And, as every school boy knows, October 28, 1785 was the birthday of Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, or “Stinky” as his little playmates called him.  Actually, they probably didn’t call him “Stinky” because they mostly spoke French and Spanish, but I thought I would add this little bit of gratuitous misinformation to the ridiculous claims that have been made about this phenomenally interesting and successful early Louisianan who called himself Bernard de Marigny. 

             I’ve written about Marigny in this column before, and I was thinking about him again recently while reading author Daniel Walker Howe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, What Hath God Wrought - The Transformation of America, 1815 – 1848.  This is one of a number of scholarly, but readable and interesting, works in The Oxford History of the United States series.

             The theme of this book is that the 43-year period beginning with the Battle of New Orleans and ending with the election of President Zachary Taylor (coincidentally another Louisiana-connected bookend to this era) was the most important time in our national history.  The premise is that this was the era when the essential character of the United States was set and its direction for the future was immutably established.

             The War of 1812 established our fledgling nation as an up-and-coming player on the international stage.  Chief Justice John Marshall transformed the Supreme Court into an equal partner in national government with the legislative and executive branches.  During this period, the Court decided several key cases that firmly established the national government as the senior partner in federal-state sharing of power.  Party politics evolved from the fairly simple Jefferson vs. Hamilton differences of our early republic through the Democratic-Republicans, Whigs, and Jacksonian Democrats toward the Republicans and Democrats we have today.  Evangelistic religions displaced the more structured and centralized Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Methodist churches as the major faiths of our people.  Regional differences on slavery and states rights became intractable, resulting ultimately in the Civil War and the final resolution of the “one nation, indivisible” issue.  Regrettably, this was also when most Native Americans east of the Mississippi were displaced en masse from their ancestral lands.  These were the times when the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny truly did result in America the Beautiful stretching from “sea to shining sea.” 

             To connect this vast territory together, canals, steamboats, rails and roads began to spider web across the country rapidly.  Finally, the development of the telegraph eliminated the time-delay that inhibited governance and commerce in a territory as vast as the United States.  It took six weeks for news of a peace treaty ending the War of 1812 to reach Washington in February, 1815.  Shortly before receiving this news, President Madison learned of Andrew Jackson’s victory at Chalmette in early January.  By 1848, however, Samuel Morse was able to transmit his “What hath God wrought” test telegraph message and instantaneously update anxious politicians in Washington D.C. on happenings at the presidential nominating conventions in Baltimore, forty miles away.

             These were truly momentous, interesting times, and it occurred to me that these were the prime years of Bernard de Marigny’s life, and he was a part of, and was greatly affected by, events of the entire period.  In fact, he was born in a Spanish territory, well before the Louisiana Purchase, before the United States had its Constitution or first President.  He died in 1868, after the Civil War and just before the first Atlantic to Pacific railroad was being completed.  His long life covered a period when our country grew from 13 struggling colonies and states hugging the east coast to a continental behemoth that encompassed all of our current 50 states except Hawaii. 

             Throughout his life, Marigny was an entrepreneur, taking advantage of the country’s rapid development, and also of the technological breakthroughs of the 19^th Century.   He was involved in the development of the Pontchartrain Railroad, which began operating in 1830 between the Mississippi River and a port on Lake Pontchartrain along right-of-way that he sold to company owners.  This was one of the earliest railroads in the country, and continued operating under various names until 1930.  From the lake port, Marigny used steamboats, a relatively new technology at the time, to transport potential buyers to his Mandeville land development.

             He was involved in civic life in every way.  He was a New Orleans councilman and President of the Louisiana Senate.  He played a role in the Battle of New Orleans, reportedly convincing cautious local authorities to employ the services of Jean Lafitte’s cannoneers.  Many consider that it was their skills, rather than the wildly exaggerated sharpshooting of the frontiersmen who “in 1814 took a little trip along with General Jackson down the mighty Mississip’” that carried the day on the fields of Chalmette.  Marigny was a great fan of the General, however, and in the 1820s aligned himself with the Jacksonian Democrats politically. 

             In later life, however, Marigny may have had reason to have second thoughts about Jackson.  One of the widely spread misconceptions about Marigny is that he was a poor businessman, and a playboy who gambled away one of the country’ largest inherited fortunes and died destitute.  In truth, he did enjoy the good life and brought the game of craps to America, but he was also a great businessman who made gobs of money with his Faubourg Marigny subdivision, his Mandeville resort, and many other real estate and banking transactions in New Orleans. 

             Marigny did eventually lose a large portion of his fortune, but it was not related to his gambling.  It was related to banking, and ironically to Andrew Jackson.  There was no such thing as a long-term loan in the early 1800s; those who traded in real estate had to refinance their debt every year or two.  When Jackson, as President, took on and destroyed the once powerful Second Bank of the United States, it devastated national credit markets and caused the great financial panic of 1837.  Many of Marigny’s friends and business associates were ruined, but through what looks in retrospect like skilled financial management he, personally, was able to weather the storm pretty well.  Marigny did ultimately lose a lot of his property holdings, but it was because he had to make good on loans he had guaranteed for friends.   However, he never went bankrupt and died worth a few hundred thousand of today’s dollars.

             So, as we’re carving our pumpkins this month, or honoring our mother-in-laws, or even celebrating moldy cheese, we Mandevillians will take a minute on October 28^th to honor the wonderful and long life of Bernard de Marigny, the Father of our Faubourg.  Pirates, craps, politics, railroads, steamboats, and much, much more – he was part of it all and a heck of a guy.