LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / October 13, 1999

GARYVILLE – San Francisco Plantation’s assets are slowly returning to the house, including a cane harvester family house and the old schoolhouse originally moved from the Garyville area more than 20 years ago.

The old house, described as “slave quarters” by the plantation’s operations manager Jennifer Rutledge, was moved Tuesday morning from its site at Janice Lane and River Road in LaPlace.

An old schoolhouse, said to be one of the first public schools in St. Johnthe Baptist Parish, is due to be moved this morning.

Both buildings were donated by Minnette Montegut on behalf of the family of her late husband, Criswell Montegut, of Elvina Plantation to San Francisco Plantation.

Montegut contested the claim that the house was ever “slave quarters,” and insisted, rather, that it was a two-family house for workers involved in cane harvesting.

Montegut said the house is the last remaining of at least 15 similar houses which once stood in a four-acre tract near the plantation. All ofthe houses dated back to the 1830s, according to historical architecture consultant, Henry Krotzer, who participated in the restoration of San Francisco in the 1970s.

Montegut herself has a connection to San Francisco as well, as her mother’s grandfather, Amadee Papet, ran a private school for the owner’s children in the late 1800s.

The four-room house moved Tuesday morning was last occupied seven years ago, Montegut added. It was shifted off its foundation onto a truckoperated by Nick Martinolich Inc. of Thibodaux and carried to CardinalStreet to Airline and to its new home.

Once at San Francisco, the house will be repaired, stablized and restored.

A plaque containing the names of all slaves at the plantation during 1830 to 1856 will be placed in front.

“We’ll replace the chimney and restore the roof,” Rutledge said, adding originally it did not have a front porch.

The old schoolhouse, which once served Union Plantation, is due to be moved this morning from its present site near the levee across from Willow Street and River Road.

That two-room, 1840s-era building was one of the first public school buildings in St. John Parish and used to be next door to San Francisco atUnion Plantation.

Back in the 1960s, Criswell Montegut purchased the old LaPlace train station for $75 and spent another $250 to move it to his yard. Years later,it took another $2,500 to move it to its present site at the rear of the same yard.

Rutledge said that she’s excited about the moves and about the excellent condition of both buildings.

“Nothing we build today will last that long,” she said.

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