Overview
Location
Tensas Pa., LA. This plantation was just south of the town of Waterproof, LA. The historic site is on highway 568/65 just south of its intersection with highway 566. It is to the west of highway 568 and most likely stretched all the way to the MS. Click on "Hybrid" at the following website to see the fields and forrests in the area today. http://www.clocations.com/cviewmap.aspx?list=caty&state=LA&caty=Locale&lid=649855
Lake St. John is the same as Lake Concordia where David Hunt's (Woodlawn Plantation MS) Hole-In-The-Wall Plantation was located (Concordia Parish used to be St. John Parish).
The bureau of land management's website has recently added many of the original land survey maps. The map showing the land (T9N-R10E, section 38) where Arcola Plantation was is at the following link at that website (the magnifying glass icon at the lower left enlarges the map). http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/SurveySearch/Survey_Detail.asp?dmid=78653&Index=69&QryID=71689%2E71&DetailTab=3 Arcola Plantation probably covered a lot more of the surrounding sections. Abijah Hunt and William Forman owned lot number 26 (William Forman was a member of the Natchez area Hunt and Smith firm (Abijah Hunt and Elijah Smith) as well as Abijah Hunt's partner in Huntley Plantation in Jefferson County, MS). Elijah Smith somehow became the owner of lot number 26 and sold it to Samuel Clement to become part of Ravenswood Plantation. Note that the area on the map where Elijah Smith owned a section of land and where Thomas Hunt (probably some relative of David or Abijah Hunt) owned another section of land is where David Hunt's Hole In The Wall Plantation was located.
The following link shows Arcola Plantation just south of the town of Waterproof, LA in Tensas Parish. http://www.crt.state.la.us/hp/nhl/map.asp?name=54010102.jpg&title=Waterproof+High+School
Ravenswood Plantation may have bordered Arcola Plantation on its south side.
Date Constructed/ Founded
My best guess is in about 1822 or slightly before when David Hunt is known to have been renting out land he owned on nearby Lake Concordia ("David Hunt Letters," LA State University, http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/exhibits/natchez/collections/hunt/index.html, retrieved , 30 Nov 07).
Associated Surnames
Hunt, Marshall
Historical notes
This plantation would have been one of David Hunt's most valuable because it was on very fertile low MS Delta land along the MS River (Mark Twain, "Life on the Mississippi," Wildside Press, Hollcong, PA). It probably flooded from time-to-time which would have deposited rich silt onto the land. This would have continually renewed the fertility of this land. Natchez MS area planters like Hunt had been expanding into this area of LA. since at least the early 1800s (D. Clayton James, "Antebellum Natchez," LSU Press, Baton Rouge, p148).
George Marshall and his new wife Charlotte Hunt received this plantation as a wedding gift from Charlotte's father David in about 1852 (Harnett T. Kane, "Natchez on the Mississippi," Bonanza Books, NY, p 180).
This plantation was not a residence for any of the Hunt family before the Civil War (Dunbar Hunt, "Sketch of David Hunt," "The Fayette Chronicle," 29 May 1908, VOL XLI. No35). It would have been operated for David Hunt and later for George Marshall by a plantation manager who lived on the plantation.
Associated Slave Workplaces
Associated Free Persons
- David Hunt and his wife Ann Ferguson - owner
- George Marshall and his wife Charlotte Hunt - second owners
Associated Enslaved Persons
Research Leads and Plantation Records
Miscellaneous Information
References
Users Researching This Workplace
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