Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

There are relatively few mid-19th-century Gothic Revival churches in Louisiana, probably no more than a dozen. Although the Assumption Church is not an outstanding example, it has the overall form of a medieval English Parish Church and it has all the essential visual éléments of the mid-century Gothic Revival, i.e. the battlements, the tower, the 4-centered arch fenestration, and the buttresses. In addition to being an example of a rare type, the Assumption Church is a handsome, well-proportioned building and a local landmark in the village of Plattenville.

Assumption Parish was formed in April of 1793 at the request of the Canary Islanders and Acadians who had been settling in the area since 1779. The first church was "little more than a shack" and was replaced in 1819 by a larger, more permanent structure on another site. This, in turn, was replaced by the extant church in 1856, which was located "a little to the front of the site of the first church of 1793." Once the parish "Fabrique", or council of wardens, had determined in the early 1850s the need for a larger church building, a committee was appointed to travel to Thibodaux, some twenty miles to the south, to measure the Catholic church there and to report on its dimensions." The Fabrique then contracted with one Wilson Grisamore "to build a Church of Assumption for the amount of $13,500. after the plan of the Catholic church of Thibodeaux (sic) using the same dimensions, with the bell tower being fifteen feet higher than the one at Thibodeaux."

This mid-century example of one-upmanship produced a competent English Gothic church which was rendered even more unique in its area by the burning of its model, St. Joseph's Church in Thibodaux, in 1916. The contracted cost of the new church was paid to Mr. Grisamore across a four-year period, with an additional sum of $1129.48 being paid him for "extra work" in 1855, and the church seems to have been essentially complete by 1856.