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Case file s1565 · North America · 1850
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1850
John McDonogh: Johnmcdonogh
John McDonogh. Unknown author. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
26 October 1850
Place
McDonoghville, Louisiana, USA
Field
land speculation
Legal tradition
Louisiana Civil Code (prohibition of substitutions and fidei commissa, art. 1507); US Supreme Court equity jurisdiction · Common law · Civil law
Historical event
Antebellum New Orleans
North AmericaConditions from the graveFortunes from conquest and slaveryIndustry and empireNorth AmericaUnited States

John McDonogh left two cities a fortune for free schools, his heirs said Louisiana law voided the gift, and New Orleans pulled down his statue in 2020

John McDonogh, born in Baltimore in 1779, built a fortune in New Orleans land and by his death owned over 600,000 acres in thirteen parishes. The people he enslaved rose from 16 in 1820 to 192 in 1840. From 1825 he let them buy freedom with extra work on condition they emigrate to Africa, and in 1842 he sent 81 to Liberia. He never married. He died on 26 October 1850 and left most of his estate to New Orleans and Baltimore for free schools for poor children "of both sexes of all Classes and Castes of Color." His heirs at law, led by Mary Murdoch, sued. They argued the will broke Louisiana's ban on substitutions and fidei commissa and created an estate held forever. In October 1852 the federal circuit court in New Orleans declared the gifts void and the property intestate. In its December 1853 term the US Supreme Court ruled for the cities. In 1858 each city received property worth $704,440. Baltimore opened a farm school for poor boys in 1873, now McDonogh School. New Orleans funded about 35 schools; the first served only white children, and in 1954 Black teachers and students boycotted McDonogh Day. In 2020 citizens toppled both of his New Orleans monuments, and in 2021 the school board voted to rename every school named for him.

What the law took from it

A gift to a city survives a challenge when the court treats the city, not its future schools, as the legatee.

Sources
  1. law.resource.orgCourt record
  2. 64parishes.orgPress
  3. mcdonogh.orgPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “John McDonogh left two cities a fortune for free schools, his heirs said Louisiana law voided the gift, and New Orleans pulled down his statue in 2020,” story s1565, https://www.celebrity.estate/john-mcdonogh-1850, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

North AmericaConditions from the graveFortunes from conquest and slaveryIndustry and empireNorth AmericaCommon lawCivil lawUnited States