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Cane River Cachet - April 9, 2002
By Ada D. Jarred
“A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces,
An airline ticket to romantic places,
And still my heart has wings;
These foolish things remind me of you....”
These are merely the opening lines of “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)”by Holt Marvell, Jack Strachey, and Harry Link--a song filled with images that evoke memories of earlier, romantic times.
Architectural details are not foolish, but they also summon and even provide proof of the past.
Historic buildings are tangible evidence of our past, as diverse in architecture as our ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) records these structures to learn what they teach of the past and to guarantee their appreciation by future generations.
The Cane River area has a long and productive relationship with the Historic American Buildings Survey. Since the founding of HABS by the National Park Service in 1933, representatives of the program have visited the Natchitoches region and recorded numerous drawings and histories of historic properties of the region.
HABS was created as a work program for architects, draftsmen and photographers unemployed during the Great Depression. The purpose was to compile an archive of America’s historic architecture and to establish a collection of primary source material for the young historic preservation movement.
In 1934 the Library of Congress and the American Institute of Architects agreed to cosponsor the HABS project. The National Park Service oversees the HABS program with congressionally appropriated funds and donations from individuals, groups, and other agencies. The National Park Service also sets standards for the work and directs the deposit of records in the Library of Congress, which preserves the records, makes them available for study and supplies reproductions to the public as requested. The American Institute of Architects supplies professional counsel to the program.
A HABS team may have first visited Natchitoches during the 1940s. The group’s interest in the dilapidated Lemee House alerted local residents to the significance of the structure and subsequently lead to the purchase of the property by the City of Natchitoches.
Much HABS work is accomplished today through the summer recording program that employs architectural, architectural history, and other students to replace the architects of the 1930s. The students are guided by trained project supervisors and Washington staff, thus providing experience for careers in architecture and historic preservation.
Such a team of students worked in the Cane River National Heritage Area during the summer of 2001, drawing detailed plans of an Oakland Plantation privy and a chicken coop, the Coincoin-Prudhomme House (Maison de Marie Therese), the Texas and Pacific Railway Depot, the Piece-Sur-Piece Building, and the Robieu-Jones House. They also developed written histories of the Coincoin-Prudhomme House, the Piece-Sur-Piece Building, and the Robieu-Jones House.
Students on the team were as varied as their assignments. The group was composed of field supervisor Caroline E. Wright (Tulane University); architectural technicians Edward A. Pillsbury (Virginia Tech), Katalin Maksay (ICOMOS/Romania), and Maciej Gruszecki (ICOMOS/Poland); as well as project historian Jon Lamar Wilson (University of Mississippi).
Wright, now employed as an architectural intern by the Cane River National Heritage Area, said “It was quite an experience to have such a wide range of people, several of whom never expected to be working in a small town in the American South.” She also pointed out that numerous local residents never expected to come in contact with someone from Romania or Poland, either.
The team’s final products included a full-size set of measured drawings on vellum, a set of reduced copies of the measured drawings, and one copy each of three written reports. Copies of the drawings and histories are now available at the Cane River National Heritage Area office and at the Library of Congress.
Perhaps you’re wondering, why would such a group waste time on such mundane structures as a chicken coop and a privy? The original HABS mission statement directs, “...The survey shall cover structures of all types from the smallest utilitarian structures to the largest and most monumental. Buildings of every description are to be included so that a complete picture of the culture of the times as reflected in the buildings of the period may be put on record.”
So the 2001 HABS team dealt with quite an array of Cane River area buildings, ranging from agrarian “smallest utilitarian structures” at Oakland Plantation to the ornate, Italianate railway depot in urban Natchitoches.
What did we learn from a few of the architectural details noted by this latest HABS team? In the case of the Coincoin-Prudhomme House, the original house, in which Marie Thereze Coincoin may have lived, likely was constructed between 1788 and 1794. The house that stands on the property today “is a one-and-half-story raised Creole plantation house with an asymmetrical two-cell Norman plan comprised of a salle (the largest room) and a chamber (the smaller room).” An analysis of the hardware reveals that the house may have been built using the foundation and possibly the walls of an earlier house of Marie Thereze Coincoin, or that it was a new construction built by the Prudhommes on the previous location of Coincoin’s house.
The Piece-Sur-Piece Building, which dates from the mid-nineteenth century, was originally part of the Cloutier and then the Doucournau Plantation. It was probably used to house slaves. The name denotes the type of construction, a building “that incorporated log cabin notching techniques on finely finished hewn timbers that were flushed on all four sides to fit together without the need for chinking.” Once quite common on Louisiana plantations, this type of outbuilding has only a few extant examples in the state.
“The Robieu-Jones House is the oldest extant full-story raised Creole plantation home in Natchitoches Parish.” Erected about 1818, the raised house has walls of brick masonry on the ground floor and walls of bousillage on the main level. The hipped roof reaches 11 feet beyond the exterior walls, resulting in a full-length gallery. The dormers on the roof are later additions, as is the current staircase in the center of the northeast side.
All of these details and many more add much to our knowledge and understanding of the history of the Cane River area, thanks to the Historic American Buildings Survey. And our relationship with HABS continues. Another student team will visit and record additional buildings in the summer of 2002. They will be arriving in June, according to Nancy Morgan, executive director of the Cane River National Heritage Area.
A rare opportunity for you to hear directly from HABS will occur on Wednesday, April 17, 7:30 pm at the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training. Jack Boucher, a HABS photographer for 40 years, will speak on “Preserving the Past: HABS and the Cane River.” His illustrated lecture will use images to evoke American history as it is tangibly reflected in American structures.
As the song concludes, “Oh, how the ghost of you clings! These foolish things remind me of you.” Come have your memory of history refreshed by details of historic American buildings .
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