Exhibit: “Sharing the Sweet Life: 100 Years at the Chatsworth Sugar Plantation”

Special Collections is proud to host the exhibit “Sharing the Sweet Life: 100 Years at the Chatsworth Sugar Plantation” in the Jefferson Caffery Reading Room through the month of September. The exhibit is presented by the LSU Rural Life Museum.

Chatsworth Plantation, located on the east bank of the Mississippi River below Baton Rouge, was founded by Fergus Duplantier in 1830 and continued to produce large crops for a century under a succession of owners. In 1930 the main house was demolished when the levee was expanded, and remaining structures fell into ruin. Now owned by L’Auberge Casino, the sugar mill site and the quarters were excavated by archaeologists from LSU’s Rural Life Museum between 2010 and 2013.

Numerous artifacts uncovered during the excavation are in the display, including tools and machine parts from the mill, and bottles, pottery and toys from the quarters. There are also pieces of pottery and stone tools left by the Alibama Indians, and several Civil War relics. Taken together, these artifacts tell the story of daily life on the site with an immediacy that cannot be found in books.

The exhibit will remain on display until Sept.30. For more information, contact the Louisiana Room at (337) 482-6031.

Pictured here is Chatsworth Plantation in 1910.