OVERVIEW

Location

Rifle Point Plantation is located in McLennan County, Texas near the Brazos River by Waco.

Date Constructed/Founded

1862

Associated Surnames:

Gustine, Conner, Turner, Duncan, Thompson, Hitchcock, Minor, Dunbar, Macrery, Wood, McMurran, Chotard, Sessions, Marshall, Martin, Bisland, Buckner

Historical Notes

Farrar Benjamin Conner founded a second Rifle Point Plantation in 1862 when he moved the family’s slaves to Texas from their Louisiana plantations to keep the slaves out of the hands of the Union Troops. The first Rifle Point Plantation is in Concordia Parish, Louisiana.

Associated Slave Workplaces

Rifle Point Plantation, Concordia Parish, LA

Berkeley Plantation, Adams Co., MS

Lake Place Plantation, Concordia Pa., LA

Killarney Plantation, Concordia Pa., LA

Spokane Plantation, Concordia Pa., LA

Innisfail Plantation (formerly Lake St. John Place), Concordia Parish, LA

Linden Grove Plantation, Concordia Pa., LA

Associated Free Persons

• Jane Elizabeth Boyd Gustine Conner – owner
• Farrar Benjamin Conner – son
• Lemuel Parker Conner – son
• Henry LeGrand Conner – son

Associated Enslaved Persons

Most of the slaves from Rifle Point Plantation, Concordia Parish, Louisiana were moved to Rifle Point Plantation, McLennan County, Texas in 1862.  Some ran away.  The rest returned to Rifle Point Plantation, Concordia Parish, Louisiana in January 1866. 

• Jacob Stewart
• Margaret Lightfoot
• Joe Hogan
• Nathan Brown
• Thomas Marshall
• Rose - wife of Thomas Marshall
• Jack - son of Thomas & Rose Marshall
• Matilda - daughter of Thomas & Rose Marshall
• Lemuel - son of Thomas & Rose Marshall
• Arthur Marshall - born in Texas; son of Thomas & Rose Marshall

Research Leads and Plantation Records

• Lemuel P. Conner and Family Papers, 1818-1865, Records of Antebellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, Series I: Selections from the Louisiana State University, Part 3, The Natchez Area, Stampp, Kenneth M., Editor, University Publications of America, Bethesda, Maryland, 1989.

Miscellaneous Information

Jacob Stewart and Margaret Lightfoot, great great grandparents of Edward B Adams were among the slaves taken from Rifle Point Plantation, Concordia Parish, Louisiana to Texas where the second Rifle Point Plantation was founded in 1862. Jacob ran away, made it back to the Louisiana/Mississippi area, and joined the Union troops in Natchez. He served in Company H, 6th U. S. Colored Heavy Artillery from November 1863 to May 1866 when the unit was mustered out. Margaret came back from Texas to the Rifle Point Plantation, Concordia Parish, Louisiana with most of the slaves in January 1866. Margaret later married Joe Hogan, another Rifle Point slave.

References

• Scarborough, William Kauffman, Masters of the Big House: Elite Slaveholders of the Mid-Nineteenth-Century South , Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.
• Jacob Stewart, widow Ellen, Civil War pension application file (private) Co. H, 6th U. S. Colored Heavy Artillery, Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs; National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC

Users Researching This Workplace

• Edward B Adams