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Ashton Plantation

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years ago


 

Overview

 

Location

Approximate Location: Ward 5, Township 23 North, Range 12 East, Sections 1-6, 14-15, (East) Carroll Parish, LA, On Highway 65 North across from Gassoway Lake.

 

Had it's own landing on the Mississippi River; immediately below the Arkansas State Line. Approximate current location: Latitude: 32.9915133, Longitude: -91.2281665

 

Date Constructed/ Founded

not determined

 

Associated Surnames

Wilkins, Oliphant, Bowie

 

Historical notes

Owned by Dr. William Webb (W.W.) Wilkins; John J. and Mary C. (Oliphant) Bowie in 1851.

 

Census: 1850 Slave Schedules = 73 slaves; 1870 US Census African Americans with the last name Wilkins in (East) Carroll Parish = 12

 

School and post office formerly operated there, bridge still in operation.

 

Associated Slave Workplaces

none


 

Associated Free Persons

 

  • none recorded yet


 

Associated Enslaved Persons

 

  • none recorded yet


 

Research Leads and Plantation Records

 

  • Bruce, Seddon and Wilkins Plantations - William Webb Wilkins (d. 1859?), James Coles Bruce (1806-1865), and James Alexander Seddon (1815-1880) were partners in the ownership of sugar and cotton plantations, a saw mill, and a cooper's shop in Saint James Parish and Carroll Parish, Louisiana. The records concern a sugar plantation near Convent, St. James Parish, Louisiana. The papers consist mainly of legal documents, bill and receipts, records of dealings with factors Kelly and Conyngham of New Orleans, and business letters. Included are photocopies of a Union circular and broadside, 1864. Manuscript volumes consist of cashbooks and daybooks for a sawmill and a cooper's shop, for Ashton cotton plantation in East Carroll Parish, and for Wilton sugar plantation in St. James Parish, and a plantation diary for 1853. Entries include slave lists, lists of provisions furnished to slaves, and wages paid to slaves for cutting wood. Related collections include: Wilton Plantation Sugarhouse Plan and Ashton Plantation Broadside. Mss. 2668, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, La.

 

  • William Webb Wilkins Papers, Mss. 4005, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, La. Dr. William Webb Wilkins settled on Ashton Plantation in East Carroll Parish, Louisiana, as early as 1846 and remained there at least through 1847. Later, he moved to St. James Parish where he managed Wilton, a sugar plantation, and also operated a sawmill. During this time, his partners in the two plantations and other Louisiana interests were James Alexander Seddon (1815-1880; United States and Confederate congressman, and Confederate secretary of war) of Richmond, Virginia, and Seddon's father-in-law, James Cole Bruce of Halifax County, Virginia. Wilkins died between 1858 and December, 1859. This manuscript group comprises six letters written by Dr. W. W. Wilkins in St. James Parish to his brother Edmund at Gaston, North Carolina. Wilkins describes the transporting by railway of his slaves to Louisiana in 1848, including a description of clothing lost by an overseer whose valise was stolen; the cultivation, production, and profits made from his sugar and corn crops at Wilton; the cotton yields and losses sustained at Ashton due to high water; problems with his partners' critical remarks; the presence of French in the neighborhood; the lack of a genteel society nearby; and slave-patrol responsibilities. He asks his brother's assistance in purchasing Dr. William Clement's plantation, presumably in North Carolina, for his son Edmund, a medical student, should the latter desire it. Also available on microfilm 5322 (Records of ante-bellum southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War. Series I, Selections from Louisiana State University ; pt. 1, Louisiana sugar plantations, reel 10)


 

Miscellaneous Information

 

  • none


 

References

 

  • A Place to Remember, East Carroll Parish 1832-1975 by Georgia Payne Durham Pinkston; East Carroll Parish Tax Assessors Roll 2006-2007 for legal land descriptions


 

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