Historical Marker
James Mather
Hester, St. James County · Louisiana
Erected 1966
James Mather came to New Orleans around 1780 and contracted with the Spanish government to run two vessels carrying goods for trade with Native peoples in Louisiana and West Florida. As mayor from 1807 to 1812, appointed by Governor Claiborne, he guarded the city against a feared plot by Aaron Burr's followers that never came, and in November 1809 he put down an uprising by the city's Black population. He built a reasonably efficient fire department but not an effective police force. He resigned citing poor health and died at his son's property on the Acadian Coast in 1821.
Where it stands
30.01980, -90.76613 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Whitney Plantation — 7.0 miA 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.
- Wetlands Acadian Cultural Center — 16 miA 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.
- Laurel Valley Village — 16 miA sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.
- E. D. White Historic Site — 16 miA 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.