Live Oaks Plantation, Rosedale Louisiana

Date added: May 21, 2023 Categories: Louisiana House Plantations & Farms

Live Oaks Plantation House is an example of early Louisiana plantation architecture with its upper and lower galleries, unbroken roofline, and internal architectural details forming a prototype for later, more elaborate, and more refined plantation homes.

The brick slave chapel, the remains of the combination servant quarters and smokehouse, and the evidence of the combination kitchen and servant quarters provide an insight into the domestic arrangements of "influential people" of the period.

Charles H. Dickenson was a part of the family that owned a great deal of Iberville Parish, his guardian was the most extensive property owner in the Parish. Captain Joseph Irwin had become Dickenson's guardian in 1805 when Charles' father was killed by Andrew Jackson.

The senior Dickenson and Jackson were ostensibly dueling over the results of a horse race, but there were definite political overtones. Charles' maternal grandfather became his guardian, and in 1828 deeded to Charles the land for Live Oaks.

The first house built by Charles Dickenson in 1828 consisted of four rooms and reportedly was incorporated into the present structure which was begun in 1835 at the earliest.

The early tomb with its unknown occupants and cast iron caskets is also of interest.

Building Description

Live Oaks Plantation consists of the plantation house and gardens with a slave chapel and the remains of brick slave quarters on the grounds. The present house was built in 1838 by Charles H. Dickinson and is believed to have incorporated an earlier structure.

The house is simple in its architectural lines containing two and one-half stories. Characteristic of Louisiana architecture are the broad double galleries (verandas) extending across the front and supported by six slender square pillars of wood on each level.

The windows across the front extend to the floor. They are ten feet tall and are typical classical double-hung windows. Over eight feet wide including the narrow side lights, they are used interchangeably as doors. The massive double-hinged blinds admit light when opened and provide privacy and ventilation when closed, The plinth blocks and pilasters, the fluting and paneling, are ornamented.

The walls are of cypress timbers resting on large cypress sills raised above ground level. Bricks are stacked to a height of between 2 and 3 feet between the posts on both floors to act as insulation. The walls are all plastered within, faced with beaded ceiling across the front and weather-board elsewhere. The cypress framework is mortised, tenoned, and pegged throughout.

An unusually large hallway divides the downstairs. To the rear it widens to 24 feet where a winding stairway leads to the second floor. The stair lines are graceful and it is suspended from the curved inner will with no support from the floor: numerous mortised 4x 4's hidden in the wall provide that support. The curving mahogany rail was imported from France. It is decorated with a simple scroll design and on the newel post is an ivory button.

There are four large rooms on the ground floor and the same number on the second story, though the two floors are not identical in ground plan. Each room is furnished with a cypress-wood columned mantel of good design with ornament cut in low relief.

The dining room and a bedroom above it upstairs are furnished with French Provincial cupboard presses, built into the walls on each side of the fireplace to conserve space.

The large sliding doors between the parlor and dining room have an arrangement whereby the knobs are concealed in niches with flaps that close to give the frame the appearance of an unbroken surface when the doors are open.

On the other side of the hallway is a room that was either the master bedroom or possibly a study. Double doors from this room lead to a hall opening to the rear with one wall being the curved back of the staircase. The other door opened to a room that may have housed a house-servant with an outside entry. A sneak stairway which no longer exists is referred to in correspondence at the time the house was built and is believed to have been in this room.

On the second floor are three bedrooms with a fireplace in each, a parlor and a large hall at the head of the stairs. From this floor a straight stairway leads to the attic.

In the large attic can be seen the sixty-foot-long rafters and large queen posts all mortised or half-lapped and pegged. The attic is floored and was used for entertainment with a family story relating that on one particular occasion the party involved 150 guests each with a slave in livery to wait on him. An old loom for making cloth still remains in the attic.

All of the door knobs and keyhole plates are silver-plated throughout the house. Most of the hardware throughout is original.

Of the outbuildings, two remain standing. One was originally a combination smoke-house and house-servant quarters. Only one room of the soft brick structure remains. There was a companion structure on the opposite side of the main house which contained the kitchen and additional quarters and. which was connected to the house by a latticed walkway. Remnants of the foundation can still be seen. These buildings were placed in architectural balance to the rear and on each side of the house.

The other building is a brick chapel 160 feet to the side of the house. It was built in 1840 for use by the slaves and was later used for the first schoolhouse in the area and as a church for the Episcopal faith until their own village building was completed in 1859. The latter building also still stands across the bayou and is in regular use as the Episcopal Church of the Nativity.

To the rear of the chapel is a brick tomb that contains unusual cast iron caskets of various shapes and sizes, some shaped like a body. Each has a sliding metal door that covers a small glassed area for viewing the face of the body. The Smithsonian Institution advised that in 1830 100 of this type casket were shipped from Spain to Cuba and entered this country via New Orleans. One is on display at the Smithsonian, one was found at Bastrop, Louisiana, one at Grosse Tete, Louisiana, several at Plaquemine, Louisiana, and one at Huntsville, Alabama. Nine of them reached Live Oaks of which four remain. It is not known for certain who is buried there. The tomb was broken into by Yankee Soldiers looking for treasure and have also been the object of vandalism.