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Jackson Square in New Orleans' French Quarter honors Gen. Andrew Jackson, who later became the seventh President of the United States. In the middle of the square is the famous monument to Jackson, shown on horseback, doffing his hat. Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

New book highlights New Orleans monuments

Catherine Saunders-Watson
Catherine Saunders-Watson
Jackson Square in New Orleans' French Quarter honors Gen. Andrew Jackson, who later became the seventh President of the United States. In the middle of the square is the famous monument to Jackson, shown on horseback, doffing his hat. Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Jackson Square in New Orleans’ French Quarter honors Gen. Andrew Jackson, who later became the seventh President of the United States. In the middle of the square is the famous monument to Jackson, shown on horseback, doffing his hat. Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – New Orleans is a city that loves its characters.

Rich and famous, poor and eccentric, wild-eyed or somber, the city has had a place for them all, and has memorialized many in the statues and monuments.

Now Robert Jeanfreau, a doctor with a bent for history, has highlighted 40 monuments honoring rogues, renegades, religious and historical figures who’ve passed through New Orleans.

The book, titled The Story Behind the Stone and published by Pelican Publishing, contains a collection of the famous and obscure, and interesting historical tidbits on the statues.

The statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, standing atop a tall pillar in Lee Circle is well known, but Jeanfreau provides delightful details about it and its dedication.

Lee’s statue, weighing 7,000 pounds cost $10,000. It sits on a drum, which in turn rests on a 60-foot fluted Doric column.

The dedication of the monument, in February 1884, was disrupted by bad weather, but still saw a crowd of 15,000 turn out and included a 100-gun salute. Lee’s daughters as well as former Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard were on hand for the unveiling. The daughters, Mary and Mildred, watched from the balcony of a nearby mansion.

The Andrew Jackson statue in Jackson Square in the French Quarter was the first equestrian monument completed in the United States, Jeanfreau writes.

Jackson had a hand in construction of the monument, laying the cornerstone when he returned to New Orleans in January 1840 for the 25th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. The statue was not unveiled until 1856, however, 11 years after Jackson’s death.

Not all mysteries of the monuments are unraveled by Jeanfreau. Take the monument for Gen. Albert Pike, a noted Civil War general, educator, lawyer and violinist.

Pike spent time briefly in New Orleans in 1853, promoting construction of a transcontinental railway. A monument to him was erected in the 1950s. With the construction of Interstate 10, it was moved to Tulane Avenue, where it now sits in obscurity.

The book features pictures of each of the monuments and a one page history of the person honored as well as information on the construction and unveiling of each.

Click to view details or purchase the book through Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Behind-Stone-Robert-Jeanfreau/dp/1455615196/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335276276&sr=1-1

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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Jackson Square in New Orleans' French Quarter honors Gen. Andrew Jackson, who later became the seventh President of the United States. In the middle of the square is the famous monument to Jackson, shown on horseback, doffing his hat. Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Jackson Square in New Orleans’ French Quarter honors Gen. Andrew Jackson, who later became the seventh President of the United States. In the middle of the square is the famous monument to Jackson, shown on horseback, doffing his hat. Photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.