317 E Main St.
New Iberia, LA 70560
30.004445,-91.815609
Deep in the city of New Iberia, along the murky waters of Bayou Teche, lies an interesting plantation home, ever so deservingly named Shadows on the Teche. We have often heard the old saying “if these walls could talk.” If this is the case, you could hear quite an earful out of this beautiful home! Over its many years of existence, it has seen its fair share of birth, sickness, and death; much of it being documented in over seventeen thousand pages of the previous owners' accounts. Known as the Weeks Family Papers, these documents account for every purchase, sale, and substantial event that took place here throughout the years.
Our story begins with a young builder and sugar entrepreneur by the name of David Weeks. As a young man, David Weeks began working with his father, William Weeks, accumulating a great deal of property in the Felicianas and the Attakapas in the early 1800's, purchasing most of Grand Cote (now Weeks Island), over two thousand acres by 1818. They grew cotton in the Felicianas, and attempted indigo and cotton in the Attakapas before David Weeks began concentrating on sugar in the early 1820's. While establishing the plantation at Grand Cote, David found time to court and marry Mary Conrad, Mary being twenty-one years of age and David thirty-two. The couple resided on William Weeks' plantation on Bayou Sarah near St. Francisville.
