Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

After her death, a group of prominent free men
of color created L’Institution Catholique pour
l’Instruction des Orphelins dans l’Indigence, which
opened in 1848, and was known unofficially as
the Couvent School. For the past century and a
half five schools under various names have
operated at the site, located at 1941 Dauphine
Street. 2 One recent example was the Bishop
Perry School for Boys, which closed after
Hurricane Katrina. The Orleans Parish School
Board operates another Marie C. Couvent School
today at 2021 Pauger Street.
Plan Book 94, folio 6. Clerk of Civil
District Court.
1 Keith Weldon Medley, Black Life in Old New Orleans
(Gretna: Pelican Publishing Company, 2014), 69.
2 Neidenbach, Elizabeth Clark “Marie Couvent.” In
knowlouisiana.org Encyclopedia of Louisiana, edited by David
Johnson. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2010–.
Article published March 15, 2011.
http://www.knowlouisiana.org/entry/marie-couvent.
J AMES
D URHAM
(1762 -1805)
In November 1788 Declaration of Independence signer and Surgeon General of the Continental
Army Benjamin Rush wrote a brief account of the life of James Durham, a Philadelphia-born
African American, who would become the single documented black physician in eighteenth century
New Orleans. The Rush account, along with scant notarial records, indicate that Durham
practiced in New Orleans for twenty years, from 1783 to his death in 1805. Although official
Spanish records of this period do not mention him clearly, a legal edict of 1801 described him as
“free negro Derum…having the right only to cure throat disease and no other,” a reference that
does not reflect other opinions of his ability. 1 Rush, the leading physician of Philadelphia, had concluded,
“I have conversed with him upon most of the acute and epidemic diseases of the country
where he lives, and was pleased to find him perfectly acquainted with the modern simple mode of
practice in those districts. I expected to have suggested some new medicines to him; but he suggested
many more to me.” 2
Durham was born about 1762 and raised as a slave in Philadelphia. He became successively the
property of two accomplished doctors who taught him the practice of medicine. At the end of the
American Revolutionary War Dr. Robert Dow brought him to New Orleans. Dow freed him in 1783
in exchange for a payment of 500 pesos. 3 Durham then began a practice under the Dow patronage,
earning the handsome sum of $3,000 a year. In 1788, Durham traveled to Philadelphia where he
applied to and joined the Episcopal Church; it was there that Dr. Benjamin Rush interviewed him.
Married at the time, Durham evidently returned to New Orleans about 1794 to purchase a home
on Bienville Street from Balderic Tomas, paying three hundred pesos cash and giving a mortgage
for three hundred pesos more. 4 On May 23, 1805, Durham called a notary and witnesses to his
house where he felt he was dying. He made a will and succession that transferred all of his property
to his wife Marie Françoise Diana. His assets consisted of his house, several slaves and his furniture
and effects. 5
NOTABLE NEW ORLEANIANS: A Tricentennial Tribute
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