I often see little things in the newspaper archives while I’m looking for other little things. I noticed a pattern of recipes for cold remedies, so I started compiling them. My favorite recommended the following:
“Take one wine glass of pure Brandy, Cognac or Champagne—add thereto an equal quantity of water; the whole to be swallowed at one dose. If the first proves ineffectual, the dose may be repeated every half hour until the patient feels perfectly relieved.”
The Picayune in an 1837 article
The Picayune. February 7, 1837. Page 2.The Picayune. February 25, 1837. Page 3.The Picayune. April 7, 1837. Page 2.The New Orleans Crescent. March 30, 1850. Page 4.The Times Democrat. July 13, 1904. Page 14.New Orleans Item. January 12, 1950. Page 1.
I hope you’re staying healthy through the weather extremes. I would love to know if you try any of these remedies. I think you can trust them. After all, the first licensed pharmacist practiced in New Orleans…right?
Have you noticed this architectural oddity in the French Quarter on iron columns — the Romeo Spikes, sometimes Romeo Prongs or Romeo Catchers?
The legend is that the vicious-looking spikes were added to the gallery columns by homeowners to keep prospective suitors away from their daughters. Some tours will continue with a ghost story about a young man who was castrated as a result of an attempt to best the spikes. So, you can tell which families had daughters by which homes have spikes. Below is a map of the spikes I’ve located in the French Quarter, but I’d love to add any others you’ve found too!
While I was researching another unbelievable tale, I stumbled upon a correction of the Romeo Spikes myth claiming that the spikes are actually hostile architecture meant to keep birds away. But there is no place for a bird to nest on the posts without the spikes. Adding the spikes only seems to create a comfy place for small birds, not deter them.
And making this realization while taking photos of the spikes led me to find other spikes nearby on fences. These spikes are very similar to spikes on fences in Charleston, South Carolina. I found some information about those fences: they were prototypes for barbed wire and the homeowners installed them after reports of an attempted revolt of enslaved people…
This seems like a much more likely explanation for the Romeo spikes as well, but still I could not find anything about them outside of blogs about ghosts. I realized that the Romeo spikes were added to the columns, not a part of the original design. That led me to realize that the spikes look extremely similar to iron collars that enslavers used as punishment.
Example of an iron collar sold at auction found online.
Digging Deeper on Romeo Spikes
I messaged the tour guide who was quoted to ask for a source for the information about birds, and I will update this if I hear back. I also started reaching out to knowledgable tour guides to see if they had any other information about the spikes. Eventually, I found Craig Ernst, who is a realtor in New Orleans and a volunteer tour guide with Friends of the Cabildo, one of the most respected tour guiding programs in the city. He calls himself a New Orleans history and architecture nerd. He not only responded and responded quickly, he gave me additional information!
“I think the stories about the ‘Romeo spikes’ are just romanticized tales about what were, essentially, just another form of intruder deterrent,” he wrote.
“Like you, I found the information about the large cheval-de-frise emplacements in Charleston. The rolls of spikes on top of some fences and gateways in the Quarter are just smaller versions of that. (Incidentally, these were originally designed as medieval protections against cavalry charges. The French translates to ‘Frisian horse’ or horseman of Frisia — a part of the Netherlands — were considered especially fierce, apparently. Similarly, the gardes-de-frise, which are the ironwork panels fashioned with different types of spikes on top and which are placed to divide balconies/galleries/verandas, or at the ends of the same, are a similar form of deterrent. I think the origin is as simple as that.”
An example of a garde-de-frise in the French Quarter.
He continued.
”Your thought about the similarity of the Romeo spikes to some of the slave collars is interesting. I’m not sure there is any direct connection (if you find out otherwise, please let me know), but it’s possible that the design of one may have inspired the design of the other.”
I found many references in the newspapers to iron collars in advertisements for people who were wearing them when they ran away from enslavement. But I have not yet found any reference to the spikes on columns in the newspaper. I found a photo showing that at least one set of Romeo spikes was added between 1965 and 1975. But many other spikes appear in all images of the buildings available.
Do you have any more information about the Romeo spikes and their origins? I’d love to hear from you!
Also, check out my instagram to see more photos of Romeo spikes in the French Quarter @from_the_deep_gifts
Addresses with Romeo spikes now and if they had daughters (in progress):
839 Chartres [old address 217 Chartres] built in 1820s, cast iron gallery added later (sometime before 1876)
1225 Chartres [old address 306 Chartres] built in 1830, cast iron gallery added sometime later; sold in 1833 (Manuel Julián de Lizardi who had no children1), 1849 (Canon to son, only heir2), 1858 (Canon to Pierre Hoa who had one daughter)
700-708 Royal built in 1840; sold in 1866 from the LaBranche family who had at least one daughter who lived to adulthood34
736 Royal built in the late 1830s by the wardens of St. Louis Cathedral; purchased by George H. Dunbar in 1880 who had several daughters with several wives6
900 Royal built 1838 for Louis Christian Miltenberger with cast iron galleries added in 18587; Christian died in 18298 but his wife Marie Aimee died in 1858; she gave the property to her son Gustave in 18559 who had one daughter; Gustave kept the property until 1868 when it passed to his brother Aristide (one daughter) and son Charles (one son who died in Paris during World War I)10; it stayed in the Miltenberger family until 1877 when it was sold in a sheriff’s sale
641 Barracks built in 1834; wrap around balcony is original, but the posts with Romeo spikes were added sometime between 1989 and 200711
210 Bourbon built in 1840; had a cast iron covered gallery in the 19th century that was removed and then restored in 198112
640 Bourbon
1203 Bourbon
500 Dauphine [old address 105 St. Louis] built in 1999; this was a Texaco station built in 1935 prior to the current building13; in 1896 it was a store according to the Sanborn insurance map14
740 Dauphine [old address 108 St. Ann] building is a Creole cottage from the 19th century, but the second story was added in 192015
1031 Dauphine[old address 253 Dauphine] built in 1840; purchased by Louis Le Carpentier in 1841 who had one daughter
901 Governor Nicholls [old address 121 Hospital?] built in 1840; cast iron gallery added between 1876 and 1896;
425 Burgundy built in 1840; cast iron gallery added later16
811 Burgundy built in 1880; the gallery is original to the building but the Romeo spikes were added around 2008 based on Google Maps archived images17
Sources:
Roach, Madeleine R., “Don’t Be Myth-taken: The Perpetuation of Historical Myths in New Orleans Tourism” (2021). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2902. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2902
Salvucci, Linda K., and Richard J. Salvucci. “The Lizardi Brothers: A Mexican Family Business and the Expansion of New Orleans, 1825-1846.” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 82, no. 4, 2016, pp. 759–88. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44784503. Accessed 3 July 2024. ↩︎
While preparing to lead my own tours, I went on a respected French Quarter tour. At the end, the guide showed us a fire mark on a building and explained that these noted which buildings had fire insurance and which company would come to help in the event of a fire. They said there were only five such markers left in the French Quarter because they had been removed and melted to make bullets during the Civil War as they were made from lead. They also promised to buy us a drink if we found the other four. But curiously did not provide any contact information to settle that bet.
Of course, I immediately decided to find the rest of the markers. Not for a beverage but for the knowledge. I wouldn’t let myself Google anything about it until I thought I found them all. The other day, I found a fifth mark and so I started googling. And then I found a sixth one…and a seventh and an eighth…and I keep finding them.
This mark appears for the first time in a 1988 image of the building. I’m not sure this is a fire mark. I haven’t been able to match it yet. Based on images available, this was added sometime between March 2022 and November 2023.This fire mark is visible in the oldest photos I can find of this building, so it appears to be authentic.This is authentic to the building based on the oldest photos I can find online.This mark seems to be authentic to the building.This mark makes its first appearance in 1987 photos of the building.This one appears in photos of the building from 1987 on.This mark was added to the building between 1992 and 1994 based on photos of the building.The other eight fire marks I found in the French Quarter.
The Truth
I won’t pretend to be a fire mark expert. There are already several blogs debunking the many myths around fire marks around the world, not just in New Orleans. I’ll point you to many articles by Robert M. Shea of the Fire Mark Circle of the Americas for a full detailed history. But a brief explanation is that they originated in England around 1681 after the Great Fire of London in 1666, and there are many examples of different styles and many buildings in several countries that retain their fire marks to this day.
Comparing one of the fire marks in the French Quarter (right) to one in the collection at the National Museum of American History. According to the Museum, this is from 1875 and made of cast iron. Gift of CIGNA Museum and Art Collection.
The legend is that the marks indicated the private company that the owner had paid for insurance that the company would help you in the event of a fire and other companies, if they arrived first, would let you burn. This was mostly true in England where they had private companies doing this work. Although the letting you burn part is apparently not true.
A fire mark I found in the French Quarter on the left compared to one in the National Museum of American History on the right. According to the Museum, “the Fire Association of Philadelphia issued this brass fire mark in 1859. The fire mark is painted brown, with a golden color showing underneath. The Fire Association’s fire mark consisted of a raised image of an early fire hydrant with hose attached, flanked by the letters F.A. in the center of an oval. The F.A. adopted a fireplug as their symbol to celebrate the contribution of Philadelphia’s innovative public water system to their mission of fighting fire. The Fire Association of Philadelphia was an insurance company founded in 1817 by a group of eleven volunteer engine companies and five volunteer hose companies. A percentage of the Fire Association’s insurance company’s profits were distributed to the volunteer companies. The F.A. fire mark was extremely popular, and an estimated 40,000 fire marks were issued during the company’s history. The Fire Association operated until 1958, when it merged with the Reliance Insurance Company of Philadelphia.” Gift of CIGNA Museum and Art Collection
Before Fire Insurance
Fire had already destroyed many of the world’s cities, including New Orleans in 1788…and 1794, by the 19th century. They knew how destructive an unchecked fire could be and were not willing to risk letting fires burn.
According to Shea, in at least some documented instances, the fire marks represented the company who would pay the reward to the volunteer brigade who arrived at the fire first to put it out. The building’s owner had purchased insurance through the company, and some of them would guarantee rewards for the fire fighters. In the event of a fire, the first fire brigade to arrive to put out the fire would receive a cash reward for their work.
The Fire Mark and the Antique Trade
If your building didn’t retain a mark to modern times, no problem! They are readily available on eBay for $20. You can find them painted or aged and different varieties to adorn your old building. Or young building.
I also found that the one identical to the one the guide showed me on tour sold at auction recently for an attainable $90.
Comparing a mark in the French Quarter (top) to an example from Antique Trader. This mark is cast iron and sold for $90 in 2017. Courtesy of Conestoga Auction Company Division of Hess Auction Group. Note: I have noticed that one looks like it’s in relief and the other looks like it’s a cast of a relief. This is an illusion as they are both in relief. This article gives an overview of how to tell a reproduction from an authentic antique: https://www.antiquetrader.com/collectibles/real-vs-repro-how-to-spot-original-cast-iron-fire-marks
Perhaps one of the most interesting bits of info I found in my search is that New Orleans Square in Disneyland includes this detail on some of the buildings. There are several blogs explaining what they are by Disney lovers.
Comparing two of the fire marks in the French Quarter (bottom) to one in the collection at the National Museum of American History. According to the Museum, this is from 1869 and made of cast iron. Gift of CIGNA Museum and Art Collection.
None of the examples I’ve matched to the ones I found in the French Quarter have been made of lead so far. Several are confirmed to be from companies that existed only after the Civil War. I think it’s more likely that reasons like time and renovations have removed the fire marks, not the dramatic making of bullets for war.
This adventure was fun even if I have no way of sharing my findings with my guide beyond this blog. Perhaps I will run into them on the tour circuit soon. I am certainly glad to have any additional knowledge about the details of New Orleans.
I also want to hear your stories! Let me know if you’ve found any fire marks that I missed in New Orleans and beyond.
“Myth #146: In early America, firefighters wouldn’t put out a house fire unless the building bore a fire insurance plaque” by History Myths Debunked blog. May 13, 2017. https://historymyths.wordpress.com/tag/fire-marks/
