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1846 |
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| South America & Caribbean:Events of this year in this region influencing Louisiana. | |||||||||||
| North America: President Polk tries to buy the New Mexico territory from Mexico. As tensions increase over Texas, President Polk asks Zachary Taylor to command the forces on the Rio Grande. Taylor chooses New Orleans as the port of embarkation and the city is charged with excitement as volunteers are mustered. Overwhelming victories at Monterey and Buena Vista soon head New Orleans' newspapers. Meanwhile, American settlers in California raise a black bear flag and proclaim a separate nation. U. S. troops march down the coast to San Francisco and Los Angeles. A treaty with England setting the Oregon border at the 49th parallel. Iowa admitted as 29th state. Several villages on the shores of Lake Michigan become Milwaukee. Brigham Young and Mormons stop at town of Omaha on way to the Great Salt Lake. Pennsylvania Railroad is begun between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. Ice leaves U. S. east coast for China, traded for silk. Samuel Colt receives commissions to produce revolvers for the Mexican War. The Smithsonian Institution is founded. Ether is used as an anaesthetic in the Mexican War. Boston Herald and Pittsburgh Dispatch begin publication; Typee by Herman Melville; Edgar Allan Poe; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; John Greenleaf Whittier. Baseball rules codified in New York. | |||||||||||
| Europe: Great Britain begins lowering grain tariffs which allows the U. S. to lower tariffs on manufactured goods from England. English pneumatic tire. London Daily News. Painting by Delacroix; music by Schumann, Mendelssohn, Berlioz. Famine in Ireland cannot be relieved by shipments of wheat from the U. S. | |||||||||||
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January 1846
Isaac Johnson wins by 2,491 votes over Whig William De Buys. |
February 1846
Isaac Johnson assumes office of governor at age 43 years. The new constitution created last year fills his administration with much turmoil and debate. Even his inaugural oath is questioned. In his speech Johnson calls for moving the capital and stresses the public school laws. |
March 1846
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April 1846
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May 1846
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June 1846
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July 1846
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August 1846
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September 1846
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October 1846 |
November 1846
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December 1846
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| New Orleans is the center of much activity as armies are assembled and dispatched to the Mexican front. | Norbert Rillieux, a free man of color, invents a process that revolutionizes the manufacture of sugar. | Christ Episcopal Church in Covington built by Jonathan Arthur of London for descendants of English settlers in British West Florida. It is consecrated by Bishop Leonidas Polk, April 11, 1847. Christ church is the oldest public building being used in Covington. | Construction begins on Madewood Plantation house (1846) in Napoleonville of Assumption Parish. Built over eight years of timber hewn on the plantation itself and of sixty thousand brakes baked by the plantation’s slaves, this Greek Revival mansion is the first major building designed by noted architect Henry Howard for Col. Thomas Pugh, a North Carolinian. Its brick walls, exterior two feet thick, and interior a foot and a half, rest on brick foundations eight feet under ground, and support fourteen-inch square beams in the attic. Steamboats carried trade to Madewood and other plantations along Bayou Lafourche. It was purchased in 1964 and restored by Mr. Harold K. Marshall. It is open to the public and is a center for the arts in the South Louisiana area. On the east bank of Bayou Lafourche, about five miles below Donaldsonville, is Belle Alliance Plantation house (1846), a 33 room Greek Revival manor built by Belgian aristocrat Charles A. Koch. The center hall on the second floor is illuminated by a large oval stained glass skylight, unique in Louisiana plantation homes. It will be owned by the Koch family until 1915, and then is occupied by Mr. C. S. Churchill who bought it in 1927. It is a private residence. Jacques Dupre Louis Philippe de Rouffignac |
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