Payne-Strachan House - New Orleans

The Payne-Strachan House is located on First Street in the Garden District of New Orleans, Louisiana.  It was here the former President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, died in 1889.  The president had been imprisoned after the Civil War, then pardoned, and eventually found himself giving talks and writing books about the war to make ends meet.  In 1877 he was invited to live at the plantation of Sarah Anne Ellis Dorsey in a house called Beauvoir.  Upon her death in 1879 Davis inherited the home and would live there for the rest of his life.  It was from this house that Davis left on November 6, 1889, to visit his plantation Brierfield.  During the trip he fell ill with malaria and bronchitis and upon his return was forced to stop in New Orleans, where he was diagnosed and ordered off the boat.  He was taken in by Charles Erasmus Fenner, the son-in-law of J.M. Payne, an old friend of Davis’, and moved to this Garden District home.  He spent the next two weeks at the Fenner home, along with his wife, Varina, eventually dying on the morning of December 6.  He was initially buried at Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans but in 1893 Varina had him disinterred and sent to Richmond, where he was laid to rest in Hollywood Cemetery.  This 1849 Greek Revival style mansion marks the former president’s visit with a plaque and stone marker.

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