This is part 2 of our series about the history of Tabasco sauce and Maunsel White. It’s pretty dense on the history of goings-on in Louisiana, but this is setting up the story of the rise of the McIlhenny family…which will be coming in part 3 to be published soon.

This information published with the permission of the author, Chuck Evans, and is copyrighted material. The original document can be found at: The Real History of Tabasco®

Marsh-Avery Ownership History of Isle Petit Anse

The massive salt dome that towers over flat marshland surrounded by the Bayou Petit Anse[13] in the heart of Louisiana’s Cajun country seven miles south of New Iberia was purchased by John C. Marsh (1789-1857) on or about 1818. John Marsh was assisted by his second son, George Marsh (d.1859) in operating the island’s sugar plantation. In 1849, John Marsh sold his interest to two of his sons-in-law, Daniel Dudley Avery (1810-1879), married to Sarah Craig Marsh (1818-1878) and Ashbel Burnham Henshaw. In 1854, Daniel Avery bought out the interest of Ashbel Henshaw, owning outright what is now known as Avery Island. In 1859, Mary Eliza Avery, daughter of Daniel Dudley Avery and Sarah Craig Marsh, married Edmund McIlhenny who was at that time a prominent Crescent City banker.

Deciding that it was best to avoid the conflict of the Civil War, the Avery family and the newly-wedded McIlhennys settled in at the Avery sugar plantation on Petit Anse Island, located 140 miles west of New Orleans. However, Isle Petit Anse’s salt deposits became a primary focal point of war efforts in the tug-of-war between the North and the South where salt was a vital commodity for civilian and military uses. The families fled to Texas to avoid the battles. Returning in 1865 the plantation was in shambles and over the next few years negotiations took place with former slaves returning to work the plantation. Reconstruction efforts took their toll as did Mother Nature. In 1872, the cisterns ran dry in New Iberia due to a drought and water was sold on the streets. From 1873 through the end of 1876, the Averys were involved in a legal battle to retain their property where Daniel Avery was in debt to the estate of David Hayes with mortgage notes due in January 1873. Daniel was unable to raise the money to pay the notes and his wife Sarah obtained a judgment against him in 1876 to protect her part of the property (Marsh estate). Petit Anse Island was sold at auction in 1876 where a friend purchased it for a very low price and sold it back to the Averys who regained control of the plantation. Sarah Marsh Avery died suddenly in April, 1878 and Daniel Dudley Avery followed in June, 1879.

Numerous documents relating to the fortunes of the Averys after the Civil War address the chief topic of the salt mines on Petit Anse Island and the family’s attempts to make a successful enterprise from salt mining.[14] According to geological reports, the salt deposit was extremely valuable; however, correspondence between Daniel Dudley Avery in New Orleans and his son John Marsh Avery indicates the difficulty the Averys had in obtaining capital to mine the salt, as well as the growing indebtedness of the Avery family members. Edmund McIlhenny’s banks were gone with the winds of change in the South and he was also looking for a way to reconstruct a livelihood.

When the McIlhennys and Averys fled Isle Petit Anse during the Civil War to Houston, Texas, it is alleged that upon their return in April 1865 that the sole remaining item was a crop of tabasco peppers. Yet, in another twist on the same story, Edmund attempted “to resume his banking career in New Orleans.”

The story[15] continues:

“That failed, but during the trip an unknown man gave him some pepper seeds. He returned to Avery Island, planted the seeds, and began experimenting with a pepper sauce out of career desperation and a dislike of bland food.”

Once again family legend appears to be an undocumented recollection, for Edmund could not have grown a crop in 1863 before fleeing to Texas whereupon after returning to Louisiana in April of 1865, in an unsuccessful attempt to revive his banking career, he then planted seeds given to him upon his return.

And lest we not forget about the traveler stories . . . were not the seeds given to Edmund McIlhenny on or about 1848 at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War where Edmund “grew them in his wife’s garden on the Island”, however, where he did not raise them commercially for another twenty years? This summarization certainly does not reflect Edmund’s 1859 marriage to Mary Eliza Avery and their move to Avery Island accurately, for the timeline does not provide a twenty year window between 1859 and 1868 when Edmund’s first commercial crop reached maturity. The McIlhenny Company is beginning to publicly recognize the inconsistencies of its history attributable to family legend.

“The collection of documents and artifacts relating to Tabasco sauce history has been a huge undertaking,” said Dr. Shane K. Bernard, historian and curator to McIlhenny Company. “I’ve found items of considerable value in attics, in warehouses, and in other archives and museums around the world. And while reviewing this material I discovered inconsistencies concerning such basic topics in the history of Tabasco sauce as the origin of peppers that Edmund McIlhenny used to concoct his product, and the early reception of that product by the general consuming public.”

Exactly how the Mexican red pepper seeds arrived from the area of Tabasco, Mexico, which peppers were referred to as Mexican or Chili peppers, and actually ended up in the soil of White’s Deer Range Plantation in Plaquemines Parish and in the soil of Avery’s Petit Anse Island Plantation in Iberia Parish, quite possibly will remain under speculation and disputed historical legend.

The historian and curator for the Avery Island/McIlhenny Company has publicly dismissed a direct link of Maunsel White and Edmund McIlhenny. Downplaying the political appointment of Daniel Avery and Maunsel White to the statehouse commission to plan construction of the new state Capitol in Baton Rouge, the curator describes any connection as tenuous, however; it is precisely because of Maunsel White’s family connections to the Avery family that “the family connection” is more than “a discernible link”.[16]

The likelihood that Maunsel White and Edmund McIlhenny were more than mere acquaintances is certainly enhanced by the fact that prominent New Orleans banker Edmund McIlhenny married plantation owner Daniel Avery’s daughter, Mary Eliza Avery, on June 30, 1859 in St. James Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge. Of interest would be the wedding guest registry of Edmund and Mary Eliza for the record of wedding guests may very well evidence the signature of Maunsel White at the nuptials and reception of his colleague’s daughter and new son-in-law. Certainly, where the entrepreneurial Maunsel White was also a New Orleans commissioner and founder of the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company, as well as a prominent plantation owner, early patent owner, and wholesaler; the family connections, public service, and business interests of Maunsel White are in juxtaposition with the family connections, business interests, and private family interests of New Orleans banker, and Avery plantation resident, Edmund McIlhenny.

Most importantly, Col. Maunsel White personally knew both Captain Dudley Avery, who served as a physician in the same New Orleans uniformed militia as Captain Maunsel White, and the physician’s son Daniel Avery, plantation owner, jurist, and father-in-law of Edmund McIlhenny. Where Daniel Avery was born in 1810, Captain Dudley Avery’s war constituents would have heard about the Captain’s first born son. Captain Dudley Avery died when Daniel was six years old and it is quite likely that Colonel White would have taken an interest in Daniel Avery’s adolescence.

The fact that Captain Maunsel White served in the same militia with Captain Dudley Avery, and also served with Avery’s son Daniel Avery as a statehouse commissioner, is conclusive of a relationship spanning nearly four decades between Maunsel White and members of the Avery family. It would be improper, however, to dismiss as mere coincidence the correlations between the Avery family father Dudley and son Daniel with Maunsel White; and the marriage of Edmund McIlnenny to Sarah Marsh Avery, daughter of son Daniel Avery pursuant to Maunsel White’s personal acquaintance with Daniel’s daughter, Mary Eliza Avery and son-in-law Edmund McIlhenny.

In 1859, the same year that Edmund and Mary Eliza tied the knot, Maunsel White reportedly began selling his “Concentrated Extract of Tobasco Sauce”. Evidence that White’s sauce was commercially available derives from an article in The New Orleans Daily Delta and from the Steamship Ed. Richardson 1879 menu which includes in its list of Relishes, Maunsel White.

Maunsel White believed that his tobasco pepper concoction had therapeutic qualities. This belief was documented in The New Orleans Daily Delta which printed a letter from a visitor to Maunsel White’s plantation, reporting:

“I must not omit to notice the Colonel’s pepper patch, which is two acres in extent, all planted with a new species of red pepper, which Colonel White has introduced into this country, called Tobasco red pepper. The Colonel attributes the admirable health of his hands [“slaves”] to the free use of this pepper.”[17]

During the Civil War Maunsel White lost control of his Deer Range plantation.[18] White died in 1863[19] and was buried in Cyprus Grove Cemetery, 5200 Canal Boulevard in New Orleans.[20] The cemetery literature notes:

“Maunsel White (Veteran of the Battle of New Orleans and notable merchant). A prominent businessman in antebellum Louisiana, better known among epicures for his creation, “Maunsel White Peppersauce.” White was among the first in the nation to market a sauce of Tabasco chiles. White’s secret recipe of mashed and strained chiles mixed with vinegar and salt cultivated appetites around the world. Maunsel White is entombed in a fine marble memorial designed in the Greek Revival style by architect Jacques de Pouilly.”

Interestingly, this author has not found any reference, other than the recent Cyprus Grove Cemetery literature which more than likely summarized White’s Peppersauce decoction, that addresses whether Maunsel White’s sauce resulted from boiled vinegar poured over whole red peppers, i.e., a chile pepper vinegar; or from a mash of crushed ripened peppers where boiled vinegar was added and then processed by straining the mash to a certain liquid consistency.

The process method described in the January 26, 1850 New Orleans Daily Delta article reports the term decoction, where the root word decoct means “to extract the flavor of by boiling”. This author believes that the boiling method used by Maunsel White might possibly refer to a chile pepper vinegar, in which the tobasco decoction necessitates a minimal amount of processing the tobasco pepper itself, i.e., primarily picking, cleaning, and pickling the peppers.

The McIlhenny Company Pepperfest® website History Tent question and answer section responds to the following:

Does history record that Edmund McIlhenny obtained his peppers or pepper sauce recipe from Maunsel White?

“No. In fact, there is no contemporary historical evidence that Edmund McIlhenny knew Maunsel White, much less that he received his peppers or pepper sauce recipe from Maunsel White. Furthermore, we know that White’s and McIlhenny’s recipes were different: White’s recipe, descriptions of which appeared in print on at least two occasions, called for boiling his concoction; whereas McIlhenny never boiled his product, but allowed it to ferment naturally.”

This author genuinely disagrees with the first sentence in the McIlhenny Company answer where it is evident that Maunsel White knew Edmund McIlhenny. However, it is also apparent that the pepper sauce recipes of Maunsel and Edmund were different.

Maunsel White “Concentrated Extract of Tobasco Sauce” continued to be marketed by his son, Maunsell White, Jr. (1835-1883)[21] until sometime before his death. Maunsell White Jr.’s eldest son, Maunsell White, III (1856-1912), did not continue in the family business; however he became a noted metallurgist and mining engineer. Little is known of Maunsell White, Jr.’s other two sons, Carl and David. It is presumed that the approximate 24-year commercial production of Maunsel White Peppersauce ceased upon the death of Maunsell White, Jr.