A visit to the Republic of West Florida AKA St Francisville, Louisiana

St Francisville is a small town on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. Why the Republic of West Florida you ask?  Well let me tell you. In 1810 the citizens of the area known as the Florida parish, rebelled against the Spanish rulers and attacked and captured the Spanish fort in Baton Rouge.  A republic was established under a blue flag with a white star. This independent nation, St Francisville as the capital, complete with a constitution, governor, and small army. The country lasted 74 days before being accepted as a territory of the United States, later to be Florida Parish part of the new state of Louisiana in 1812.

                                             

Although it was Sunday morning, the small town’s people had opened their shops, museums, and churches to welcome the passengers from the steamboat. The steamboat company has buses that follow the boat and at each stop they set up a hop on hop off tour so you can get around and see all the points of interest.  We stayed on the bus for one complete loop of the hop on hop off route.  The town was small and you could walk to almost every point of interest. 

The tour guide on our bus was a local resident and she gave us information about the town and its background, how it was a big plantation area growing cotton and sugar cane. She also talked about how during the Civil War the war came to a stop on April 9th 1863  to hold a funeral  for a Union Admiral. The Admiral requested a traditional Loyal Order of Mason funeral. There was a masonic lodge in St Francisville and contact was made with the Confederate General who agreed to hold the funeral for the Admiral in St Francisville. So on that day the war stopped and the funeral was attended by both Union and Confederate soldiers.  To this day the Admiral is still buried in St Francisville and each year they have a reenactment of the funeral (but of course the person playing the Admiral gets to do it only once, yuk, yuk yuk!) 

Below are some photos of the town that show how they go all out to decorate their houses for Christmas.

    

     

Below is a photo of the second oldest church in the Florida Parish and the adjoining grave yard. The church was hit several times by cannon shells fired from Union gunboats on the Mississippi River.

                    

We returned to our boat just before the sky opened up and poured rain.