Toby's House

People still live behind the fence. The main floor is raised above the ground on brick piers, and a wide gallery runs along the facade. Some of the old doors remain in place; the exterior curved staircase weathered over time and disappeared.

This house takes its name from its first owner, Thomas Toby. He arrived from Philadelphia as a wheelwright, then went into commission trade: he sold other people's goods for a fee and managed his own ships. In eighteen thirty-eight, Toby built here a house raised on brick piers, with a wide gallery. It is the oldest of the surviving residential buildings in the Garden District.

Two years before construction, Toby accepted a risky contract. The Republic of Texas, fighting for independence from Mexico, appointed the firm of Thomas and his brother as its procurement representative in New Orleans. The republic had almost no money. The brothers were to sell certificates for Texas land and use the proceeds to equip volunteers and buy everything necessary for the army.

The land certificates sold poorly, but orders kept coming. Toby sent people and cargo to Texas, paying part of the expenses with the firm's funds. One shipment included ten cannons, one hundred twenty-five kegs of gunpowder, shoes, shirts, bread, medicines, and camp cookware. When the Texas Congress stopped selling the certificates, the republic owed the brothers seventy-six thousand six hundred twenty dollars and twenty-six cents.

Toby died in eighteen forty-nine without ever receiving the money. His family held on to the house for another nine years, then could no longer maintain it. In eighteen fifty-eight, the property was sold at auction to Thomas Smithfield Dugan. He transferred it to his daughter, Marie Louise; through her marriage, the house passed to the Westfeldts and remained with several generations of that family.

Toby's heirs secured payment only in eighteen eighty-one. Texas awarded them forty-five thousand dollars—less than the original debt. By then, the house had already belonged to another family for twenty-three years.

There is still a private residence behind the fence. The raised main floor, the gallery, and some of the original doors remain; the exterior curved staircase, which had weathered over time, has disappeared. The Tobys lost the house itself long ago, but their name remains around the corner at Prytania Street and First Street.