Angelina Plantation, Mt Airy St. John Baptist Parish, Louisiana
Angelina Plantation received its name from Angelina Roussel, probably the daughter of George Roussel and Adelaide Haydel who acquired the property in 1828 from Godfrey Boudousquie. At that time the property contained about fourteen arpents fronting the river which Boudousquie had bought in 1820 from Jean Baptiste Ory. Ory had acquired the property in small parcels over a period of years.
Boudousquie bought the property from Ory for $30,000,00 and sold it two years later for $53,000.00, which would seem to indicate that the property had been considerably improved, possibly by the construction of the plantation buildings.
The two hexagonal dove cotes, which stood on either side at the rear of the house, and the small outbuilding, probably built as a children's playhouse, seem to be of a later date, the detail being typical of the period of 1830 or 1840 in Louisiana. These were probably built by the Roussels who owned the property until 1852 when it was sold by their heirs to Wm. P. Welham and James W. Godberry in partnership, Angelina Roussel was Godberry's wife.
The main house is said to have been built in the fifties by Godberry, probably replacing an earlier structure, This house was demolished, together with one of the dove cotes, in 1950 when the levee was moved back, to its present location.
The doll house was also moved at that time, its large open fireplace and chimney being destroyed. It rested on a crude foundation of bricks and was without a floor. All the windows were gone, the openings being roughly boarded up, and the roof of split cypress shingles was in an extremely bad condition.
Photographs taken by Richard Koch, in 1927, and a plot plan drawn by David Barrow, have made it possible to accurately reconstruct it. The roof is pitched with gables front and rear. The front and sides were divided into three bays, with double-hung windows with wood panels below, between the pilasters. At the rear is an ingle nook which formerly contained the fireplace.
The sides of this nook were weathorboarded and its pitched roof is also of cypress shingles. The brick chimney projected from its ridge and was cemented. The interior was finished with tongue and groove ceiling. The doll house was formerly raised three steps above grade.
The dovecote was demolished in April, 1935. Being of brick, the dove cote was in a better state of preservation than the doll house, although its shingle roof was in very bad condition. The building was hexagonal, of red brick painted with a yellow lime wash. It had a simple wood cornice and a high pyramidal roof of graceful form topped by a fine wrought iron weathervane, a silhouette of a trotting horse. The vane on the dove cote destroyed in 1930 was the conventional cock. The pigeons were housed in the upper portion, holes being provided for them on the three front faces. Access to the roost was by a small door at the rear. Below was a tool room.
