This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Acadian-style low-post bedstead with trundle bed, 1780-1840; Holden Family Collection
An early Acadian spinning wheel, found in Breaux Bridge, St. Martin Parish; Bernard Family Collection
Boucherie table, 1820—1870; Bernard Family Collection. As subsistence farmers, Acadians relied on fish, poultry, game, and especially pork for protein in their diets. Their boucherie tables received hard service in the late fall and early winter, when the cool air helped preserve the meat. Few antique examples have survived.
By far, the best appointed home in the survey was that of Martin Duralde, planter, rancher, and father-in-law of Governor W. C. C. Claiborne. An inventory taken in 1816 as part of the succession proceedings of Duralde’s wife, nee Marie-Josephe Perrault, revealed a mahogany table and four cherry tables, ten chairs, two armchairs, six cushioned chairs, two cherry armoires, a cherry bureau, a silver service for 18, two mirrors, a pier glass, a cherry bed, and six curtains. More typical of the time and place, however, were the Duraldes’ four beds of cypress. Significantly, two items not noted with regularity in the inventories of residents of more affluent settlements are prominent in the Attakapas inventories: spinning wheels and looms.
Conrad noted at least ten spinning wheels and six looms, evidence of the manufacture of Acadian textiles. Owing to its relative geographic isolation, the Attakapas community had less access to the important trade routes than did settlements on the Mississippi and Cane rivers. It is logical that the Attakapas residents—Acadians and others—were more likely to have fashioned their own clothing, bedding, and other household linens.
Excerpt Sources:
Glenn R Conrad, AttakapasSt. Martin Estates, 1804-1818, vol. 2, pt. 2, Land Records of the Attakapas District (Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana,
1993); Etienne De Vaugine inventory, “A Louisiana Indigo Plantation on Bayou Teche, 1773,” introduction by Henry P. Dart, translated by Laura L. Porteous, Louisiana Historical Quarterly 9, no. 4 (October 1926): 565—89; “History of the Casa Merieult,” docent handbook, The Historic New Orleans Collection; Jean-Frangois Merieult inventory, 1818, The Historic New Orleans Collection, 53-125-L; William Henry Sparks, The Memories of Fifty Years, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen and Haffelihger, 1872), 373-74; Debra Ann Warner, “Inside the French Creole House” (master’s thesis, Louisiana State University, 1998).
The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly 5