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Lansdowne

Page history last edited by Andy McMillion 1 wk ago

  1. Overview
    1. Location
    2. Date Constructed/ Founded
    3. Associated Surnames
    4. Historical notes 
    5. Associated Slave Workplaces
  2. Associated Free Persons
  3. Associated Enslaved Persons
  4. Research Leads and Plantation Records
  5. Miscellaneous Information
  6. References
  7. Users Researching This Workplace

Overview

Location

(County and State where the plantation/workspace was located.  Information to help others locate the plantation is optional.) 

 

 

Date Constructed/ Founded

(Year the plantation/ workplace was established and/ or built.) 

 

  • In around 1790 the plantation was known as the Ivy Place after it's owner Nathaniel Ivy.  The plantation got the name Lansdowne in about 1852 when it was a wedding gift from David and Ann Hunt to their daughter Charlotte and son-in-law George Marshall.

 

Associated Surnames

(List of surnames associated with this workplace.)

 

  • Ivy, Dunbar, Ferguson, Hunt, Marshall

 

Historical notes 

(Historical summary of the workplace)

 

 

Associated Slave Workplaces

(Plantations/ workplaces connected to this one via owners' family and/ or enslaved persons.)

 

  • Owners' Family Connections to Other Workplaces
    • During Robert Dunbar's ownership, Lansdowne (known then as Ivy Place) was associated with Oakley Grove and Robert's other plantations.
    • During Jane (Dunbar) and David Ferguson's ownership, this plantation was associated with Oakley Grove , and Homewood Plantation which in addition to Lansdowne (a.k.a. Ivy Place) Jane Dunbar got from her parents and with possibly Mount Locust (belonged to David Ferguson's parents).
    • David and Ann (Ferguson) Hunt (owners).  From 1801 to his 1861 death, David Hunt built up a complex of plantations in the area.  At his peak in about 1848, Hunt owned about 24 plantations and around 1,100 slaves.  As his children married, the Hunt clan (David Hunt, his children and their spouses) owned 1,700 slaves in total. See Woodlawn Plantation MS for the details on this.
    • During Charlotte (Hunt) and George Marshall's ownership this plantation was associated with the other plantation they owned, Arcola Plantation in Tensas Parish, LA.  It was also probably associated with some of Charlotte's father (David Hunt of Woodlawn Plantation MS) plantations.  It would also have been associated with George Marshall's father's five plantations with over 800 slaves working on them.  His father was Levin R. Marshall who lived on Richmond Plantation , which was really more of a suburban Natchez estate than a plantation. 
    • Homewood Plantation (owned by Charlotte (Hunt) Marshall's sister Catherine) adjoined Lansdowne on it's west border.  Wilderness Plantation (ownd by Charlotte's father David Hunt and later by the Marshalls) adjoined Lansdowne on it's northern border.
  • Enslaved Persons Connections to Other Workplaces

Associated Free Persons

(Bulletted list of free persons: plantation-owning family, overseers, etc. Example: "John Doe (b.1841-d.1885) - owner; inherited Doe Plantation from his father Joe Doe") 

 

  • Nathaniel Ivy
    • Nathaniel Ivy is the first known owner of the land.  He probably bought the land just after the American Revolution (around 1776).  Thus the plantation was originally known as the Ivy Place.
  • Robert Dunbar 
    • Robert Dunbar bought the property and had his house there on the same spot where the Marshall house now stands. Robert bought land in the area as early as 1782 and slaves as early as 1786. As he expanded, Robert also purchased Oakley Grove Plantation just to the east of Lansdowne and moved to a home on that plantation.  Robert was the head of the "country" Dunbar clan.  Robert's descendants owned many plantations and were among the richest planters in the area.  There was an unrelated "city" clan of plantation owning Dunbars who owned the Forrest Plantation in Adams County. 
  • Jane (Dunbar) and David Ferguson
    • Either the property was passed on to Robert's daughter, Jane (Dunbar) Ferguson, or directly to her daughter (Robert's grandaughter) Ann (Ferguson) Hunt.  David Ferguson grew up on his parents Mount Locust , which served as a stand (rest stop) on the Old Natchez Trace in its early years.  Jane and David lived at Robert Dunbar's Oakley Grove where they raised their daughter Ann.
  • Ann (Ferguson) and David Hunt
    • Ann (Ferguson) Hunt acquired Lansdowne (a.k.a. Ivy Place), Homewood Plantation , Wilderness Plantation and Oakley Grove (where Ann grew up) from her family (the Dunbars).  From 1801 to his 1861 death, David Hunt built up a plantation empire.  He had about 24 plantations and 1,100 slaves at his peak in about 1848.  Hunt, his children and their spouses had about 1,700 slaves and close to 30 plantations just before the Civil War.  David Hunt lived on Woodlawn Plantation MS in the winters and in Lexington, KY in the summers.
  • Charlotte (Hunt) and George Marshall
    • David and Ann Hunt gave Lansdowne to their daughter Charlotte in 1852 when she married George Marshall.   David and Ann were dividing up about 1,800 acres of plantation land they owned on the northen outskirts of Natches into three 600 acre plantations or maybe the land had always had three adjoining plantations (Lansdowne a.k.a Ivy Place, Homewood and Wilderness) They were to serve as suburban Natchez estates/plantations for two of his daughters to live on when they married.  Homewood went to their daughter Catherine and Lansdowne went to Charlotte.  Possibly Wilderness was being saved for Elizabeth, but it wound up going to Charlotte.  Maybe Wilderness was never intended for Elizabeth, or possibly it was and the Civil War changed things.  Natchez was basically a cluster of townhouses and suburban estates where the richest planters lived and socialized together. Natchez was a good place for this because it was on high ground along the MS River which was surrounded by large expanses of the best land in the South. This land, which was out in the countryside from Natchez, was known as the Delta. Basically it was the rich bottom land along the Mississippi River where the planters who lived around Natchez owned plantations that were managed for them by other people they hired. 
    • Like Charlotte, George Marshall was from a very rich family too.  He was the oldest son of Levin R. Marshall of Richmond Plantation.  His mother was Maria Chotard.  She died when he was very young.  His father remarried to the widow of St. John Elliott.  Mr Levin R. Marshall owned about 817 slaves on five plantations.
    • Children of George Matthews Marshall (b.9 Mar 1830 Natchez - d 23 Jun 1899; burial Lansdowne Plantation) and Charlotte Hunt (b. 6 Oct 1831 Woodlawn Plantation - d 23 Apr 1910; burial Lansdowne Plantation).  They married 13 May 1852 in Jefferson County, MS.
      • Ann Hunt Marshall (b. 15 Mar 1853 - d. 17 Feb 1917) - married Henry Buckner Gaither (b. 1852 in Louisiana; mother was Varina Banks Stanton, father was Horace Rowan Gaither)
      • Maria Chotard Marshall (b. 7 Mar 1855 - d 6 Nov 1856)
      • Sarah E. Marshall (b. 6 Jul 1856 - d. 21 Sep 1892) - married Theodore Bartow
      • Coralie Byrne Marshall (b. 26 Jul 1858 - d. 28 May 1859)
      • George Matthews Marshall II (b. 19 Sep 1860 - d. 29 Sep 1916) - married Agnes Shields (b.2 Dec 1870 Laurel Hill Plantation, Adams Co, MS - father was Wilmer Shields and mother was Julia Devereux)
      • Catharine Marshall (b. 5 Aug 1862 - d. 28 Sep 1866)
      • David Hunt Marshall ( b.3 Jul 1865 - d Nov 1962)
    • George and Charlotte's life at Lansdowne
      • In 1852 Charlotte Hunt married George Matthews Marshall.
      • As a wedding gift, Charlotte's parents (David and Ann (Ferguson) Hunt) gave the couple the 600 acre Ivy Place that the newlyweds renamed Lansdowne for their residence. The Hunts also gave the couple Arcola Plantation near the town of Waterproof in Tensas Parish, LA (just across the MS River from Jefferson Co, MS) with about 104 slaves and a set of silverware.
      • Most likely George's parents (the Levin R. Marshalls of Richmond Plantation) gave the couple the resources to build the big house on Lansdowne and to furnish it. George's parents also most likely gave the couple their second LA plantation and maybe also the 22 slaves for Lansdowne.
      • These gifts established George and Charlotte as members of the Natchez elite. Lansdowne was probably quite popular in the Natchez social circles before the Civil War. George and Charlotte were worth slightly over $300,000 just before the Civil War according to one source.  A George Marshall descendant stated that George was in the "Millionaire's Club" - so he was worth over one million dollars. 
      • Soon after his marriage, George travelled to Europe to buy furnishings for the house he and Charlotte were building on Lansdowne Plantation.  The plantation was named after the Marquess of Lansdowne.  More about him is at the following link.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Petty-Fitzmaurice,_4th_Marquess_of_Lansdowne .  Maybe George met him when he went to Europe.
      • George worked on various projects on the plantation. One of these was to install a private gas works to light the chandeliers in his house.
      • George went to fight in the Civil War and was quickly wounded in the Battle of Shilo in TN. He paid someone to finish fighting the War in his place.
      • After the War, George and Charlotte were much less well off than before.  Charlotte's father had invested in Cincinnati, OH business real estate (in the north) to preserve wealth for after the War, and was known to own a lot of rail road stock.  These investments were used by others in the Hunt clan to replace the things lost on most all plantations (muels, tools, seed, etc.) during the War so that production could begin again using sharecroppers as the labor.  This wasn't very profitable for plantation owners.  Often they lost money.  In addition to Charlotte's father's investments, probably George got some assets from his father after the War.  George and Charlotte worked hard to make Lansdowne as productive as it could be - even selling butter and eggs in town themselves.  They were able to keep Lansdowne and pass it on to their descendants.
      • George and Charlotte are buried on Lansdowne.
  • Segregation and Civil Rights Era to the Present Day
    • The pilgrimage house tours finally brought in the money to preserve the Natchez area big planter's homes.  Lansdowne benefited from this.  The story goes that there were pots on the floors to catch the rain water at the time of the first pilgrimage tours.  In addition oil revenue from some of the land investments Levin R. Marshall made benefited some of his descendants - possibly the owners of Lansdowne were included.
    • In the 1950s, most of the land from the original Lansdowne Plantation and the adjoining Wilderness Plantation land was subdivided into house lots and sold by the George Marshall descendants to black people. The banks would not give mortgages to black people during this time at the same low interests charged to whites.  So the family held the mortgages.  It was a win/win situation because the Marshalls got the interest on the mortgages and the blacks got reasonable rates they could afford that the banks would not give them.
      • After WWII the nation decided that increased home ownership rates would help the American economy.  To increase ownership rates above the previous rates (previously only 2/5 of people were homeowners) the government put several new programs/rules in place.  Blacks were excluded from the new opportunity to be a homeowner by a practice called red lining.  The banks would draw red lines on their maps around the black neighborhoods.  They would only give home loans to blacks at much higher interest rates than to whites.  The unfairness of this led to black riots in major cities such as Detroit.
    • The big house and 120 acres of the original 600 acres of Lansdowne are still in the Marshall family today.  Probably the Marshall descendants were very frugal to come up with the money to buy back some of the original plantation land to get the size back up to 120 acres.  It is a private residence, but is opened during the Spring Pilgrimage Tours in Natchez each year.  Possibly the original carriage house is rented out during this time to tourists as well. 

Associated Enslaved Persons

(Bulletted list of enslaved persons. You can add several separate lists with subheadings like "1850 - 1860: Slaves listed in the Doe Family Bible")

 

  • The plantation had 22 slaves when George Marshall and Charlotte Hunt owned it. ("Tumult and Silence at Second Creek," by Wintrop D. Jordan, 1995 LSU Press, page 125.)  At least half of the 22 slaves would have probably been house slaves.  A cotton farm needed 20 or more slaves to be called a plantation (rather than a farm), so Lansdowne just barely had enough slaves to be called a plantation.
  • Slave names at the beginning of the Civil War 
    • Robert and Susan.  During the Civil War, Robert was the butler in the Lansdowne "big house" and Susan was his wife.
      • During the Civil War, Union soldiers who were stationed near the suburban Natchez estate homes like Lansdowne would sneak off and raid the homes for their table silver and anything else of value. This was not generally condoned by the Union commanders who would punish the soldiers and/or try to return the valuables if they could.  Robert kept the silver at Lansdowne hidden during the War.  He burried it in an abandoned cistern, which was accessed through the basement and located underneath the parlor.  Apparently Charlotte and George Marshall just built their large house over the cistern and basement of the previous smaller house of Robert Dunbar, which had been in the same place.  Lansdowne was broken into by Union soldiers during the War to steal what they could.  The thieves did not get the silver thanks to Robert.

Research Leads and Plantation Records

(Bulletted list of primary sources, plantation records from archives, books, microfilm, etc., that you think would help the reader to find his/ her ancestors.)

 

  • see the "Research Leads and Plantation Records on the Woodlawn Plantation MS plantation page for research leads for the David Hunt side of the family
  • More research is needed to determine where the Levin R. Marshall plantation information may be.

Miscellaneous Information

(Any additional information that does not fit under the preset headings)

 

  • The following website contains narratives by slaves who escaped to freedom - some from Mississippi. www.docsouth.unc.edu . They can give the reader a most full understanding of what slavery was really like for a slave. One of the best narratives from the website is: http://www.docsouth.unc.edu/neh/campbell/campbell.html .  

References

(Bulletted list of primary references that you used to add information to this page)

 

Users Researching This Workplace

(Put your name or a link to your personal profile page here)

 

  • Andy McMillion .  I welcome corrections, and hope that the way the information is presented makes it easy to mix your research with mine in bulleted lists to this webpage.

 

 

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