The 1811/Kid Ory Historic House Museum In LaPlace Is Slated To Close Oct. 1 | Keith Spera

The 1811 Kid Ory Historic House is seen in LaPlace on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

The 1811 Kid Ory Historic House is seen in LaPlace on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate) ORG XMIT: BAT2208241250160886

The 1811 Kid Ory Historic House is seen in LaPlace on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

John McCusker, founder of the 1811/Kid Ory Historic House in LaPlace, stands in the museum gift shop near a door that was blown off its hinges by Hurricane Ida.

John McCusker and Charlotte Jones pack up Kid Ory’s century-old trombone at the 1811/Kid Ory Historic House in LaPlace after Hurricane Ida. The trombone would be relocated to Baton Rouge for safekeeping until power is restored at the museum.

John McCusker, founder and managing director of the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House, and Charlotte Jones, operations and program manager, stand on the front porch of the historic home in LaPlace on Friday, August 6, 2021. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

John McCusker, founder and managing director at the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House, talks about the history of the home in LaPlace on Friday, August 6, 2021. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

Kid Ory's valve trombone is seen on display at the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House in LaPlace on Friday, August 6, 2021. Kid Ory gifted the instrument to his stepson Art GaNung who donated it to the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House in 2019. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

John McCusker, founder and managing director of the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House, plays music on a phonograph at the historic home in LaPlace on Friday, August 6, 2021. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

Charlotte Jones, operations and program manager of the 1811 Kid Ory Historic House, and John McCusker, founder and managing director, stand in front of the historic home in LaPlace on Friday, August 6, 2021. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

The 1811 Kid Ory Historic House is seen in LaPlace on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

The 1811 Kid Ory Historic House is seen in LaPlace on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate) ORG XMIT: BAT2208241250160886

The 1811 Kid Ory Historic House is seen in LaPlace on Wednesday, August 24, 2022. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

The 1811/Kid Ory Historic House, the dual-purpose LaPlace museum that chronicles the 1811 German Coast slave uprising and the birth of pioneering jazz trombonist Edward “Kid” Ory, is closing.

Its final day of operation will be Oct. 1, according to founder John McCusker. Until then, tours are available by appointment only.

The museum must vacate its historic location because the property owner plans to sell it, McCusker said.

While McCusker would have liked attendance at the 1811/Kid Ory Historic House, which opened in 2021, to be higher, he said ticket sales were strong enough to cover operating expenses.

“Venues like this one typically take five to seven years before they make any money,” he said via email.

The museum occupies one of the oldest structures in St. John the Baptist Parish. Sections of the main house of the Andry Plantation, later renamed the Woodland Plantation, date to the 1790s.

On Jan. 8, 1811, the largest rebellion of enslaved people in American history commenced with the wounding of plantation owner Manuel Andry inside the main house. Charles Deslondes, the leader of the rebellion, gathered slaves from other plantations along River Road as they marched toward New Orleans along the Mississippi River.

Armed mostly with machetes and other tools, they were stopped near present-day Kenner by the firepower of a militia. Deslondes and other leaders of the rebellion were executed.

More than 70 years later, on Christmas Day 1886, Edward “Kid” Ory was born on the plantation grounds. He grew up working on what was then known as the Woodland Plantation, driving a mule and buggy to bring food and water to planters working the fields.

In 1905, during his first trip to New Orleans, he bought a trombone with earnings from that year’s plantation harvest. He eventually came to the attention of early jazz star Buddy Bolden.

By the 1910s, Ory was a full-time musician in New Orleans who would work with Louis Armstrong, Joseph “King” Oliver and other greats. He helped define the role of the trombone in traditional jazz.

For more than a century, his birthplace in LaPlace belonged to descendants of John L. Ory, a distant cousin. It eventually fell into disrepair and was damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Timothy Sheehan bought the decrepit property from a group of Ory descendants in March 2017 and undertook a massive renovation, doing much of the work with his father. He later enlisted architects and carpenters who specialized in restoring old homes.

Wanting to open the historic building to the public, Sheehan approached McCusker, whom he met through a mutual friend. McCusker had spent three decades as a photojournalist at The Times-Picayune and The New Orleans Advocate.

Since the 1990s, his “Cradle of Jazz” guided tour has introduced jazz fans from around the world to little-known landmarks throughout New Orleans.

He also wrote the 2012 Ory biography “Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz” and has assembled what he believes is the world’s largest Ory archive.

McCusker signed a lease with Sheehan for the 1811/Kid Ory Historic House in early 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic.

McCusker and Charlotte Jones, an anthropology doctoral student at LSU studying the role of mules in Louisiana history, served as the museum’s operations and program manager. They spent a year researching, designing and installing exhibits before opening the museum to the public in February 2021.

Items on display included Ory’s valve trombone, makeshift banjos made from cigar boxes and vintage Ory 78 rpm records played on McCusker’s personal phonograph collection.

Six months after the grand opening, McCusker and Jones rode out Hurricane Ida at the museum. All his years of covering hurricanes as a photojournalist did not prepare him for Ida. He thought the eyewall would pass further west than LaPlace. Instead, LaPlace was essentially ground zero for the storm’s fury.

The winds penetrated gaps in shutters and blew open the French doors across the front of the main house. McCusker and Jones propped chairs under the doorknobs to brace the doors.

The wind punched out a kitchen window, a dormer window and an attic gable window, and tore the gift shop door off its hinges.

Losing the south-facing attic gable window allowed rain to blow in and mix with 200 years’ worth of attic dust. The dirty sludge-water then seeped through seams in the tongue-and-groove cypress ceiling.

Jones and McCusker scrounged up plastic drop cloths to protect exhibits. In the room where the first blood of the 1811 rebellion was shed, they moved period-authentic furnishings out of harm’s way.

Three of the four century-old magnolia trees in front of the house toppled, but fortunately fell toward River Road instead of on the house.

The stable’s metal roof was torn up. A barn about 100 yards behind the main house was flattened.

Some gift shop merchandise was damaged, but the museum’s artifacts, archives and exhibits were unscathed. Kid Ory’s 100-year-old trombone remained safe and dry in its sealed case. Even a glass pane bearing an 1862 inscription etched with a diamond ring survived.

John McCusker, founder of the 1811/Kid Ory Historic House in LaPlace, stands in the museum gift shop near a door that was blown off its hinges by Hurricane Ida.

In the storm’s wake, Jones and McCusker’s immediate tasks included mold remediation and cleaning up the sludge-water. They moved the artifacts and their archive materials to Baton Rouge for safekeeping.

The 1811/Kid Ory Historic House reopened months later.

Other museums and archives have inquired about acquiring the collection of Ory materials, which includes manuscripts hand-written by Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton, Ory's photo collection, his sheet and band music collection, and business documents.

McCusker is appreciative of Sheehan for letting the museum operate essentially rent-free.

“He gave us two years free,” McCusker said, “and we were able to create a wonderful space and share it.”

Email Keith Spera at kspera@theadvocate.com.

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