Ascension Of Our Lord Catholic Church

The parish took its name from this church, and the first church was a militia project. Under Spanish rule in 1772 local militiamen built it to serve settlers along the river, on ground the French had called Lafourche-des-Chitimachas. The date is close but not fixed, since accounts put a log chapel at about 1770. William Donaldson then had Barthelemy Lafon lay out a town in 1806, and the town took his name. The Gothic church that stands now opened in 1896.

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 — 20 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

• Historic Donaldsonville — 0.4 mi
• Francis T. Nicholls — 0.4 mi
• Louisiana Square — 0.4 mi
• The Swamp — 0.4 mi