All Roads Lead to Donaldsonville

Claiborne Williams was a teacher before he was a bandleader. Born December 31, 1868, near Donaldsonville, he repaired instruments for the Werlein music company in New Orleans, then at 18 led the St. Joseph Brass Band and taught students in town and nearby for 50 cents a lesson. Louis Nelson and Oscar Celestin were among his pupils, and Dave Bartholomew played in his band. He toured the United States, Canada and Europe with Billy Kersand's minstrel troupe, died in 1952, and Karl Koenig's 1996 book keeps the record of Donaldsonville's music.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• E. D. White Historic Site — 20 mi
  A National Historic Landmark house of about 1790 on Bayou Lafourche, built by enslaved people and home to two Whites, a governor and a Chief Justice, with an exhibit on the bayou's history.
• Whitney Plantation — 21 mi
  A museum on a former sugar plantation along the River Road that tells its story through the people who were enslaved there, with memorials to 107,000 enslaved Louisianans and 2,200 children.
• LSU Rural Life Museum — 23 mi
  Four slave cabins moved from Welham Plantation and a working-plantation row of more than twenty saved buildings, on land the Burden family held as Windrush plantation since the 1830s.
• Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 23 mi
  A Jean Lafitte National Historical Park center on Bayou Lafourche with Acadian and bayou-life exhibits, a 200-seat theater and ranger-guided boat tours to the E. D. White house.

More markers nearby

• Bicentennial Jazz Plaza — steps away
• African American Life — steps away
• The Culture — steps away
• The Swamp — steps away