But these thirty had not died in vain, for this disaster focused considerable attention to the then state of affairs which had existed for many years. In the race between competing steamboats, to shorten the time between destinations, little thought was given by the owners, for safety. Since the year 1810 over 200 vessels on the Mississippi had thus come to grief, with a loss of over a thousand lives. The average life of these vessels was less than four years, and remains of wrecked and burnt hulls were not an uncommon sight along the river banks. In the following year, stringent laws were enacted to prevent the recurrence of such calamities. The currents and eddies of the Mississippi River rarely gives up its dead, and Nathan's body was never recovered. He was survived by his widow, and son Isaac E., several sisters, a brother, Joseph Dayton Morse, of "Morse's Mills" in New Jersey, and a score of relatives and friends. His mother had died the year before. "Thus perished, with others", according to the newspaper accounts of Nathan's death, "one of the noblest specimens of humanity the race could boast, filling large circles in the higher walks, and crowds in the lower, with grief and sadness." And Isaac E., returned from abroad to his widowed mother at the now desolate home on Rampart Street. The house once a place so lively with entertainment and gaiety, seemed now hopelessly forlorn. On every wall and in every corner were mementos of Nathan's. The two great paintings by Jarvis, one of Chief Justice John Marshall, and the other of Isaac E. as a young school-boy in New Jersey, as well as the two portraits of Nathan himself and his wife, looked down upon a sad group. Even the Duncan-Phyfe table, the wedding gift to Martha from old Dr. Morse, seemed in grief and the two French clocks, encased in glass, on each mantel-piece seemed anxious to turn their hands to the happy days that went before. A constant stream of relatives and friends came to pay their respects; the Nicholls, the Marshes, the Wederstrandts and others. But most of all, those very close friends with whom the Morses had been associated for so long: the Wederstrandts. Isaac E., for a year and a half, embarked upon the practice of law in the old office, No. 7-Bourbon Street, where a few years before he had studied with his father as preceptor. His efforts were attended with not a little success, and among his first cases was the claim of the American citizens in the Island of Nassau off the Florida coast, whose slaves had just been emancipated by order of the British government. * (Appendix 98) Perhaps he also parti cipated in some of the wild land speculation that was then so rampant in and around New Orleans. In search of surcease from his sorrows he soon again started attendance at the balls, the theatre and the race track. Amateur theatricals at that time began to take a real hold on the citizens of New Orleans and in these Isaac E. often took a leading role. Among his fellow participants were the Misses Smith, Rowe, Harting and Higgins; and several of the young men of his own age, such as Pritchard, Porre, Lea, Boyd, Cenas, and Kennedy. It was the custom for these performances to begin at six o'clock, and the proceeds were appropriated for local charity. "Every One Has His Faults", "Sprigs of Laurel", and "Honeymoon" were some of the titles of these entertainments. It was in this year, 1835, that all New Orleans was stirred by a dreadful discovery. An early morning fire in the dwelling in Royal Street of Madame Lalaurie, disclosed a terrible tragedy. The perverted mentality of this supposedly normal and well-received woman was horribly exposed. The intense cruelty that she inflicted on her innocent slaves, victims of her mental abnormality, was a hideous chapter in New Orleans history. Henceforth the "Haunted House" has been a conspicuous sight in the Crescent city. Since returning from Europe, Isaac E. had become closely attached to the charming daughter of old family friends; Margaretta Wederstrandt. They were married at Harlem Plantation on January 8 (the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans), and many of the old and young journeyed thirty-eight miles down the river to attend the festivities at that plantation home. Among the guests was at least one old Harvard chum, J. Bozman Kerr, who had settled in Louisiana four years before. Harlem Plantation, thirty-eight miles below the then city limits of New Orleans, on the left bank of the river, was the usual planter's home of the period. In a modest dwelling, amidst orange and cypress trees, live oaks and magnolias, lived the family of Philemon Charles Wederstrandt, a former officer in the American navy. In 1797 he was one of the initial group of twentyfour midshipmen appointed for the first Navy of the country under the Constitution. As Midshipman, Lieutenant and Master-Commandant, he had participated, aboard several of the old ships of the time, in the undeclared war with France, and the war with Tripoli, and in the former he had received a wound in the battle between his ship "The Constellation" and the French frigate, "La Vengeance". See Appendix 99 He had served both in the Mediterranean and in the upper Atlantic, and Caribbean waters, and in 1808 commanded the American flotilla at New Orleans. Between these naval wars he had often obtained leave of absence to accept appointment as Captain of Merchantmen, and there were few points of the world that he had not seen in war or in peace, either from the deck of a man of war, or from the bridge of an American clipper; and south of India he and his crew narrowly escaped with their lives from a band of murderous pirates. A native of the eastern shore of Maryland, he was related to many of the families of that region, including the Blakes, the Tilghmans, the De Courcys, and the Ringgolds. and the Ringgolds.* Although he had resigned from the Navy some years before the War of 1812, he was again called from his country estate, "Carlton" near Baltimore to serve aboard the U. S. "Java" with the American fleet in the defense of Fort McHenry against the British attack in 1814. He and his brother, with many slaves inherited from his mother's plantation in Maryland, settled in Louisiana and established cotton and sugar plantations. His final establishment was at Harlem Plantation. This estate was over a thousand acres in extent, and employed over a hundred slaves, shipped hogshead after hogshead of sugar to New Orleans from its own port at the levee. But Isaac E. and his young wife, Margaretta, were to reside, for the time being in the Attakapas. Perhaps Judge Porter, the whig planter of that region, had whispered to him of the great political possibilities in that region. Even as a student at Harvard, Isaac E. had promised his classmates that he would some day become a member of the Congress of the United States. The decade that preceeded 1835 was a most important one in the American politics in Louisiana as well as throughout the country at large. The year before, the Whig party had been formed: recruited in great part from discontented sugar planters who felt that Andrew Jackson had done more harm than good by his policies. Judge Porter, the Louisiana Senator, although a Whig, had great respect for his "democratic friends", as he called them; and among these was to be Isaac E. The young couple established themselves in a large comfortable dwelling some four or five blocks from the Courthouse on the main street of St. Martinsville, just 8 miles beyond New Iberia, where Isaac E. was born twenty-six years before, at his grandfather Nicholls plantation home. Their new dwelling, adjoining the property of their friend J. Burton Harrison, was elevated well above the ground by sturdy brick columns and was surrounded by a grove of luxurious trees and foliage. They called it "Locust Lawn". * See Appendix 100 See Appendix 101 |