Nexus Knowledge Institute

The Casket Girls

In 1728 a small group of young women arrived in New Orleans each bearing a small wooden chest – called a cassette in French – that was shaped much like a small coffin. They became known as “Les Filles á la Cassette” – the casket girls. This was actually the third wave of such young women, the first arriving in the French colony of Mobile in 1704 and the second arriving in Biloxi in 1719.

Handpicked by the Bishop of Quebec by order of the French king Louis XV, these young women were plucked from the orphanages and convent schools and spent nearly six months traveling from France to New Orleans. The sole purpose for the trip was to provide wives for the men of New Orleans. Those who arrived in New Orleans were placed under the care of the Ursuline nuns until such time as they found husbands.

Here is where the history of these intrepid and perhaps naïve young women who survived the grueling voyage begins to take a series of unusual turns. Because they were described as being “very pale” upon their arrival, it was rumored that the casket girls had a more sinister purpose – and the vampire legends began. But that’s a story better told by one of the many tour guides in the French Quarter.

For an interesting account of the first women to arrive in New Orleans, consider Joan Dejean’s “Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast.”

Fun and Interesting Places…

This is in a diving lake in Germany. Naturally, the truck is covered with algae and mussels but the windshield (and the name of the lake) gets cleaned perodically so you can look inside.

The whole lake used to be a pit mine for chalk for the cement industry and the truck sits in its "natural" pose on top of a structure called the "Rüttler" where - when the mine was still active - the trucks would unload the mined rocks to be processed.

There are also two planes, boats, some cars, trailers and some of the original mining equipment in that lake.