Michel Henry is a mysterious figure. It seems too coincidental that he shares the last name of the two men who built the St. Peter Street Theater--Jean Marie and Louis Alexandre Henry--and that, as a bankrupt in 1809, he owed money to a number of "comediens" and "comediennes" (among them Louis Tabary, who took over the directorship of the St. Peter Street Theater in 1806 and soon after built the Orleans Theater, and Laurette Fleury, a singer and actress, who appeared at both these theaters). But we can find no documented relationship between Michel Henry and the Henry brothers. All we know about Michel is that he was a gentilhomme, who lived at 63 Rue du Quartier (now Barracks St.) in 1805 and that in 1809 he was arrested for debt and the property from his residence at Bourbon and Orleans, consisting of "perfumery assorted, some dry goods, tobacco, etc.," was sold at a sheriff's sale to satisfy his debts.
The Creoles were attending
concerts and musicales and other types of cultural entertainment while the New
Englanders were worrying about trade and shipping and getting rich. Perhaps that is
why no Creole ever founded a fortune that equaled some of those established in the
East. But the early New Orleanians undoubtedly had more fun.