On a day that was “uninterruptedly serene, seasonable and delicious,” Catherine and her seven-year-old daughter made their way to City Hall. The Greek-Revival edifice was imposing, but Catherine knew their task must be completed. The Picayune extolled the day’s “true autumn weather” calling it, “genial, bracing, and inspiring.” Still Catherine found it a far cry from the autumn days of her girlhood in Virginia. Those days were so long ago she could barely remember them. She was born a slave. Now she was a free woman and had to appear at City Hall to register in the mayor’s office as such.
Atlas of the City of New Orleans Louisiana (Robinson Atlas) - Plate 7 , Part of 2nd District New Orleans
For decades free people of color arriving in New Orleans from outside the state had to put their names in the books kept at City Hall. Now that the state legislature was intent upon stripping free people of color of their rights and did its best to make life difficult for them, officials were cracking down on those who violated regulations. So to be in compliance with the law Catherine and her daughter needed to register. It was just the two of them; like the older brother he never met, Edgard had died in infancy.
The clerk recorded the date: September 26, 1859. Mother and daughter were listed under different names. Mary Virginia Becnel, a seven-year-old quadroon born in St. John the Baptist parish, had the court case that freed her written beside her name. Lezin Becnel’s name was there as her former owner, not as her father, but the reality would have been obvious to the clerk. She was employed as a seamstress, probably trained by her mother, whose value as an expert seamstress had taken her far. Catherine gave her own name as Catherine Parker, a mulatto woman and keeper of furnished rooms. Having done what they came to do, they stepped out onto Lafayette Square to the sight of a brilliant rainbow. If only it were a harbinger of good things to come.
Lezin’s death had left her in a precarious situation. Though never legally married, she considered him her husband. After all, it was against the law for them to wed; a woman of color, even if she were free, could not become the wife of white man in antebellum Louisiana. The law even prevented him from leaving money to her in his will, as she would be considered his “concubine” and Virginia alias Eugenie his illegitimate daughter, not entitled to a share of his estate. Lezin’s sons, Lezin III and Michel, inherited the plantation. There was no place for her there. She would seek opportunity in New Orleans, a place where she and her daughter could blend in while pursuing means of employment lacking in the rural parishes.
While Eugenie took in sewing, Catherine was no longer employed as a seamstress. Instead she had become a keeper of furnished rooms. She rented rooms out to lodgers from 9 Basin Street. It would seem that Lezin Becnel must have given her some money to enable her to do this, although it would not have been included in the succession but given as cash. New Orleans in the 1850s was booming, and transients constantly passed through the city on business. They needed a place to stay, so hotels, boardinghouses, and furnished rooms were always full. Hotels and boardinghouses required licenses and had to adhere to certain regulations, whereas furnished rooms did not, making it an ideal occupation for free women of color with limited resources. Boardinghouses involved serving meals, whereas furnished rooms were exactly as they sounded: a room with a bed and other furniture. Even though Catherine did not have to provide meals to her lodgers, she did have a significant amount of work to do to maintain her business. She would have a spent a great deal of time sweeping and scrubbing floors, changing and laundering linens, emptying chamber pots, cleaning windows and beating carpets, and performing the day to day tasks that kept the home clean and comfortable. It was not easy work, but it was certainly better than work in the sugar cane fields of the plantation she had left behind. She was a free woman and was paid money in exchange for her work for the first time in her life.
The third volume of the Register of Free Colored Persons Entitled to Remain in the State was produced by the New Orleans Mayor's Office between 1859 and 1861. Free people of color who were not born in the City of New Orleans, or who were born in the Parish of Orleans and were emancipated after birth, were required to register with the Mayor's Office as free people of color. See Louisiana Digital Library.
Catherine had help with her business, free labor in the form of an enslaved woman. How Catherine came to own a slave remains unclear. Perhaps Lezin Becnel gave her the twenty-year-old enslaved woman before his death. Or did Catherine purchase her herself? The 1860 slave schedule recorded that Catherine, a former slave, now owned a twenty-year-old woman and a one-year-old girl, presumably the woman’s daughter. In Catherine’s world, there was nothing unusual about free people of color owning slaves. This was part of the reality of life in antebellum New Orleans.
Courtesy of the Louisiana State Museum
The home Catherine occupied and from which she rented rooms was located at Number 9 Basin Street just across from the railroad station, situated between Canal and Customhouse [now Iberville] Streets. The property was described as a “large and comfortable two-story frame residence. . .having a large hall, double parlors, dining-room, kitchen, pantry, washroom below; large and comfortable bedrooms, halls, and servants’ room above; cistern, large yard, etc.”
The location brings with it some possible implications. In March 1857, just a couple of years before Catherine moved to New Orleans, the City Council passed “An Ordinance concerning Lewd and Abandoned Women,” also known as the Lorette Law. This ordinance was meant to limit prostitution by taxing brothel keepers in certain areas, making prostitution not as visible but still legal. There were sixteen acts in this ordinance, but the most important aspect of the law was that it sought to contain prostitution within certain accepted vice areas. The Lorette Law attempted to push prostitution and vice from the riverfront and most of the French Quarter into “Back of Town.” One of the most significant areas in which prostitution was legal was on the lakeside (then known as the swamp side) of Basin Street between Canal Street and Toulouse, with a concentration around Customhouse [now Iberville]. This was the exact location in which Catherine had chosen to establish herself as a keeper of furnished rooms. “Furnished rooms” could sometimes be a euphemism for a brothel, but not always. Whether or not Catherine was involved in this activity is unknown, but even if she herself did not participate, she would have been in a hotbed of prostitution, surrounded by brothel keepers and women who plied their trade. Part of this area would later be known as Storyville, New Orleans’s notorious red light district and the birthplace of jazz.
Why had Catherine assumed the surname Parker? Records indicate that she had begun a relationship with Edward Parker, captain of the steamboat Piota. Parker was over fifty and a native of London. Catherine probably met Parker when he applied to her for lodging. As a steamboat captain, he would not have needed to maintain a regular residence, since he was continually traveling. A Baton Rouge newspaper described him as “one of the oldest and best of our steamboat captains.” He owned half a share of the steamboat Piota. Captain Parker supervised its construction in Louisville, having it built expressly for the Red River trade. It cost almost $50,000, had a 190 foot long hull, 26-feet boilers, and was capable of carrying 2,500 bales of cotton. The papers described the Piota as a potential “New Candidate for Public Favor,” as the boat had “one of the richest and rarest carpets, with splendid curtains and linen sheeting.” According to the New Orleans Crescent, “Her state-rooms are all large, and with every convenience attached to them.” The vessel would make regular trips from New Orleans to Grand Ecore, Natchitoches, Alexandria, and other landings along the Red River.
In June 1859, just a few months before Catherine registered as a free woman of color at the mayor’s office, Captain Parker’s fortunes took a heavy loss. The Piota caught on fire at twelve o’clock in the afternoon just below Carrollton. Captain Parker was up on the hurricane deck facing a furious wind. Sparks from opening the furnace doors had been blown by the wind onto a large quantity of dry pinewood they had just taken aboard. Disaster ensued. The strong winds rapidly spread the flames, and Captain Parker ordered the Piota to be run ashore. According to the Picayune, “so rapid was the sweep of the flames and dense and stifling the smoke, that all that could be done was to save the lives of those on board.” Parker watched as his investment burned at the water’s edge; it had cost close to $50,000 and was insured for only $15,000. Of the forty passengers on board, only one was lost: Andrew, the enslaved pastry cook belonging to Captain Parker, who jumped overboard and drowned.
Perhaps the harrowing experience and the financial loss were all too much for him. Captain Edward Parker died on November 20, 1859. His time with Catherine had been short-lived. Her life seemed to consist of almost constant burials and grief. Yet she was a resourceful woman, had adapted time and time again during the many sales she endured while enslaved, and she would continue to support herself and her child through her own intelligence and hard work. She had garnered the attention of Edward Telfair Wilkinson, the pilot and part-owner of the Piota. It was possible another relationship was on the horizon.
Part Four will continue Catherine’s story and introduce her children.