Louisiana Memorial Methodist Church

Learner Blackman, who joined Elisha Bowman at Opelousas in August 1806 to give communion, was a New Jersey-born circuit rider who in 1805 rode some 500 miles through Chickasaw and Choctaw country to reach Natchez. As presiding elder he pushed Methodist circuits west into Louisiana. In 1812 and 1813 Andrew Jackson chose him chaplain to the volunteers bound for New Orleans. He drowned at Cincinnati in 1815 when a ferry's sail startled his horses and knocked him overboard.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Le Vieux Village and the Venus House — 0.3 mi
  A heritage park in Opelousas built around the Venus House of about 1791, the home of a free Creole woman of color, Marie Francois Venus, with an old schoolhouse, Methodist church and the visitor center's zydeco music exhibit.
• Prairie Acadian Cultural Center — 21 mi
  A National Park Service center in Eunice on the Cajun prairie, with exhibits on the Acadians who settled the prairies, a Courir de Mardi Gras display, free music and cooking demonstrations, and the shuttered Liberty Theatre nearby.
• Vermilionville — 23 mi
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Atchafalaya Welcome Center — 25 mi
  A state welcome center inside the Atchafalaya Basin, the nation's largest river swamp, with exhibits on Basin history and life, a film, a crawfishing boat and French-speaking staff.

More markers nearby

• Louisiana Orphan Train Museum — 0.3 mi
• La Chapelle House — 0.3 mi
• Manon's Corner — 0.3 mi
• Mary Jane Steam Engine Train — 0.3 mi