An influx of Jewish immigrants arrived in America in the mid-1800’s escaping religious persecution in the Old Country, and many of them followed the westward movement of the cotton empire, their mercantile skills proving invaluable in the agrarian South. One of these immigrants was Julius Freyhan of Germany, who arrived penniless in Louisiana in 1851 and through shrewd fiscal policies died one of the richest men in the South. His extensive business interests included dry goods stores, cotton gins, saloons and opera houses, cotton mills and real estate, first in the St. Francisville-Bayou Sara area and later downriver in New Orleans. The historic museum in St. Francisville exhibits old crockery whiskey jugs stenciled “J. Freyhan & Co. Handmade Sour-Mash Bourbon,” some still sporting corncob stoppers. Freyhan & Co. in a single year often sold upwards of a million dollars worth of goods and handled some 14,000 bales of cotton.