had accumulated many debts.  His wife Marie Laure died of cholera at the same time that the plantation’s slaves suffered with the disease.  As a result, Marie Laure Haydel’s succession had to be settled and divided amongst her heirs. On November 22, 1855, the court in St. John the Baptist parish ordered Jean Jacques Haydel to settle the estate he shared with his wife.  All these factors led to Jean Jacques Haydel selling his slaves at a series of auctions conducted by certified New Orleans auctioneers St. Croix Guilmault and Norbert Vignie beginning in March 1856.  Edward, the infant baptized both at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans and St. John the Baptist Church, was sold to John Lyall of New Orleans.  Julienne’s daughters Elvira, listed as a sixteen year old griffe, Constance, listed as an eleven year old mulatresse, and Esther, listed as a ten year old orphaned mulatresse were sold to Pierre Lefebvre and Gustave Sabatier of New Orleans for $875, $795, and $555 respectively.  While no written document exists to provide absolute proof, circumstances surrounding Julienne and her children allow us to make a plausible hypothesis that Jean Jacques Haydel, their owner, fathered Julienne’s children.  Therefore, Jean Jacques Haydel knowingly sold his own four children away from the only home they had ever known—a plantation in the countryside—to the bustling metropolis of New Orleans.  Perhaps the sisters took comfort in being sold together, a fate their mother and aunt had not known.  If they survived the next decade, they would see emancipation after the Civil War and be given the freedom denied them by their father.

RECORDS USED:

St. John the Baptist Parish Church baptisms and interments at the Archdiocesan Archives of New Orleans

Inventory and sale of the estate of Magdelaine Haydel Becnel Widow of Pierre Becnel, St. John the Baptist parish courthouse

Jean Jacques Haydel vs. His Creditors, New Orleans Public Library

*The definition of Creole can be quite fluid but in no way does it carry a strict racial connotation.  People can be Creole if they are descended from the first settlers of Louisiana, whether they are entirely of European descent or with a mix of African and European heritage.  Slaves who adopted the culture---spoke French, practiced Catholicism, and embraced the local customs---could also be considered Creole.  This was used to distinguish them from the influx of American slaves from Virginia and the Carolinas (English speaking Protestants).

**A mulatresse or mulatto was a term for someone of mixed racial background.  Mulatto= ½ black, quadroon ¼ black, octoroon 1/8 black.

***It is possible that Julienne had other children before this, but this is the earliest extant document to mention a child.

NOTE: No photos of Julienne and her children exist, so representations of mixed race Creole women and Creole slaves are provided.

Ella Reynolds

Ella Poteet was born March 1, 1849 to William and Frances Poteet.  In 1850, they were living in Grand Gulf along with her sisters Julia and Emma. Sister Kate was born three years later.  Ella’s father died, and her mother married William Clark Winters on November 19, 1855.  Frances and her daughters Julia and Emma were living with Winters at Rodney in 1860.  For reasons unknown, Ella does not appear on the census with them.   Also living in Rodney at the time was Joseph Bernard Reynolds, an eighteen year old clerk.  Surely J.B. knew the Winters and met Ella through them. 

After his time serving in the Confederate army, J. B. Reynolds returned home and married Ella Poteet on December 19, 1865.  He was seven years her senior, and she was 16 when they married.  By 1870, the young family had relocated to Vicksburg, where J.B. was working as a druggist, and Ella was keeping house and caring for their two children, Ella Josephine, age 4, named for her parents, and William Bernard, newly born.  Ella’s mother was still living at Rodney; she and Winters had had two daughters, Daisy and Fannie.  Also present in the household was Frances’ daughter Emma and her two children, one of whom she had named Ella in a gesture of sisterly love. 

Tragedy would soon strike the family.  On October 2, 1870, Ella died in Vicksburg.  She was only 21 years old.  Just one month later, baby William was taken.  Daughter Josephine would survive, marry, and thrive.  J.B. would go on to marry again, living in Vicksburg as a grocer.  Ella and her baby lie side by side in the wooded cemetery overlooking what remains of a now almost silent Rodney.

Rodney, Mississippi: A Fire that Never Goes Out, Part II.

Rodney Presbyterian Church

"Today Rodney's Landing wears the cloak of vegetation which has caught up this whole land for the third time, or the fourth, or the hundredth."
---Eudora Welty

In 1864, a sand bar began to form that would have disastrous consequences for Rodney.  By 1870, the river had changed course, moving into a new channel several miles west.  Rodney was literally left high and dry.  The prosperous town was no longer a river port.  The geographic and economic realities quickly took hold.  The river had made Rodney all that it was, and the river could also take it all away.

Alston's Grocery Store

Rodney's fate was sealed when the railroad chose to make its route ten miles to the east.  Isolated and in decline, its very existence began to be in jeopardy.  In the 1930s, the Mississippi state legislature revoked its status a a township.  Since that time, Rodney has been known as a "ghost town."

Mt. Zion Baptist Church

old hotel

During Welty's visits to Rodney, there was still a small number of people who called Rodney home.  Photographer Marion Post Wolcott would capture their images in photographs taken in the 1940s.  Today just a handful of inhabited buildings remain, most of which are used as hunting camps.

Masonic Lodge

Now there is only one accessible route to Rodney, an old road cut deep out of the loess, turning to mud and gravel towards the end.  After passing through dense woods, it is a shock to emerge suddenly into the cleared remains of the town, a surge of light after darkness.  In Welty's time, though most of the original buildings had fallen victim to fire and flood, at least some still remained.  Now there is almost nothing left.  Just the Presbyterian Church, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, the falling down remnants of an old store and gas pump, a hotel, and the old masonic lodge.  A few more contemporary structures exist as hunting camps.  What time did not destroy was warped and ruined by the 2011 Mississippi River flood.  Though no longer directly on the river, Rodney has always been a victim of its raging waters, enduring flood after flood.

The highest ground is located on a rise just beyond the Presbyterian church, where the dead citizens of Rodney make their home.  Welty referred to the cemetery as the roof of the town.  The old burying ground is more forest than anything else.  Swathes of it have caved into the ravine, stones lie broken and askew, and trees swallow some plots whole.  Stumbling upon a wrought iron fence demarcating a long forgotten gravesite, camellias in bloom all around it, eerily summons the past in the midst of the disorder.  People lived and died here once.  They laughed and danced and buried their dead.  Once there was actual noise here, not just stillness and the ache of wind through the trees.  Bulbs forcing their way up through the soil, narcissus planted by someone's careful hand, contrast starkly with the wild landscape and act as a testament for those long gone.  Vines and brush and bramble turn the cemetery to jungle in the spring and summer, and so the lush landscape and rich Mississippi soil take back what they once gave.

Perhaps it is best to let Eudora have the last word on this place that so captured her heart.  Actually the place itself was not the captivator; it was the memory of the place, the vestiges of a time past, that inspired Welty and continues to bring people deep into a clearing in the woods seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  For Rodney is almost nowhere now, except in one's mind.  "Whatever is significant and whatever is tragic in its story live as long as the place does, though they are unseen, and the new life will be built upon these things---regardless of commerce and the way of rivers and roads and other vagrancies."

All photos taken by Katy Shannon, December 2010.

Sources:

"Old Rodney: A Mississippi Ghost Town" by Howard Milcham
Mississippi: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form by Dunbar Rowland
Some Notes on River Country by Eudora Welty

Rodney, Mississippi: A Fire that Never Goes Out, Part I.

Eudora Welty once wrote, "A place that ever was lived in is like a fire that never goes out."  Demographics, population maps, census figures---all would argue to the contrary.  It takes people to make a place, doesn't it?  But does it matter if those people are long dead?  Can the spirit of a place ever fully be lost?  Is it possible for a place to hold the emotions, memories, and passions of the people who once resided in it long after those people are gone?

I first learned of Rodney, Mississippi through the works of Eudora Welty.  Beginning with "A Worn Path" in my high school American lit class, I progressed to The Optomist's Daughter on my own, and was eventually presented with Welty's marvelous autobiography and testament on a writing life while in college.  My favorite professor happened to be one of the definitive Welty scholars.  Yet none of her works quite ignited my imagination as when I finally read The Robber Bridegroom and her short stories based on Mississippi River Country, as she called it, stories like "A Wide Net," "At the Landing," and "Asphodel."  Entranced by the mythic nature of the Natchez Trace and a colorful history of Mississippi's frontier entitled The Outlaw Years, Welty created fiction that could not really be deemed historical, more of a dream of a time once past, as if fairy tale, history, and folklore collided and produced something not meant to recreate but to inspire.  Welty demonstrates the intermingling of history and literature, the harmonious weaving of fact and fiction into something almost otherworldly.  I cannot recall whether it was my love of literature that led to my love of history or my appreciation for history that spawned my literary obsessions, perhaps because they can never be mutually exclusive.  To say anything of any import as a writer, one must have a sense of history without being held captive by its boundaries.  For me, Welty embodied the truth that comes when history and literature combine.

Eudora Welty, Jackson, MS, 1978 (William Ferris).

Welty traveled to Rodney by herself in the family car.  It was like entering a bygone world, another age.  When she visited Rodney, few people remained, but in her imagination the town and its environs were populated with river pirates, frontiersmen, robbers, Indians, farmers, maidens, and adventurers.  In her mind, she saw more than the vestiges left of the once thriving town.

Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, 1940.

Situated about thirty-two miles northeast of Natchez, Rodney, Mississippi was a bustling river town, one of the most important ports between New Orleans and St. Louis.  Steamboats docked on its banks, carrying cargoes of cotton and statesmen like Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and Zachary Taylor.  Initially known as Petit Gulf for the little eddy in the river before it, in 1828 it was re-christened in honor of Thomas Rodney, a territorial judge of Mississippi who presided over Aaron Burr's trial.  A true frontier town, Rodney attracted bachelors intent on making their fortunes and adventurers setting out to make a new life.  Duels were fought on the sandbar in the river, and people of all backgrounds, classes, and creeds passed through on the many steamboats traveling the mighty river.  

Rodney was a cotton port that grew up in the realm of many large plantations, including Rush Nutt's Laurel Hill, David Hunt's Woodlawn, Zachary Taylor's Buena Vista, and Smith Coffee Daniell's Windsor.  Petit Gulf cotton originated in Rodney and commanded a high price, as it was immune to rot.  Its reputation was particularly well known in England.  Rodney resident and inventor Dr. Rush Nutt also perfected Eli Whitney's cotton gin.

Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, 1940.

Rodney reached its zenith in the 1850s, boasting 1,000 residents, two banks, two newspapers, and a hotel.  The first opera house in the state of Mississippi made its debut at Rodney.  Churches were established, first Rodney Presbyterian in 1829 and later Sacred Heart Catholic Church and Mt. Zion Baptist Church.  The town suffered from fire, yellow fever epidemics, and cholera outbreaks, yet always managed to rebound thanks to King Cotton and the greatest of rivers.

Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, 1940.

During the Civil War, Rodney and its environs were involved in Grant's campaign to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg.  Control of the Mississippi River and its ports was crucial to a Union victory.  On Sunday, September 12, 1863, the Union gunboat the Rattler was stationed at Rodney.  Twenty-four of its sailors came ashore to worship at Rodney Presbyterian church only to discover themselves being ambushed by Lieutenant Allen and his cavalry.  The Confederates burst into the service and called for the immediate surrender of the Union sailors.  Shots were fired, the congregation ducked under the pews, and a melee ensued.  The Union gunboat fired on the Presbyterian church, resulting in a shell lodging in its brick facade.

Such drama seemed fitting for the rough and tumble port town of Rodney.  Yet its future held mostly silence and solitude.  In due time, the once thriving town would be swallowed up by the landscape surrounding it.