The house on Bayou Lafourche dates to about 1790, according to the state parks commission, and the National Register nomination says enslaved people built it of hand-hewn cypress, though it names no builder. Slave quarters once stood behind it. Edward Douglass White Sr., later governor of Louisiana, bought the property in 1829 from Guillaume Arcement and began remodeling it in the Greek Revival style around 1834. The family held sugar plantation land here, and much of the old White acreage is still farmed as White Plantation.
His son, Edward Douglass White, was born in the house in 1845. At 16 he joined the Confederate army, and he was captured at Port Hudson in 1863. He sat on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1894 and was Chief Justice from 1910 until his death in 1921; in 1896 he was in the 7-1 majority in Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld segregation as "separate but equal." The house became a National Historic Landmark on December 8, 1976, and Louisiana State Museums now runs it.
An exhibit inside covers the history of Bayou Lafourche, including the Chitimacha, Acadian settlers, slavery, sugar plantations and the White family. The site is at 2295 Louisiana Highway 1, open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and admission is free. The grounds and ground floor are wheelchair accessible; the landmark cannot be made fully accessible. National Park Service boat tours from Thibodaux reach it by the bayou.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour