Biography
Born in St.-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada, Marchesseault was described as a carousing onetime New Orleans gambler.
During his term as Water Overseer of Los Angeles, Marchesseault and a partner laid wooden water pipes that burst and turned streets into sinkholes.
Struggling with mounting debts, he slipped into an empty Los Angeles City Hall Council chamber on Jan. 20, 1868, and shot himself to death.
Marcheassault Street in Los Angeles is named for him.
Read more about this topic: Damien Marchesseault
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“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
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“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
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