St. Joseph Plantation has a long and rich history

St. Joseph Plantation has long and rich history

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By Pamela Folse

y first visit to the St. Joseph Plantation house was in the late 1970s when I rode with a friend to pick up some freshly made, piping hot vegetable soup made by Miss Blanche Simon. Just a few years earlier, the school bus that I rode stopped in what was then referred to as the “quarters” there to pick up students of families who were either related to the owners or worked for them.

Tante Blanche, as she was called, lived alone in her section of the house. I could tell that she lived very simply, with only the minimal amenities. She made a pot of soup every day and was not stingy about sharing. At one time, two families shared the house and there were enough children to fill the home with life and wonder.

Miss Blanche was the last person to live in the house that was initially built about 1830 by the Scioneaux family using slave labor.

One of the nation’s well-known architects, Henry Hobson Richardson, was born at St. Joseph in 1838. Dr. Cazamire Mericq, in 1840, purchased the house from the Scioneaux family and later sold to Alexis Ferry and his wife, Josephine, using her dowry money from her father, Gabriel Valcour Aime. Aime was once proclaimed the Louis XIV of Louisiana. He discovered a way to process sugarcane which he perfected on the grounds of his plantation. At one time, he was thought to be the wealthiest man in the state of Louisiana. Legend holds that he invited friends and businessmen to his mansion and offered them a rolled up fifty-dollar bill to light their cigars. His own Le Petit Versailles plantation was located just downriver. There is a historical marker along Hwy. 18, River Road, in Vacherie to mark the former location of the Aime mansion which burned in 1920. Many say Aime died of a broken heart following the death of his son who never recovered from a bad bout of pneumonia.

Blanche Simon lived alone, with minimal amenities, in her section of the St. Joseph Plantation house. She was known for sharing the pots of soup she prepared daily.

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Old slave cabins sit on the St. Joseph Plantation grounds.

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Gorgeous oaks frame back the facade of St. Joseph Plantation. The plantation is located at 3535 River Road in Vacherie.

After the end of the Civil War and the devastation it caused, Joseph Waguespack purchased the plantation at a sheriff’s sale.

The house has been in the family ever since. Located next door is the sister plantation, Felicite’, built in 1850 with the dowry from Josephine’s sister who married Septime Fortier.

Fortier bought Felicite’ in 1899, and in 1901 the two plantations were combined to for St. Joseph Planting and Manufacturing Co., Ltd. St. Joseph is still a working sugar cane farm, farming over 2,500 acres of cane each year. The plantation store, although now closed, is located in a deep bend in River Road between the two plantations.

St. Joseph remained closed in the 1970s following the death of Miss Blanche until it was reopened for tours in 2005.

Felicite’ has been vacant since the death of Stanislaus Waguespack and his wife, the former Irma Hickson Waguespack, who died in 2008.

Both plantation houses and grounds have been featured in movies and television for many years. The thriller Skeleton Key was filmed at Felicite’. Other movies set at the Vacherie properties include Twelve Years a Slave, All the King’s Men, Underground and Mudbound. The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) drama Queen Sugar has completed its fourth season of filming at St. Joseph Plantation, Edgard and New Orleans.

Each October, St. Joseph offers a Creole Mourning Tour to help tourists learn about the creole customs and superstitions following death. A cast of re-enactors portray the family of Dr. Cazamir Mericq, whose corpse is laid out four mourners to visit.

St. Joseph Plantation is open daily. Tours are offered on the hour beginning at 10 a.m. The final for of the day begins at 3 p.m.

Admission is $20 per adult and $13 per student. Group and organization discounts do apply. In addition to touring the 16-room mansion, visitors can learn how sugar cane is grown, harvested and processed. The outside kitchen, implement shed, the plantation bell and some of the remaining slave cabins are all open to tourists. While visiting tourists may be reminded of the smells of Tante Blanche’s homemade soup and the sounds of all the children who once ran up and down the steps or played on the front lawn.

The family hopes to open adjacent Felicite’ to the public soon.

The outside kitchen sits near the St. Joseph Plantation house.

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