Weeks, David, 1786-1834

David Weeks was a planter, plantation owner, and sugar manufacturer of New Iberia, La. The son of William Weeks and Rachel Hopkins Swayze, Weeks was born in Feliciana, Spanish West Florida, in 1786. He purchased Parc Perdu Plantation and assumed management of the Weeks family estate upon his father's death in 1819. In 1825 he purchased the site of Shadows on the Teche Plantation in New Iberia but did not move into the completed house until 1834, the year of his death. Weeks owned a shipping vessel that he used to transport the sugar he manufactured on his plantations to markets in New Orleans and along the East Coast. With his wife, Mary Clara Conrad, he had seven children, Frances Sydney Weeks (1820-1856), Harriet Clara Weeks (1824-1894), William Frederick Weeks (1825-1895), Alfred Thruston Conrad Weeks (1826-1864), Frederick Weeks (1830-1831), Charles Conrad Weeks (1832-1900), and David Weeks, Jr. (1834-1843). Following Weeks' death, Mary Clara Conrad Weeks married John Moore (1788-1867), a Whig member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The son of Gilbert Hall and Lily Weeks, William Weeks Hall, great-grandson of David Weeks, was born in New Orleans, La., in 1894. He was awarded a scholarship to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pa., and later a scholarship to study in France and England. Hall deferred his study abroad until after World War I, when he served in the U.S. Intelligence Service and as a chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy. Following the war he and his aunt, Mrs. Walter Torian (née Harriet Weeks) of New Orleans, paid off the mortgage on Shadows on the Teche after a fire destroyed the salt mine structures at Weeks Island, forcing the two to sell off their interest in the mines. Later Hall bought Torian's share and began supervising the restoration of the house's gardens and renovating the house with the assistance of New Orleans architect Richard Koch. Having worked largely as a painter, Hall shifted the focus of his artistic activities to photography following an automobile accident in 1935 in which he injured his wrist. During the last years of his life Hall lobbied to have a government agency take over Shadows on the Teche. The National Trust for Historic Preservation agreed to do so shortly before Hall's death in 1958.