Bocage Plantation

Bocage Plantation began as a Creole cottage, built by Marius Pons Bringier as a wedding gift for his daughter Francoise in 1801.  Francoise (Fanny as she was called) married Christophe Colomb, a French refugee.  Christophe Colomb is a direct descent of Christopher Columbus.  

 

The original house appears to have burned down and a new structure designed by Architect James Dakin was built in 1837.   Bocage was close to ruins when salvaged by Dr. and Mrs. Kohlsdorf in 1941.  

 

Now the house has been lovingly restored by Marion Rundell, M.D.  Some of what you will see in this website will include the condition of the house at various stages of her life.  Engineering principles have been used in the present restoration to resolve many of the issues that continued to wreck havoc on Bocage until 2008.   Modern technology, much of which was not available in 1941, has being incorporated in the renovation, to allow Bocage to survive for centuries, yet no changes of the original 1837 structure have been made beyond what was changed in 1941.  Restoration has been painstakingly done to restore the structure as built in 1837.  The exterior colors seen in the restored plantation were discovered when previous renovations were partially removed uncovering the original plaster.  Interior architectural elements found in the book,  Beauties of Modern Architecture,  1835, by Minard leFevre, have been restored.  Dakin drew many of the architectural elements illustrated in this book.

To appreciate Bocage, one must understand the history of the development of Louisiana, first as a French Province, and then shortly after Bocage was built, as a part of the growing United States of America (Thomas Jefferson bought the property known today as the Louisiana Purchase in 1803).  French, and Spanish, African Americans along with Native Indian influences created the Creole sub-culture.  French influence dominated in 1801, and can still be seen in New Orleans and along the Mississippi River. 

La Salle claimed the land at the mouth of the Mississippi River for France in 1682 but New Orleans was not a permanent settlement until 1718.  New Orleans became the port of entry to the North American Continent before the Louisiana Purchase and Bocage was in existence before the Louisiana Purchase. With New Orleans as major sea port, settlers and wealthy merchants began moving up the River developing plantations along its banks.  The River was the principle source of transportation.  The original crops were indigo and sugar cane and sugar cane remains a major crop today.   

Significant events starting in the 1790s increased development and prosperity:

1.  In the late 1700s Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin.

2. Etienne de Boire developed, in New Orleans, a process to granulate sugar (Imperial Sugar is processed today just below Bocage on the Mississippi River).

3. In 1803,  Thomas Jefferson, for the newly formed United States of America, bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon.

4. In 1811 Robert Fulton invented the steamboat. Earlier in England, James Watt worked on converting the steam engine from vertical motion to rotary motion.

The lower Mississippi Delta (south Louisiana) had prime agricultural land, technology, an influx of new "Americans" and the Mississippi River was the principle transportation highway.

 

More History