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November 26, 2007
The New Orleans Notarial Archives
I spent some time at the Research Center of the Notarial Archives Office on Poydras Street last Tuesday, at the suggestion of the office's Archivist, Ms. Ann Wakefield. I had e-mailed Ms. Wakefield some time back, asking questions about what resources they might have to help me find more information on the Esplanade Barn owned/operated by the New Orleans City Railroad from 1861 to 1915.
The Hennick and Charlton book mentions that NOCRR constructed a barn at Esplanade and Bayou St. John in 1861, but that no photos were available. They have one transit map from the early 1900s which shows the barn's location, and that's the extent of their references. Since this barn would be visible from the end of the Carrollton Spur if it was still standing, I decided to dig a bit further. I came up empty-handed when I went back through all the resources I used to write my book on the Canal line. Then a friend who is an attorney suggested I try the Notarial Archives and/or Register of Conveyences offices. I started with the former and found their website (link above).
The office has scanned the 1883 Robinson Atlas of the city, and the plates from the atlas are available online. I drilled down through the 3rd District maps and found the plate which contains Esplanade at Bayou St. John. I found solid reference to the barn--the atlas indicates that the Esplanade tracks at that time ran to Bayou Rd. (now Moss St.), turned left there, followed the bayou for a block or so, then entered the barn from that side. The tracks exited the Esplanade front of the barn, enabling the mule cars to turn around without the need for a turntable.
After studying the plate, I contacted Ms. Wakefield to inquire whether there would be more resources in her office. That's when she suggested I come down and see.
The Notarial Archives Office is located at 1340 Poydras, the old Amaco Building. The current records office is on the 5th floor, and the Research Center is on the 3rd floor. The Research Center is a classic closed-stack archive/library. You register and sign in, then a staff member will guide you through your quest for information and documents. Since most of the notarial acts archived here deal with land transfers, it's a good idea to have a focus on a fixed building or location. Documents are referenced by which "square" they show. The "squares" are indicated in atlases like the Robinson Atlas. The staff was incredibly helpful, and we began to dig through the stuff they've indexed on the computer, images already scanned and saved digitally, then finally pulling actual maps and drawings in the area.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to come up with anything more tangible on the barn than the reference on the Robinson plate. We went through not only maps, but the archives of "acts" for 1860-1862, and 1913-1915, the range of years when the barn was constructed and demolished, respectively. I did find the Articles of Incorporation for the NOCRR, an interesting read in themselves, as well as an act passed by the city authorizing the NOCRR to construct the Poland Avenue barn. That'll be a project for another day.
What really, really, really impressed me about the Research Center staff was the phone call I got last Wednesday. While researching stuff for another person, one of the staff members pulled a map/diagram that was in the neighborhood I was looking for. She remembered my quest and rang me up to let me know what she found. I'll be back to look at that when I return to look at stuff on uptown facilities.
From a streetcar perspective, the most interesting thing I found was the detail in the property surveys archived by the Research Center. One of the reference numbers we pulled was incorrect, and they got out a real estate transaction document for a property on Common Street, near Carondelet. These documents look an awful like a modern appraisal form, lots of details about the property, along with a sketch of the "square" the property is inside. Since there was no photographs available at this time, these transactions were accompanied by sketches of the front view of the property. Some of these would make great art posters in and of themselves. The Research Center realizes this and they're now selling some of these as posters.
So, many thanks to Ms. Wakefield and her staff, even though the place is just corrupting for an old history teacher. It's so easy to go off on tangents, and I'll have to keep my focus and priorities straight when visiting the office, lest I end up moving in. :-)
Posted by Edward J. Branley at November 26, 2007 10:14 AM
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