TUPPER, Tristram, Charleston, S. C., then (various) Parish, Louisiana

Submitted for the LAGenWeb Archives by Mike Miller, Oct. 1998.




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Louisiana:  Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and

Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 671-675.  Edited by Alcée

Fortier, Lit.D.  Published in 1914, by Century Historical Association.

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Tupper, Tristram, was born in Charleston, S. C., July 4, 1831; the fifth son

of Tristram Tupper of Dresden, Me., and Elizabeth Harral Yoer of Charleston. 

He was educated in Charleston under that distinguished educator, Dr. Braus,

LL. D., president of Charleston college, the father of Dr. J. D. Bruns and

grandfather of Dr. H. Dickson Bruns of New Orleans.  Dr. J. D. Bruns and the

South Carolina poet, Henry Timrod, were schoolmates and intimate friends of

Tristram Tupper.  Through such influences, he acquired a studious habit and

closer application to whatever he undertook.  After leaving college, he

entered the office of his brother, the Hon. James Tupper, who was master of

the court of equity of South Carolina for a number of years, intending to

study law.  Owing to the death of his brother, Furman Tupper, who at the early

age of 21 was captain of a company of South Carolina volunteers in the Mexican

war, he was sent as the representative of T. Tupper & Sons of Charleston to

look after the firm's business with the sugar planters of Louisiana, with whom

the firm did a large commission and purchasing business.  He proved such a

success on this first trip, that his father induced him to continue, and at an

early age, he became a member of the firm of T. Tupper & Sons, which had been

established about 1812 by T. Tupper, Sr.  During T. Tupper, Jr.'s visit to

Bayou Teche, he met and married Miss Sidney Conrad Palfrey, the daughter of

Judge and State Sen. William Taylor Palfrey, and Sidney Thurston Conrad,

sister of Charles Magill Conrad, the secretary of war under Filmore.  The Hon.

Charles M. Conrad was originally from Virginia, but he moved to Louisiana with

his father's family, and he represented that state as United States senator

before, and Confederate States senator during the Civil war.  Miss Palfrey was

sent to Georgetown convent at an early age, owing to the death of her mother,

and to the fact that her uncle, C. M. Conrad, as a member of the cabinet,

resided in Washington, and with whom she spent her week-end holidays.  After

their marriage, T. Tupper, Jr., returned to live in Charleston and there they

resided until the breaking out of the Civil war.  His brother Frederick was

then sent to Louisiana to assume charge of that part of the firm's affairs. 

T. Tupper, Sr., fearing a long struggle between the states, sent T. Tupper,

Jr., with exchange on England to Louisiana to pay for all the sugar and

molasses purchased and held on consignment by the firm.  Before he could ship

the sugar purchased in Louisiana, the blockade of Charleston had taken place

and he was compelled to ship the sugar via Memphis, and the Memphis &

Charleston R. R. to the Carolinas.  As soon as he could return to Charleston,

he joined the Marion artillery and served during the remainder of the war on

the coast of South Carolina under Gen. Beauregard.  The latter offered him the

quartermastership of his division with headquarters at Columbia, S. C., which

he refused, saying that he had joined the army to fight, not to do clerical

work.  As an explanation of this offer of Gen. Beauregard, it may be stated

that T. Tupper, Sr., was president of the South Carolina R. R. about that

time, and was its first vice-president when the road was built, afterwards

succeeding Gov. Aiken as president when the latter resigned.  The army of

South Carolina was rushed to relieve Gen. Lee, but the surrender took place

before they reached him.  With the exception of James Tupper, who had been

made lame by a fall in early childhood, all of T. Tupper, Jr.'s brothers were

in the Confederate army.  Samuel V. Tupper was on Kirby Smith's staff,

Frederick Tupper in the Marion artillery, and George Tupper colonel in Wade

Hampton's cavalry division, C. S. A.  During the bombardment of Charleston, T.

Tupper, Jr., sent his family with 3 competent servants, all slaves, to

Williamston, S. C., where they remained until after the war.  With nothing but

his country home left, the city home having been sold, he went to New York to

see what the prospects were for going into business with no capital.  Such

firms as Morton Bliss & Co., and Phelps, Dodge & Co. received him very

cordially, and all the firms with whom T. Tupper & Sons had been doing

business offered to give them any credit they needed to start business again. 

T. Tupper, Sr., had been in business for 50 years without having failed or

encountering any trouble.  After returning from the North, T. Tupper, Jr.,

came to New Orleans to renew his business relations with the planters of

Louisiana, organizing the firm of Price, Hine & Tupper, of which he was the

general manager.  Previous to that, however, he bought sugar and molasses for

his old New York constituents.  Price, Hine & Tupper did a large commission

business, and in connection with this organized the Attakapas Mail

Transportation Co. to connect with the Morgan, Louisiana & Texas R. R. at

Brashear City, afterwards Morgan City.  At one time the company had 3

steamboats, the Minnie Avery, St. Mary and Iberia, as well as a small mail

boat running between Morgan City and St. Martinville, and with stage lines

from New Iberia to Opelousas and to Lafayette and as far west as Orange, Tex. 

T. Tupper, Jr., having early considered the Avery salt mines as the most

valuable asset of Louisiana, tried to organize a railroad company to convey

the salt to New Iberia, but was unable to get the capital.  Mr. Chouteau, of

St. Louis, afterwards leased the mines and the steamer Minnie Avery was built

to bring the salt, via Berwick's Bay, but the outside passage was too rough

for a river boat.  In 1874 Mr. Tupper sent Mr. Edwin de Leon to England, where

a large subscription to stock was raised to organize a stock company to

develop these mines, but when the fight on the 14th of September, that year,

took place the subscribers feared that another civil war was about to start

and withdrew their subscription.  In the reconstruction period, Metropolitan

and U. S. troops were sent to put down the uprising in the Teche parishes, but

when the troops reached Morgan City, all the boats belonging to the Attakapas

Trans. Co. were disabled, their president, Mr. T. Tupper, having reached

Morgan City before the troops.  One boat was aground in Grand Lake; one lost a

wheel, and the third boat had an engine disabled.  For this ''mishap,'' he was

arrested, brought to New Orleans and put under a $5,090 bond, but was never

tried.  Mr. Charles M. Conrad was his attorney and bondsman.  During the time

of Mr. Tupper's efforts to build the Avery-Iberia R. R., he took to the salt

works many distinguished men, among them being Sen. Don Cameron of

Philadelphia.  As a matter of Louisiana history as early as 1812, John G.

Palfrey, of Palfrey & Shepherd, Mrs. Tupper 's grandfather, a New Orleans

cotton press owner, who had retired and moved to Teche, made salt from the

salt springs on Avery's Island, then known as Petite Anse, the property of the

Marsh family, one of whom Judge Avery married.  Mr. Tupper was for years

vice-president of the chamber of commerce, when Mr. Joseph Oglesby was

president, which body often selected him to represent them in Washington, D.

C., on most important matters.  One of Mr. Tupper 's greatest ambitions was to

open up a business with the countries south of us.  In fact, at one time,

success was about to crown his efforts, when united efforts through jealousy

of other southern ports combined to crush the project.  But he has lived to

see many of his ambitious enterprises realized.  Price, Hine & Tupper

continued in business until 1873, when the crisis of that year compelled their

New York correspondents and bankers to call in loans.  The banks of New

Orleans became involved and a number failed, which, joined with the failure of

the sugar crop of Louisiana and inability to collect money due by the

planters, caused the failure of Price, Hine & Tupper.  At that time the

Attakapas Mail Transportation Co. lost the mail contract for Bayou Teche.  The

steamer Iberia was put on the mail route to Port Eads and the Minnie Avery put

on the Atchafalaya river, when she struck a snag and went to the bottom

without insurance.  Capt. Muggah, who was in command, was the hero of the Last

Island, who, when he found the storm raging too high for his boat to weather,

cut off the cabin, anchored to the windward of Last Island and saved a number

of lives of his patrons whom he picked up out of the water and put them in the

hold of his vessel until the storm abated.  Their only food for several days

was pickled fiddlers that the gentlemen caught and put into a pickle bottle

that was half full of vinegar.  When the New Orleans & Brazilian S. S. Co. was

organized about 1876, Mr. Tupper was elected president and went to Washington

with Gen. Bussey representing the cotton exchange at New Orleans to urge the

passage of a bill before Congress to pay American ships for carrying the mail

direct from New Orleans and New York to Brazil, instead of paying the English

ships to carry first to England and from there to Brazil.  After spending 2

sessions of Congress in Washington, the bill was defeated, John Roach & Sons

of Philadelphia offered to build the ships and put two in the New Orleans

trade, which would have given 1 steamer a month between New Orleans and

Brazil, if the New Orleans merchants would take $150,000 in stock.  As it was

impossible to get subscription to this amount, the enterprise fell through. 

During his stay in Washington, Mr. Tupper worked with the representatives from

southern Louisiana to have the Mississippi river commission organized.  While

in Washington, he formed a connection with the Barber Asphalt Paving Co., and

after a number of years of hard work and the assistance of Mr. Charles A.

Whitney and A. C. Hutchison and other St. Charles avenue property owners, St.

Charles avenue, which was impassable during the bad weather in winter, was

paved.  This is a monument to his energy and perseverance.  Mr. Tupper is

living at this time, in the 83d year, and up to a year ago was actively

employed in business.  Mr. Tupper comes from an ancient family, of Saxon

origin.  Martin Farquhar Tupper of Norwood, London, wrote, on Jan. 14, 1882: 

''There was a Thuringian magnate by the name of Conrad Von Treffurth who, in

1260, was hailed von Toppherr, or chief lord of many clans.''  Being

Protestant and hostile to Charles V and Philip, they incurred persecution and

loss of all things.  They are found at Hesse Cassel about 1520, whence 3

brothers Tupper migrated severally to Sandwich, in Sussex, Guernsey, and

Chichester, their names being Robert, Henry and William.  In later Saxon

records we find the name spelled in several ways, finally becoming Von Topper

in Germany and Tupper in England.  From this later country came Thomas Tupper,

born in 1576, an Episcopal minister and one of the founders of Sandwich, Mass. 

In direct descent came Thomas Tupper, Jr., who married daughter of Gov. Mayhew

of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and through his wife, his children

inherited Martha's Vineyard;  Eldad,  Dr. Benjamin,  Dr. James, who married 

Deborah Allen, daughter of Jonathan Allen;  Tristram, Sr., and  Tristram

Tupper, Jr., the subject of this sketch.  Dr. Benjamin and Dr. James Tupper

were both in command of a Massachusetts battalion at Bunker Hill and

surrendered to a Maj. Tupper, who was in command of British marines.  The

Magazine of American History of Oct., 1889, has an article headed "Antiquity

of the Tupper Family."  The 250th anniversary of the town of Sandwich, Mass.,

was productive of many interesting historical and genealogical reminisciences. 

In a number of the Springfield Republicans in 1889, this item appeared:  "A

thriving farm on the line of Cape Cod Ship Canal, not far from Sagamore had

been in the hands of the Tupper family since it was first settled in 1624. 

Thus, this has passed from father to son through 6 generations to the present

Mr. Tupper, who is doubtless the nearest example we have in America of the

entailed estates in England.  Tupper Lake in New York state is named after a

member of the Tupper family, Major Anselm Tupper, of Revolutionary fame,

having been drowned in it.  Martin Farquhar Tupper, the celebrated and greatly

beloved poet of England, and Sir Charles Tupper of Canada were cousins of Mr.

Tristram Tupper.  Of Mr. Tupper's immediate family, there were 4 children, of

whom two are deceased.  James Tupper died in infancy.  William Palfrey Tupper

was born in Charleston, S. C., July 19, 1859; died in New Orleans, Dec. 30,

1890.  Married Angela Plaisance of Natchitoches parish, La.; Sidney Conrad

Tupper, wife of Alfred Penn, and Allan Tupper.  Two grandchildren, Tristram

Tupper Penn and Alfred Penn, Jr., all residing in New Orleans.  Mrs. Tupper

died in 1899.

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NOTE:  Original source includes a photograph of Mr. Tupper.



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