From 1829 to 1862, twenty double cabins beneath this alley of oaks housed enslaved families who formed the workforce of Marigny's Fontainebleau Plantation. Their labor included skilled steam engineers who managed the power source for the sugar presses and lumber mill, and brickmaking was the site's most profitable endeavor. Enslaved labor there also included blacksmiths, schooner crews, masons, sawyers, ox drivers, a shoemaker, a seamstress, and field hands. During harvest, children fed sugar cane into steam operated presses, while sugar refining remained hazardous enough that a small hospital was kept onsite. Daily work also included tending sheep, cattle, horses, mules, and oxen. In 1840, 153 enslaved individuals were documented there, including 57 children under age 10. The economic panic of 1837, crop failure, and falling sugar prices led to the 1852 sale of Fontainebleau, further affecting enslaved families. Violette and Bonnine, babies when Fontainebleau was built in 1829, were sold twenty-three years later with their own children to the plantation's new owner, Pierre Poutz.