Louisiana Plantations

In 1860, just before the start of the Civil War on both sides of the  Mississippi River from the top of Louisiana down to the Gulf of Mexico you would find 70% of all the millionaires in the United States lived on plantations along the river. 

This map was made just before the civil war and was hidden in the attic because it showed where all the plantation owners lived along the river.  It was found by accident during renovations.

These were beautiful homes but they are at least 150 years old or older.  So they did not have electricity or air conditioning.  To cool the houses they had lots of windows that they could open up on both sides of the house so the breeze would go through.

Not all of the plantation houses were huge buildings but they were all reflective of the family's status and tastes.  

The chair in the center of the parlor are connected together.  It is a courting chair. It is designed so a young woman and her beau could talk together properly without touching while courting.

  

Entertaining was very important.  This is not the everyday dinner table.  This was used to impress visitors and 4 hour meals with 9 courses would not be uncommon.   

The houses had very few clothes closets because they would be taxed as a full size room.  So they would purchase these beautiful furniture pieces to store their clothes.

Nottoway

Nottoway is the largest surviving plantation houses along the Mississippi River.  It has 53,000 sq. ft.  60+ rooms 200+ windows.

This place was incredible to visit.

This is the mail floor parlor / ball room.  Yes, it had a white painted floor.  Look at the top of the columns.

The ceilings are 15 feet high and the doors are at least 11 feet high.

Read more about Nottoway .http://www.nottoway.com/html/nottoway-plantation-history.htm

Slavery

The Plantations were beautiful and the owners became millionaires but all of this wealth was earned by the labor of slaves.  

Slaves were bought and sold just like cars 

Slaves were not paid for working but laws were made that stated the owner would have to properly feed, clothe, care for and provide housing.  A family of slaves should have a minimum of a 16' x 16' house

Guess what size this little cabin is?

Most slaves were treated fairly well because they were very expensive.  A strong young field slave could cost more than $50,000 (in today's dollars).  You wanted to protect that investment.  

The punishment for a slave who tried to run away or who disobeyed was usually whipping.  

The whipping would be very painful and leave scars.

These were chains that were used to control slaves.   Some owners were very cruel. Others were very fair to there slaves.  The owner of Nottoway was one of the good owners.  When the civil war started and President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation  The owner of Nottoway could have sold all of his 150 slaves to a plantation owner in Cuba.  Instead he freed all of his slaves and hired those who wanted to work for him. Most chose to stay and work for him.

Search Google:  Emancipation Proclamation?

Search Google:  Abraham Lincoln

Search Google:  Civil War 

Search Google:  Louisiana Plantations

Love Grandpa & Grandma

The Pirate of the Pacific

USS KIDD (DD-661)

Fletcher class Destroyer

Another ship! Grandpa Loves old ships.  Especially one that has such a great history as this one.  

Please read the history about this ship:http://www.usskidd.com/hist661.html

If you served aboard a destroyer during WWII you were going to be in the middle of the fight.  The destroyers were small, fast and very maneuverable.  It was their job to protect the bigger ship and aircraft carriers from submarines, or enemy aircraft.  They also rescued the pilots who were shot down over water.  In two months the Kidd rescued 35 pilots & crew from the water.

The destroyers may have been small but they were very dangerous.  Destroyers would even attack battleships dodging the big guns to get close enough to fire their torpedoes.  Grandma is standing by the torpedo launcher that could swing left or right and shoot over the side of the destroyer.

Destroyers also hunted and destroyed submarines.  They had lots of depth charges that would be dropped from the back of the ship or shot from the sides on launchers like this.  

Just before the depth charge was dropped or launched a sailor would set the fuse to the depth that the charge would be set to explode.

The Kidd was hit by a Kamikaze airplane on the side of the ship between the two smoke stacks. This killed 38 and wounded 55 sailors. 

Cajun Country, Louisiana

We spent a few days in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  Our first day we spent exploring the town.  We walked down an area of town that had some very old houses that were at least 110 years old. 

The next day we spent the whole day in the motor home because it was raining hard most of the day.

What is Grandma looking at?

BIRDS!

Grandma Carol is looking out over the Louisiana Sabine National Wildlife Refuge.  That's a very fancy name for swamp lands.  The swamp went for miles in every direction.  

Learn more about this fascinating area.

http://www.creolenaturetrail.org/

The swamp is home to thousands of birds.  Aunt Barbara would have been proud of us.  We even brought a spotting scope.  We saw many beautiful bird but they were too far away to take pictures.

Louisiana is also famous for it's ALLIGATORS !

I wonder why this alligator is smiling?

This is a baby gator that Carol found in the grass. It is about 10 inches long.

This is the biggest gator we saw and it was also the closest!  I took this picture from inside the car about 10 yards away.....and that was too close!  I'm sure it weighed over a hundred pounds.

Google search Alligators 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_alligator

Did you know that there are 10 alligators for every person in Louisiana?  That's a lot of gators.  Especially since they were almost hunted into extinction.  

We spent the whole day out in the swamp lands. We didn't get back to the motor home until after dark. Driving home we saw this beautiful sunset.

Driving along the Louisiana Coast we came to a small beach town that was completely destroyed by hurricane Rita.  It is called Holly beach.  They are starting to rebuild

Why are all the homes built on stilts?  

Google: Hurricane Rita

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/special-reports/rita.html

The Storm Surge was 20 feet high.  Anything less than 20 feet above sea level was swept away.

Tomorrow we are driving to Baton Rouge.

Love Grandpa & Grandma

Battleship Texas

The Battleship Texas

View Fall 2011 Great Adventure in a larger map

Another Ship!

Grandpa must really like to crawl around old ships.

This battleship is one hundred years old.  They started to build it in 1911.  It was finished in 1914 just in time for WW I.  These big ships were built around 10 big canons.  There are four in the front, two in the middle and 4 in the back of the boat.  

These are the four on the back of the ship.  Those barrels shoot a 14" diameter shell that weighs 1,500 lb. They keep these shells in the bottom of the ship under the guns.

We are now 4 decks below the gun in the ammunition magazine.  This shell is ready to be pulled up 4 decks through this tube to the gun turret by a cable winch.

You also needed a lot of gunpowder to propel this shell.  From a fireproof room (the Powder magazine) the sailors that were called Powder Monkeys would pass 100 pound bags of powder through a fireproof door one at a time.  It works like the mail box at the post office. These bags of powder went up another tube four decks to the gun turret.

This is inside the front gun turret and we are looking at the back of one of the 14" big guns.  To fire this gun the 1,500 lb shell  comes up from down below on a winch cable.  They put it on this brass slide and push it into the back of the gun with the brass ram rod you see on the slide.  Then they pass up four bags of powder that weigh 100 pounds each and push them into the gun.

Then they close the breach with this massive bolt and fire.

What a BANG!  Those shells would go about 12 miles and make a very big hole in whatever they hit.

Grandma and Grandpa went on a special tour of the Texas.  We went down deep inside the ship into many places where you normally don't get to go.  In one area near the bow (front) I could look through a floor hatch and see the very bottom of the ship.

Everyone had to wear a hard hat and bring a flashlight.  Grandpa brought two (just in case)  The pictures look bright because of the camera flash but the areas were often very dimly lit.

 We climbed down through hatchways and stairs.

This is one of the main walk ways from the bow to the stern below the waterline.

I'm at the bottom of the stairs looking at someone climbing down. This is an "air tight" staircase that could be sealed off at the top or bottom.  Down these stairs was a very important part of the ship.  The boiler room. This was the only escape route for the boiler room sailors.

During a battle the boilers would be going full blast this room would get very hot.  It would get over 100 degrees and the sailors would be soaked in sweat.  They hoped that everything was going ok in the battle because if the ship was hit and started to sink or burn there was very little chance that they would be able to get out of the boiler room alive.

All of the hatches (doors) are shut during battle.

These are some of the old stairs we went up and down.

There are a LOT of electrical wires and pipes going every which way.

The Texas did not have automatic switches.  Each circuit was opened or closed by hand.

1,800 men were onboard the Texas so there were bunks like this placed every where they could find some space.  You had a small locker somewhere near your bunk to keep all your stuff.

This small area is the Bridge where the Captain would direct the ship in battle. There was an armored bridge below this one but you couldn't see very well so it was not used very often.  One sailor called the Helmsman would steer the ship with the brass wheel. Another sailor would be stationed at the telegraph on the right side of the wheel.  The only sailor to die on the Texas was standing at the wheel when a German shore battery fired a shell that hit just underneath where he was standing.  In the same battle shell hit and went through several decks and landed in the Chief Petty Officers bunk but did not explode.....Whew.....!!!!

Three 5" guns pointed out each side of the Texas. 

The Texas also had plenty of smaller guns too.

The Texas was very old style battleship.  It was so old that it was scheduled to be scrapped in 1940.   The start of WWII changed those plans.  The US needed every ship that they could get.  The Texas was old but it still had big guns, so off to war it went.  It served in many areas.  It fired shells at Normandy beach on D-day trying to destroy the German heavy shore gun batteries. It also fired at Iwo Jima, and Okinawa during the marine landings there  

Read more about the Texas

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/battleship_texas/hist.phtml

 The big Texas 14" guns are aimed right towards a very tall monument.  What is that monument and why is it so important to the people of Texas?

Hint....it has something to do with the Alamo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution

Love Grandpa & Grandma