Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-08-30
The Jesuits In New OrIeaBs-Their
work AS Farmers and Mission
=. WHITMOkE,
Publisher and Proprietor.

The Jesuits In New OrIeans-Thetr
work as Farmers and Mission
aries.
A correspondent of the Louisville
Courier.Journal, writing from New Or
leans says: The Jesuit fathers came
here in IT'S. There were Capuchins
here already. Their domirion extended
away up the Mississippi past your town,
and / think was bounded on the north
east by the Wabash they called it
Oubache. But the Capuchin was never
much of teacher; so the French gov
ernor begged for and got Jesuit mis-
sion. The fathers were we'll received,
subsidized, salaried and granted splen-
did tract of swamp land. They did
more literal than 6gurative sowing of
seed. Their immense plantation lay
Just outside the city's southern wall, sep
arated by camel, where now lies Canal
street. They knew nothing of the coun-
try, and found the settlers reasoning
from supposed analogies, that indigo
and coffee ought to be the staple crops
But they went to work as Jesuits do,
and became, may truly say, the school
masters of agriculture in louisiana
They had the best crops of coffee, the
finest yields Of indigo, and did still bet
ter in finally abandoning their culture.
To them the State owes the introduc-
ton of her greatest products-the fig,
the orange and the sugar cane. The
mission throve.
Though the Franciscans had the ex.
elusive colonial right to preach, their
shrewd brothers contrived to make the
privilege dead letter, and preached the
word with much of the vim that charac-
terized their plowing and planting. Time
came-there's the music-time came,
say, when they had much goods laid
up for many years. From the windows
OF their staunch brick storehouses they
could look out upon broad stretches Of
indigo, bright, green patches. Of cane,
groves Of orange and clumps of figs and
tbe gigantic pecan. Down at Gentilly
thew made little village, and another
at Bayou St. John, near the present
bavou bridge. Then came the edict of
Clement xiv, banishing the Society OF
,Tesuits from the states and dependencies
of Christendom; the fathers of the Lou
isiana mission went into exile, and all
they had passed under the government
hammer. Their lands are now in the
very heart of New Orleans. The stores
warehouses, theaters, churches, hotels
and factories that cover that old planta-
tation are worth millions of dollars. The
old Canal Bank, once on Magazine
street, was built over the site Of one Of
their magazines. The St. Charles hotel
stands in the heart of their once fertile
fields, and the first Presbyterian church
ever built in New Orleans, corner of
Union and st. Charles, rose partly on
the old foundations of one of their store
houses. The whole estate was bought
for $lS0,00
The mission remained disestablisked
until about l84S. In that year, if re-
member right, there came, including lay
members, a party Of thirteen, and rented
a house on the corner of Common and
Baronne streets. Their school was well
patronized; they replaced the house
with better one of brick; a few years
after they built separate school.house,
went on growing, were recruited from
Europe, and finally built their church,
giving it the same name as that Of their
college, the Immaculate Conception. Its
interior is very beautiful; arcades of
light, clustered columns, moresque
arches, rich ornamentations of arabesque
and open work, and majestic dome,
under which stands the altar. This is
now the most fashionable Catholic
church. the cathedral hardly excepted,
in the city. The American Catholics
affect it aIdently. and great numbers of
the aristocratie French are regular at
tendantg.