A research paper by Andy McMillion
The
Hunt family of the Natchez area included Abijah Hunt, Jeremiah Hunt
(Abijah’s brother), David Hunt (Abijah’s nephew), Margaret Stampley
(David’s first wife), Mary Calvit (David’s second wife), Ann
Ferguson (David’s third wife), and Ann and David’s Children and
their spouses: Mary Ann (Hunt) and James Archer, Mary Agnes (Walton)
and Abijah Hunt II and Mary Agnes’ second husband Edgar C. Wood,
Anna (Watson) and George Hunt, Catherine (Hunt) and William S.
Balfour, Charlotte (Hunt) and George Marshall, Andrew Hunt, Leila
Lawrence (Brent of Baltimore) and Dunbar Hunt, and Elizabeth (Hunt)
and William F. Ogden.[i]
David Hunt: (Oct. 22, 1779 – May 18, 1861), Portrait of David Hunt
now in Chamberlain - Hunt Academy, Port Gibson, Mississippi.
The Hunt family owned 25 plantations in Jefferson County and the surrounding area. The plantations were acquired through inheritance, marriage and purchase. They were: Hole in the Wall, Argyle, Huntley, Calviton, Woodlawn, Waverly, Southside, Brick Quarters, Fatlands, Black Creek, Buena Vista, Ashland, Servis Island, Oakwood, Georgiana, Lansdowne, Arcola, Homewood, Oakley Grove, Wilderness, Belle Ella, Oak Burn, Fairview, Fatherland and Givin Place. The family owned approximately 1,700 slaves in the area.[ii]
Woodlawn Plantation house of David Hunt photo made in 1968 by Warren C. Ogden - descendant of David Hunt.
Abijah Hunt was born about 1753[iii] in Hunterdon County, New
Jersey. Abijah’s earliest known ancestor was Ralph Hunt who came to
Long Island in 1652 with some Englishmen to start the town of New
Town. Ralph died in 1677. The lineage down to Abijah was Ralph,
Edward II, Jonathan I, Jonathan II and Abijah.[iv]
Abijah
Hunt was an adventurous man. He left New Jersey with his brothers
Jesse, and Jeremiah[v] and began building wealth as a sutler – a
merchant who follows an army to sell food and liquor to its
soldiers[vi] – with the Revolutionary Armies. The brothers stopped
in Cincinnati where Abijah and later David Hunt (Abijah’s nephew and
heir) maintained business interests throughout their lives.[vii]
Abijah and his brothers bought goods in Pennsylvania and other towns
in the east. The goods went on covered wagons to Pittsburgh where
they were loaded on flatboats and sent down the Ohio River to
Cincinnati. In Cincinnati the Hunt brothers sold these supplies to
farmers, extending credit to the farmers as well. They also provided
supplies to Ft. Washington.[viii] David Hunt later had assets in
Cincinnati which he held onto as a refuge for his children in case
the anticipated Civil War made life in Jefferson County too
difficult.[ix]
Abijah Hunt (and probably his Nephew David) also
did business with John Wesley Hunt of Lexington, Kentucky. John W.
Hunt was a cousin of Abijah Hunt, and grandfather of Confederate
General John Morgan (John Wesley Hunt’s daughter Henrietta married
Col. Calvin C. Morgan of Huntsville, AL. General Morgan was their
son).[x] John Wesley Hunt became one of the first millionaires in
Lexington through the mercantile business.[xi] Abijah Hunt had a
partnership with John Wesley Hunt whereby cattle and nails were sent
to Cincinnati in exchange for bacon and liquor for Louisville.
Records indicate that Abijah was still actively engaged in obtaining
liquor in Cincinnati for John W. Hunt in Lexington in 1799.[xii]
David Hunt (as an heir of Abijah Hunt) traveled to Cincinnati and
spent many summers in Lexington throughout his life attending to
business and visiting his family.[xiii] Hopemont, John Wesley Hunt’s
home at 201 N. Mill Street in Lexington and the nearby Civil War
Museum are open to the public for tours.[xiv]
Abijah and
Jeremiah went on to settle in the Natchez, MS area. Jeremiah later
moved back to Cincinnati, Ohio where his brother Jesse lived. Abijah
used his money to become a partner in the Natchez area firm of Hunt
and Smith.[xv] The firm probably began with just the one general
store in Natchez. MS[xvi] Bureau of Land records show that Abijah
purchased 350 acres of land in Concordia Parish, LA and land in
Tensas Parish, LA.[xvii] These two parishes are right across the
Mississippi River from Natchez. The Concordia Parish land was
probably bought for Hole in the Wall Plantation and the Tensas
Parish land was probably for Argyle Plantation. Hole in the Wall
Plantation was located on Maxwell Road in northern Concordia Parish
just west of the Mississippi River.[xviii]
In 1800, 1803 and
1804, Abijah purchased the land for Huntley Plantation in Jefferson
County 28 miles from Natchez on the Natchez Trace.[xix] This was
probably when Hunt and Smith built their general store in Greenville
on the Natchez Trace. Abijah’s nephew David Hunt moved to the area
to work for his Uncle at this time and later became a big area
plantation owner;[xx] thus, it’s likely that David’s help was a big
reason that Abijah decided to purchase Huntley and probably opened
the store here at this time. David probably lived on or near Huntley
Plantation and worked in the Greenville, MS Hunt and Smith store.
The land came from the estate of David Odom who had gotten it as a
grant from the Spanish Government. The plantation was on Planter’s
Fork of Coles Creek beginning at John Terry’s corner in Jefferson
County, MS. The land today is on Miss 533, 5.8 miles west of the
intersection with US 61 near Fayette.[xxi] The total size of the
plantation at this time was 815 acres.[xxii] (T9N-R1W sect 3&26 and
T9NR1E sect 10[xxiii] & 11[xxiv]). On-line maps located at
http://www.gomdot.com/maps/county_maps.asp may be used in
combination with the location references to locate land mentioned in
this paper. Generally, smaller plantations were less than 700 acres
with about 20 slaves, medium sized plantations were between 700 and
1,500 acres with about 60 slaves and large ones were 1,500 to 3000
acres with about 100 slaves.[xxv]
Greenville, MS was
established in 1803. The northern part of the town was on land from
Huntley Plantation and was known as Hunston or Huntley.[xxvi] Today
Greenville would have been on Miss. 553, 5.8 miles west of the
intersection with US 61 near Fayette.[xxvii] John Hinds briefly
owned some of the land from David Odom’s estate before Abijah bought
it for Huntley Plantation. John built a cotton gin on this land in
1799,[xxviii] and Abijah got the gin in 1800 when he purchased the
land. The gin was the first in the county, and was a public one
which meant that any area planter could gin their cotton for a
fee.[xxix] Gin receipts were used for money at one time.[xxx]
In 1808 Abijah bought some land in Claiborne County, MS from
heirs of William Henderson. This land had come from a Spanish land
grant to a Squire Boone.[xxxi] This was probably land bought to open
a third Hunt and Smith store at the Grind Stone Ford in Claiborne
County. The store was approximately 25 miles north of the Greenville
store and was also on the Natchez Trace.[xxxii] Travelers in
Abijah’s day considered themselves in the wilderness once they were
north of the Grindstone Ford on the Natchez Trace.[xxxiii]
Just before the war of 1812 on June 18, 1811[xxxiv] George
Poindexter, a rising Mississippi politician, killed David’s Uncle
Abijah in a duel near Natchez.[xxxv] Abijah was a Federalist and
didn’t think much of Poindexter who was a Jacksonian, and his public
criticism of Poindexter led to the duel. Poindexter was a Governor
and a U.S. Senator of Mississippi.[xxxvi]
Abijah Hunt’s brother Jonathan III had a son named David on
October 22, 1779 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. When David was in
his early 20’s, in about 1801, his father died. David received a
small inheritance, all of which he gave to his sister. Then David
moved from New Jersey to the Natchez, Mississippi area (probably to
Greenville) to work for his Uncle Abijah, in the Hunt and Smith
retail stores. He married Margaret Stampley in Pickering County on
July 10, 1800. Pickering County changed its name to Jefferson County
in 1802.[xxxvii] Margaret was born in 1778 in South Carolina and
died in 1823 in Jefferson County.[xxxviii]
David earned
$300 his first year (about 1801) and $500 his second year (about
1802) as a clerk in the Hunt and Smith stores.[xxxix] The relative
value in 2003 of these amounts is about $4,000 and $7,000
respectively using the Consumer Price Index.[xl] In 1802, David was
one of the white men who signed the Treaty of Commissioner’s Creek.
In this treaty, the Choctaw Indians gave up rights to their land in
Claiborne County, Mississippi (same county where the Hunt and Smith
store at Grindstone Ford, probably started in 1808, was
located).[xli] Just after David’s second year (about 1803) of
working as a clerk in the Hunt and Smith stores, David’s Uncle
Abijah and his partner gave David a salary of $3,000 per year to
accept full charge of the stores.[xlii] (about $44,000 in 2003
dollars).[xliii]
David lived well below his means and began
investing in land and slaves – a practice he continued throughout
his life. He probably started Woodlawn Plantation (T10N-R1W sect.
49&50)[xliv] at this time (about 1803). This plantation was two
miles from Abijah Hunt’s Huntley Plantation in Jefferson
County.[xlv] The house is still there. It is one mile west of the
Natchez Trace Parkway Fayette Exit (MS 533). After passing
Springfield Plantation, going north on Johnson Road, then east on
Frasier Road, it is on the south side of Frasier Road before the
intersection with Travelers Rest Road.[xlvi]
It’s unclear
how David’s marriage to Margaret Stampley ended, but on December,
18, 1808 he married Mary Ann Calvit (born July 1792). Her parents,
Colonel Thomas and Zepha Calvit, owned Calviton Plantation[xlvii]
(T10N-R1W sect 47; and T10N-R1W sect 20)[xlviii] which adjoined
Woodlawn Plantation.[xlix] Mary Ann was sixteen[l] and David was
twenty-nine when they wed. Mary Ann died in childbirth about a year
after their marriage, and their child died soon after that at
fifteen months of age.[li]
In 1811 when David was 31, his
Uncle Abijah was killed. David was an heir to a sizable part of the
estate. The other heirs to Abijah’s interest in the Hunt and Smith
firm wanted to sell.[lii] This was because the impending War of 1812
with the British had made keeping their interest in the firm risky.
The British had been interfering with American shipping since the
Revolution which led to a financial panic about this time.[liii]
David convinced the other heirs to let him continue running the firm
and buy them out. Although the War of 1812 caused many firms to go
bankrupt, Hunt and Smith survived. By 1822 David had bought out
Abijah’s other heirs as well as all the owners, so that he now owned
the entire Hunt and Smith firm.[liv] Thus, David wound up with all
of Hunt and Smith’s assets – the Hunt and Smith stores.
Sometime after Abijah’s 1811 death, David also wound up with
Abijah’s Huntley Plantation and cotton gin, and possibly Hole in the
Wall Plantation and Argyle Plantation in Louisiana as well.[lv]
Plantations had begun to really thrive after the 1800 invention of
the cotton gin.[lvi] Although cotton was the big money-maker on the
Hunt plantations, slave labor was also used to grow corn,
vegetables, and other crops as well as to raise livestock (cattle,
sheep, hogs, horses and mules). Crops were rotated to preserve the
soil. Leather was tanned, shoes made, thread spun, cloth woven and
carpenter and blacksmith work was done by the slaves also. Hunt
practiced self-sufficiency to make his plantations more
profitable.[lvii]
In 1816 when David was about 37 years old,
he married his third wife Ann Ferguson. She was born April 22, 1797
on her parent’s plantation, Oakley Grove, in Adams County,
Mississippi 11 miles from Natchez. She was 18 or 19 when she married
David. Her parent’s names were Jane Dunbar and David
Ferguson.[lviii] Oakley Grove Plantation may have later been
inherited by Ann and David Hunt.
When David was 41 Thomas
Calvit, David’s second wife’s father, died (May 21, 1821). David
inherited all of Thomas Calvit’s estate after some legal skirmishes.
Thomas Calvit’s only son Samuel had died in 1820 leaving no
children.[lix] The estate included all of Calviton Plantation and,
according to the will, eight slaves – Maria, Maria’s brother Jacob,
boy Ruben, young Lonz, Bill, Jabez, Jabez’s wife Chanty, and Fanny
the daughter of Kitty[lx].
When he was about 43, David
terminated the firm of Hunt and Smith which consisted of the general
stores. Steam boats had caused a decline in traffic on the Old
Natchez Trace, which is where the stores were mostly located. Prior
to steamboats on the Mississippi River, merchants and planters would
float their goods to Natchez and New Orleans to be sold and travel
back toward Nashville on the Natchez Trace. Now they could avoid the
dangerous Trace and travel back by steam boat which many did.[lxi]
Hunt sold the stores for $30,000[lxii] (about $470,000 in 2003
dollars[lxiii]). Then he went on a buying spree. He bought a
plantation in Claiborne County on the banks of Bayou Pierre[lxiv],
348 more acres in 1822 (T9N-R1W sect 9) at Woodlawn Plantation on
which he began building his residence,[lxv] and 40 more acres in
1822 at Huntley Plantation (T9N-R1w sect 23).[lxvi] Lloyd and
Company, Liverpool sent a collection agent to get an outstanding
debt of the now terminated Hunt and Smith firm while the house at
Woodlawn was still under construction. David gave the agent 100
bales of cotton to settle the debt that fall from the Claiborne
County Plantation.[lxvii]
In 1825 the author William Gilmore
Simms took a trip through Mississippi and stayed overnight with a
supposedly fictional Colonel David Hunt of Jefferson County. Colonel
David Hunt told Simms a story about a Choctaw warrior who kills his
friend. Simms writes about this story in the poem called "At
Midnight Did the Chiefs Convene" and again in "Oakatibbe, or the
Choctaw Sampson" (1841). Simms tells how Colonel Hunt used Indians
to help pick his cotton. This practice is supposed to have been
going on since 1813 in the Natchez area.[lxviii]
In a slave
narrative from the Federal Writers’ Project, Mr. Peter Brown tells
about his life on Woodlawn Plantation as a slave. He says he was
born March 1, 1852. His parents’ names were Jane and William Brown.
William was brought from Tennessee. Peter’s grandparents Sofa and
Grandpa Peter Bane also lived on Woodlawn Plantation. Peter says his
mom had ten children. Some of their names were Jonas, Sofa, Peter,
Alice, Isaac and Jacob.
Peter Bane also tells how a Dr
Coleman came to see his parents once when they had cholera. He says
he ate ash cakes, meat, plums and peaches. He also tells about two
race horses his owner (presumably David Hunt) had named Night and
Shade. They were taken to Fayette to be raced by a white driver
named Clem. There was betting on the horses and two or three
thousand dollars was won.
Mr. Peter Bane mentions that his
master’s house (maybe the house at Woodlawn Plantation, though it is
still there) was set on fire, the cotton gin and cotton were burned
and that most of the provisions they had worked so hard for were
stolen by the Yankee soldiers during the Civil War. He could have
been talking about the gin at Huntley Plantation built by John
Hinds.[lxix]
Another slave narrative from the Federal
Writers’ Project has an interview of Cyrus Bellus. He was born in
1865 in Jefferson County, Mississippi. His parents both belonged to
David Hunt. His fathers name was Cyrus Bellus too, and his mother’s
name was Matilda Bellus. His maternal grandparents were Annie and
Stephen Hall. His paternal grandparents were Dinah and John Major.
They belonged to David Hunt too. Cyrus Bellus tells about life on
the plantation. After the war he share cropped at the Hunt’s
Wilderness Place, and later moved to Arkansas where he became a
lumber grader.[lxx] Peter Dickson was a slave trader in Snowhill
Maryland with whom David Hunt frequently did business, so some of
these people may have come to Jefferson County from Maryland.[lxxi]
Hunt invested in more land and slaves all his life. In 1860 he
had 386 slaves in Jefferson County[lxxii] on Woodlawn, Southside &
Brick Quarters (T10N-R1W sec28, 29 & 30), Black Creek (T10N-R1W sec
26, 27, 39, 40) and others {possibly Waverly (T10N-R1E sect 45),
Fatlands (T10N-R1W N/W portion of), Buena Vista (T10N-R2W almost
entire), Ashland (T10N-R2W sect 13 & 14)[lxxiii] and Servis Island
(probably on Services Island)}.[lxxiv] This didn’t include
Calviton[lxxv] or Huntley Plantations[lxxvi] because by this time he
had given them to his sons –Abijah II and George – and their
spouses. These preceding plantations were all in north western
Jefferson County either on the Southside-Ashland Road or near
Greenville, Mississippi. David’s Jefferson County Woodlawn
Plantation was his main residence with the biggest concentration of
his plantations nearby.[lxxvii] He had 82 slaves in Issaquena
County,[lxxviii] probably on land on the Mississippi River (T11N-R9W
sec 8,9,10 & 25)[lxxix] south of Mayersville and south of the
Historic Wilderness Plantation.[lxxx] He had 99 slaves on Hole in
the Wall Plantation[lxxxi] on Maxwell Road in Concordia Parish,
Louisiana by the Mississippi River.[lxxxii] He had 139 slaves on
Argyle Plantation in Tensas Parish, Louisiana.[lxxxiii] The total
was 706 slaves on between six and eleven plantations. These were
just the ones that it was possible to find through on-line research.
Hunt also had a plantation in Claiborne county[lxxxiv] and close to
20,000 acres of land in Attala, Issaquena, Madison, Warren,
Washington, Yazoo and Holmes/Yazoo counties in Mississippi where he
may have had additional plantations.[lxxxv]
Some of the
details of his land purchases between 1833 and 1851 found at the
Bureau of Land Management’s website are listed below.[lxxxvi]
I.
Attala County, 79 acres, purchased in 1840.
II. Issaquena County,
11 tracts purchased in 1835 and 1840. Issaquena County wasn’t formed
until 1844, so this land was in Washington County when it was
purchased.[lxxxvii]
a. The 1835 land (T11N-R9W sec 8, 9, 10, &
25)[lxxxviii] was on the Mississippi River south of Mayersville and
the Historic Wilderness Plantation.[lxxxix] Hunt had 82 slaves in
the 1860 census in Issaquena County probably on this land.[xc]
b.
The 1840 land purchase was on Deer Creek.[xci] David gave this land
to his son George who ran Georgiana plantation[xcii] here as
evidenced by Georgiana Road in this same location on current
Mississippi Department of Highway Maps.[xciii] There was possibly a
smaller adjoining plantation[xciv] on Deer Creek which may have been
started by George’s older brother Abijah II.[xcv] Abijah lived in
Issaquena County[xcvi] (the Deer Creek area of Issaquena County
later became part of Sharkey County).[xcvii]
III. Jefferson
County (North/West), total of 1,436 acres.
a. Huntley Plantation:
In 1840 Hunt bought 100 more acres (sec 24 T9N-R1W) at this
plantation.[xcviii] This took the total to 955 acres for Huntley
Plantation.
b. Black Creek Plantation: From 1840 through 1844,
Hunt bought 757 acres (sec. 40, 510 acres; sec. 26, 192 acres; sec.
27, 55 acres; all in T10N-R1W) at this plantation.
c. Southside
and Brick Quarters: In 1851 Hunt bought 231 acres (sec 28, T10N-R1W)
at this plantation.
IV. Madison County, 6 tracts purchased in
1835 and 1840, (about 1,700 acres).
V. Warren County, 26 tracts
purchased in 1835 and 1840, (about 7,000 acres).
VI. Washington
County, 14 tracts purchased in 1835 and 1840, (about 3,500 acres).
VII. Yazoo County, 14 tracts, totaling 3,854 acres purchased in
1833, 1835 and 1840, (most of these purchases were with partner
Joseph Dunbar).
VIII. Holmes/Yazoo County, (purchased with
partner Joseph Dunbar), total of 1,363 acres in 1835 and 1840.
Hunt traveled a lot to Lexington, KY (where he spent many summers –
possibly to avoid getting yellow fever); Cincinnati, OH (he made an
annual trip); and New Jersey (where he was born). He had relatives
in all three places and investments and business interests in
Cincinnati and Lexington, KY. He anticipated the Civil War and kept
his Cincinnati assets so his children would have somewhere to go if
the Civil War left the Natchez area in such bad shape that they
would be better off elsewhere. These investments made it possible
for some of his family to hang on to their homes and land for awhile
after the Civil War.[xcix]
David Hunt was probably the
largest benefactor to Oakland College, now Alcorn State University.
It was located in southwest Claiborne County 5 miles from Rodney,
Jefferson County, Mississippi and 12 miles from Woodlawn Plantation.
He gave about $175,000[c] (about $3.5 million in 2003 dollars[ci])
to the College. David’s four sons all graduated from Oakland
College. His son Dunbar was valedictorian of the class of 1860.
After the Civil War, the state purchased the College and named it
Alcorn State University. Oakland Chapel can still be seen at Alcorn
State today. The money from the sale was used to open
Chamberlain/Hunt Academy which still operates today at 124 McComb
Avenue, Port Gibson, Claiborne County, MS. Hunt also gave a small
sum to Fayette Female Academy in nearby Fayette, Mississippi.[cii]
In Reminiscences of a Mississippian in Peace and War, Frank A.
Montgomery gives a good description of Oakland College. “The
cottages in which the students roomed formed a semi-circle on the
crest of the ridge, with the main college near the center, and close
to this the president’s house. In front was a campus covered with
oak trees, and sloping down to the common boarding-house, and at
each end of the semi-circle the halls of the literary societies, the
Belleslettre and the Adelphic.”[ciii]
Hunt along with other
members such as Dr. Rush Nutt funded the Rodney Presbyterian Church.
This was the church David and his family attended.[civ] It was sold
to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1966 and is
occasionally open for tours.
David Hunt contributed about
$50,000 (about $1,000,000 in 2003 dollars) to the Colonization
Society. Its purpose was to send free blacks to the country of
Liberia in Africa to live. This was needed because it did not work
out too well for slave owners to have slaves and free blacks living
near each other.[cv]
Hunt died at age 81 on May 18, 1861 at
Woodlawn Plantation in Jefferson County, Mississippi. He anticipated
the Civil War but didn’t live to see it. His wife Ann Ferguson Hunt
lived on after the war at the house at Woodlawn Plantation.[cvi] Her
son Dunbar and his wife lived at Woodlawn from 1867 when David
Hunt’s estate was divided until 1875 – just after his mother’s
death.[cvii] Because of the size of Hunt’s fortune including the
Cincinnati Ohio assets, she lived with all the same comforts she had
before the war until her death, Nov. 8, 1874.[cviii]
The
Hunt family burial place is on Calviton Plantation. David Hunt, his
wife Mary Ann Calvit Hunt, his wife Ann Ferguson Hunt, David’s son
Andrew who died in early adulthood, David’s son Abijah, as well as
some slaves are buried in and around a cemetery on Calviton
Plantation.[cix]
David and Ann had 14 children (8 of whom
survived to adulthood) and made sure each had at a minimum a
plantation, a house, about 100 slaves and a set of silver from
Baltimore when they married.[cx] The survivors[cxi] were:
IX.
Mary Ann Hunt: born 1817, died at age 67 or 68.
X. Abijah Hunt
II: born 1820, died at age 30.
XI. George Ferguson Hunt: Born
1827, died at age 32.
XII. Catherine Hunt: Born 1829, died at
age 41 or 42.
XIII. Charlotte Hunt: Born 1831, died at age 78.
XIV. Andrew Hunt: Born 1838, died at age 21.
XV. Dunbar Hunt:
Born 1840, died at age 77.
XVI. Elizabeth Hunt: Born 1843, died
at age 35.
Woodlawn Plantation belonged to David Hunt (born 10/22/1779 at
Hunterdon County, New Jersey; died 5/18/1861 at Woodlawn
Plantation). This plantation was his primary residence. His second
wife was Ann Ferguson (born 4/22/1797 on Oakley Grove Plantation in
Adams County, died 11/8/1874 at Woodlawn Plantation).
Upon
his father's death, David came to Natchez from New Jersey when he
was 22 to work for his Uncle Abijah Hunt, a prosperous Natchez
merchant. David lived like a monk and saved nearly all he earned to
invest in land. He purchased land along Coles Creek in Jefferson
County and built the house at Woodlawn Plantation.
Just
before the war of 1812, David's Uncle Abijah was killed in a duel by
George Poindexter, a rising Mississippi politician. David inherited
some of his Uncle Abijah's estate, and bought out the other heirs.
He held onto the property (several stores around Natchez) and sold
later at a heavy profit. He invested all this money in land as well.
He eventually owned 25 plantations. His Jefferson County
plantations were clustered mostly between Rodney Mississippi and the
Mississippi River. They included: Ashland, Black Creek, Buena Vista,
Calvitron, Fatlands, Huntley, Oakwood, Southside & Brick Quarters,
Waverly and Woodlawn.
He also owned Hole-In-The-Wall
Plantation (3,500 acres near the levee) in Concordia Parish LA;
Argyle Plantation in Tensas Parish, LA; and the adjoining
plantations of Homewood (several thousand acres) and Landsdowne(600
acres) in Adams County (he gave them to two of his daughters). Other
plantations he owned were: Fatherland, Arcola, Georgiana,
Wilderness, Belle Ella, Fairview, Servis Island, Oak Burn, and Givin
Place.
David Hunt was the largest benefactor to Oakland
College, now Alcorn State University. He gave about $175,000 to the
College. David Hunt was possibly the richest man in Mississippi at
the time of his largest gifts to Oakland College. After the Civil
War, the state purchased the College and named it Alcorn State
University. The money from the sale was used to open
Chamberlain/Hunt Academy.
David Hunt along with other
members such as Dr. Rush Nutt funded the Rodney Presbyterian Church.
It was sold to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1966 and
is occasionally open for tours.
Mary Ann Hunt (born in 1817), was the daughter of Ann and David
Hunt. She probably grew up on Woodlawn Plantation in Jefferson
County. She married James Archer (born December 23, 1811) on May 16,
1836.[cxii] James was born near Belair, Hartford County in Maryland
to Chief Justice Stephenson Archer (Princeton College Graduate,
class of 1805). James graduated from Yale University and studied law
with his father, becoming a practicing attorney in Hartford County,
MD. He moved to Mississippi in 1835 and to Oakwood Plantation (his
family residence) in 1837 after his marriage. He was an elder in the
Presbyterian Church.[cxiii]
Oakwood Plantation (T10N-R1E
section 20 and 27)[cxiv] was in Jefferson County, MS, fifteen miles
north-east of Natchez. James Archer had 98 slaves in the 1860 census
in Jefferson County.[cxv] Oakwood was considered a large-sized
plantation. The plantation adjoined Robert Y. Wood’s Woodland
Plantation in the Church Hill area of the county – south toward
Natchez from Woodlawn Plantation. The land today is on Miss 533
south of the Church Hill (Maryland Settlement) off of U.S.61. It was
probably on the west side of Miss 533 across from Woodland
Plantation which was on the east side of Miss 533. The Civil War
caused Mary Ann and James Archer to lose everything except the house
and land. They operated a school for income after the war. They had
14 children – 4 sons and 3 daughters survived to adulthood.[cxvi]
Mary Ann Died in March of 1885 at age 67 or 68, and James died in
1898 at age 86 or 87.[cxvii] They are buried in the Oakwood
Plantation garden.[cxviii]
Abijah Hunt (born Nov. 16, 1820) was the son of David Hunt.[cxix]
He probably grew up on Woodlawn Plantation in Jefferson County, MS.
He graduated from Oakland College, in Claiborne County, MS.[cxx] He
married Mary Agnes Walton on April 21, 1841 in Adams County, and
lived in Issaquena County in an area that is now Sharkey
County.[cxxi] Most likely he was starting a plantation on land
purchased by his father David in 1840 on Deer Creek.[cxxii] If this
is true, the plantation adjoined the plantation his brother George
started a few years later named Georgiana[cxxiii] on Deer
Creek.[cxxiv] Abijah’s plantation was probably owned by his brother
George at the time of the 1860 census and probably had 13 slaves
living in 9 slave houses managed by Jno. (John?) Densmore.[cxxv]
Abijah died on August 5, 1851[cxxvi] at age 30 and was buried in the
Calviton Plantation family burial place.[cxxvii] Abijah and Mary
Agnes’ children were:
1. Thomas W. Hunt, born in 1842, married
Jeanette D. January.
2. Ann Hunt, born in 1844.
3. Mary Floyd
Hunt born 1 Feb 1845 married William Dougald Torrey.
4. Ella
Agnes Hunt born 1846 married Field F. Montgomery.
5. Catherine
Hunt – died as a child.[cxxviii]
Mary Agnes remarried to
Edgar C. Wood, August 23, 1855[cxxix], and lived at David Hunt’s
Calviton Plantation after Abijah’s death. Edgar had 88 slaves at
Calviton and 156 slaves at Wilkin Place in the 1860 census
death[cxxx]. Edgar’s father was Colonel James G. Wood who owned a
large tract of land in the Church Hill area. Colonel Wood had moved
to Jefferson County from Maryland around 1800. Colonel Wood had 60
slaves in the 1860 Jefferson County Census on his plantation and set
up Oak Grove Plantation, the Cedars Plantation, Woodburn, Lagonia
and Woodland Plantation for Edgar’s siblings.[cxxxi] Most of these
appear to have been medium sized plantations based on the number of
slaves in the census. Woodland adjoined Mary Ann (Hunt) Archer’s
Oakwood Plantation.
Argyle Plantation with 139 slaves in
Tensas Parish, LA was probably inherited by David Hunt’s
grandchildren from his son Abijah’s marriage to Mary Agnes. The
notation “Hunt, Est. A., E. G. Wood in trust 4 minors,
ARGYLE,[cxxxii]” may mean that E. C. Wood is the administrator of a
trust that is holding this plantation from the Hunt estate for 4
minors. The “G.” possibly should be a “C.”
George F. Hunt (born October 2, 1827)[cxxxiii] was the son of
David and Ann Hunt and probably grew up at Woodlawn Plantation. He
graduated from Oakland College in Claiborne County
Mississippi.[cxxxiv] On October 10, 1848 he married Anna Watson in
Claiborne County, Mississippi. Anna was the daughter of James H.
Watson and Anna Marie Cable.[cxxxv] James Watson had 80 slaves in
the Claiborne county 1860 census.[cxxxvi] Buena Vista Cotton Gin,
also known as Watson Steam Gin, was located in Claiborne county as
well. It was north east of Port Gibson which is in the vicinity of
the Hunt Store at the Grind Stone Ford.[cxxxvii] This gin may have
belonged to the James Watson family.
George and his wife had
59 slaves in the Jefferson County 1860 census[cxxxviii] probably on
Huntley Plantation (T9N-R1W sec. 3 & 26 and T9N-R1E sec. 10)[cxxxix]
which was George’s family residence.[cxl] He also had 147 slaves in
26 houses managed by G.W. Johnson[cxli] on Georgiana
Plantation[cxlii] in Issaquena County[cxliii] on Deer Creek[cxliv]
and another 13 slaves in 9 houses on an adjoining plantation managed
by Jno Densmore.[cxlv] These plantations were on land that was given
to form the present day Sharkey County. [cxlvi]
George Hunt
is mentioned in the Susan Sillers Darden Diary of 1857 twice. On Jan
5, a carriage was borrowed from George by “Put and Joe” because
their carriage got stuck in quicksand near Rodney. On Jan 8, “There
is a great rise in land. Jeff Briscoe bought George Hunt’s place of
500 acres. Gave $80 an acre for it.”[cxlvii]
General Grant,
in the winter of 1862 and the spring of 1863, sent Union troops up
Deer Creek as part of the Steele’s Bayou Expedition. It was an
effort to open up Vicksburg, which the Confederates used to guard a
bend in the Mississippi River. The expedition failed. The Union Army
reports on this expedition say that on March 23, 1863 Col. Hamilton
N. Eldridge’s 127th Illinois Infantry moved back to Watson’s
plantation.[cxlviii] Watson’s plantation was next to Georgiana
Plantation[cxlix] and likely belonged to Anna Watson’s family.
George died on September 3, 1863 at age 32 and Anna died on June 11,
1894 at age 52.[cl] Both are buried on Huntley Plantation.[cli]
Based only on the date of George’s death, it’s possible he died
fighting in the war.
Catherine Hunt (born in 1829) grew up at Woodlawn Plantation in
Jefferson County.[clii] She married William S. Balfour on June 4,
1850 in Jefferson County.[cliii] Her father David built them the
largest of the Hunt family homes at Homewood Plantation in Adams
County about a mile north of Natchez.[cliv] From the relative size
of Homewood Plantation on maps, it must have been over a thousand
acres.[clv] A photo and description of the house is at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/balfour.html.
Catherine
and William S. Balfour lived on his Issaquena County Plantation for
the five years (1855-1860) it took to build the house at
Homewood.[clvi] The Issaquena County Plantation was a large
one.[clvii] William S. had 177 slaves in Issaquena County in the
1860 census managed by G.W. Murfee.[clviii] William S.’s father was
William L. Balfour, who was a large planter like David Hunt. William
S. Balfour owned Homestead Plantation in Madison County, Woodside
Plantation in Yazoo County, Fall Back Plantation in Washington
County, and other Plantations. William S. and his brothers Charles
and James ran the family plantations after their father’s 1857
death.[clix]
William S. was a good business man and kept the
plantations running well “between cotillions and hunt
breakfasts.”[clx] William S. and Catherine had ten children – one of
whom was named Josephine.[clxi] During the Civil War Catherine got
nervous and traveled around by carriage with her children for about
a year when the Union troops got near Natchez. Homewood was spared
during the war. The Balfours finally had to sell in 1907, and the
home burned in 1940.[clxii] Catherine died July 4, 1871 at age 41 or
42. William remarried to Lucy Stone. He died 1902. William and
Catherine are buried in the Natchez Cemetery.[clxiii]
Charlotte Hunt (born in 1831) married George Marshall on May 13
1852.[clxiv] Charlotte’s father, David, gave them the 600 acre
Lansdowne Plantation in Adams County (which adjoined sister
Catherine’s Homewood Plantation). They built the house at Lansdowne
Plantation in about 1853. Charlotte’s father gave them two
additional plantations in Louisiana as well.[clxv] One of these may
have been Arcola Plantation with 104 slaves in Tensas Parish,
LA.[clxvi]
George Mathews Marshall (born March 8, 1830)
didn’t get too involved in business like his brother-in-law William
S. Balfour. Instead George traveled a lot to Europe to shop for art
and ornaments for Lansdowne. He also had lots of projects, one of
which was to install a private gas works to supply the chandeliers
in the house at Lansdowne Plantation. He didn’t really have to worry
about money anyway.[clxvii] His father was Levin R. Marshall of
Natchez[clxviii] who was a banker as well as a big planter like
David Hunt. George proved himself after the Civil War by working
harder than he ever had in his life to keep Lansdowne in the family.
It is still in the family. [clxix] A photo and description of this
house is at http://www.natchezpilgrimage.com/houses.htm . George
died June 23, 1899 and Charlotte died on April 23, 1910.[clxx] Both
are buried in the Natchez Cemetery.[clxxi]
Andrew Hunt was born June 21, 1838 and died in 1859 at age 21.[clxxii] He graduated from Oakland College.[clxxiii]
Dunbar Hunt (born November 14, 1840)[clxxiv] grew up at Woodlawn
Plantation and graduated valedictorian from the Oakland College
class of 1860 in Claiborne County, MS.[clxxv] He became a
Presbyterian minister and met and married Leila Lawrence Brent in
1867 at one of his Church assignments. Leila was born on August 1,
1842 to Robert James Brent and Matilda Lawrence of Baltimore,
Maryland.[clxxvi]
Dunbar and Leila lived at Woodlawn
Plantation from around 1867, when David Hunt’s estate was divided,
until 1875 – just after his mother’s death.[clxxvii] In March of
1885 a corn crib made of 36 different kinds of wood that Dunbar sent
was on display at the Exposition in New Orleans attended by Walter
Bisland Wade of Jefferson County.[clxxviii] Dunbar died on June 18,
1918 at age 77 in Natchez, and Leila died on September 26, 1916 at
age 74.[clxxix]
Elizabeth Hunt (born 1843)[clxxxi] grew up on Woodlawn
Plantation. She attended boarding school at the Elizabeth Female
Academy in Washington Mississippi. There she became friends with her
future husband’s sister – Eliza Ogden. When Elizabeth Hunt was 16
she became engaged to William Frederick Ogden (born Feb 3,
1845),[clxxxii] son of New Orleans Judge Abner Nash Ogden. Judge
Ogden lived in Carrolton near the present site of Tulane University.
Elizabeth and William met through William’s Oakland College
buddy Dunbar Hunt (David Hunt’s son and Elizabeth’s brother).
William spent the Christmas holidays from Oakland College at
Woodlawn Plantation in Jefferson County with his buddy Dunbar Hunt.
There he met and fell in love with Dunbar’s sister Elizabeth.
William carried Elizabeth’s picture with him through University of
Virginia Law School and also when he went to fight in the Civil
War.[clxxxiii]
While William was away with his brothers
fighting in the war, New Orleans was occupied by Federal troops.
William’s father, Judge Ogden was away at work one day and his
daughter Eliza had invited some of the Yankee soldiers she met over
to the house to sing around the piano. Judge Ogden came home early
and kicked the soldiers out. Later Federal troops took possession of
their house and Judge Ogden had to leave New Orleans because he
wouldn’t sign an allegiance to the United States. Eliza was later
engaged to marry a Mr. Tom Kennedy; however, because she was
Presbyterian and he was Catholic, they broke the engagement and
Eliza never married.
When Captain William F. Ogden returned
from the war, he was very skinny and weak. He had been taken
prisoner and held many months on Johnson’s Island. There he had
caught typhoid. He regained his health and married Elizabeth Hunt on
September 5, 1865.[clxxxiv]
William practiced law with his
father and brother in New Orleans. William and Elizabeth lived in a
large corner house on Jackson Street in New Orleans. An old post
card of a similar street in New Orleans is at
http://www.geocities.com/twincousin2334/la_new_orleansStCharlesAve.jpg
to give an idea of what the house may have looked like. They had
seven children:
1. William F, a Memphis cotton broker
2. Ann,
married George E. Sears, a New Orleans rice broker
3. Estelle,
born April 17, 1870, married Thomas Reed
4. Elizabeth, died at 23
of Bright’s disease – brought on by the shock of her brother Nash’s
death.
5. David, died at 18 months of dysentery
6. Nash,
drowned at 18 in the Mississippi River
7. Dunbar H., married
Grace Augusta Cox of Columbus, MS and became a Presbyterian
minister. He was named for David Hunt’s son Dunbar, who had been an
Oakland College buddy of his dad (William F. Ogden).[clxxxv]
In the house, the Ogdens had several African American servants. They
had a butler who was married to the cook – called Mammy, a
housemaid, a nurse for the children and a lady who came to do their
washing and ironing. They also had Tildie who was a young African
American girl who had been brought from Woodlawn Plantation in
Jefferson County.
In the fall of 1870 Elizabeth Hunt and her
children William, Ann and Estelle (4 months old at the time) took a
trip to Niagra Falls. They went by boat up the Mississippi River and
then by train to Niagra Falls. The housemaid, nurse and Tildie went
also. They all had new clothes specially made for the trip.
A man on a horse drawn wagon brought milk every morning to the house
in New Orleans. The servant went out with a pail and milk was drawn
from a spigot on the wagon’s milk tank. A photo of an old post card
showing such a milk wagon is at
http://www.geocities.com/twincousin2334/NO_Milkdelivery.JPG . Little
Estelle liked to go out and wait with the servant and fill her cup
with milk too when the milk man came.
Once when first cousin
Josephine Balfour was visiting from Homewood Plantation in Adams
County, she was overcome with the urge to go swimming in the huge
rain gutters along the streets in New Orleans. She was about 15
years old when this happened and got into a lot of trouble with her
Aunt Elizabeth over it.
They attended the Downtown
Presbyterian Church in New Orleans. On Sundays they came home to a
cold meal prepared the day before as they believed no work should be
done on Sunday.
Eliza Ogden, William’s sister came to live
in the house on Jackson Street when her father, Judge Ogden died.
Eliza inherited a good sum of money which she gave to her brother
William to help save a family plantation. After that William was
always responsible to take care of Eliza.
Elizabeth died of
yellow fever in 1878. Back then people didn’t know that yellow fever
was spread by mosquito bites. They thought it was from close human
contact and dirty bed linens. When yellow fever broke out, they
panicked and left town.[clxxxvi] The Ogden family would go over and
stay with a family member on the Mississippi coast each summer until
about October when the threat of the disease was over. They may have
been staying at the Balfour family’s Harrison County
plantation.[clxxxvii] In 1878, they didn’t leave New Orleans in time
and the whole family caught the disease which killed Elizabeth that
year at age 35. She told the children to obey their father and Aunt
Eliza, be kind to the servants and not play in the streets after she
was dead.
The whole family had to wear black clothes for a
long time during a customary mourning period. Elizabeth was buried
in the Ogden family tomb in Lafayette Cemetery number one on
Washington Street in New Orleans.
Eliza was already living
in the home and took over the responsibilities of raising
Elizabeth’s children. She would read to the children from Thackery,
Walter Scott and Charles Dickens. William’s daughter Estelle had
recurring attacks of inflammatory rheumatism till she was 21 which
had started when she had scarlet fever as a child. During the
attacks Estelle couldn’t even comb her hair.
The children
all attended private school and the girls had music lessons from
Miss. Mary Davies. Two years after Elizabeth (Hunt) Ogden’s death,
William remarried to Miss Mary Davies. Mary had all the furniture in
the house reupholstered and did a lot of redecorating in the house.
John was raised like a little rich prince; however, the family money
was running out fast.
The plantations were losing money now,
during the Reconstruction times. This was especially true of the
3,500 acre Hole in the Wall Plantation in Concordia Parish, LA.
Elizabeth (Hunt) and William Ogden had apparently gotten this
plantation from her father’s estate. Bureau of land records show
that David Hunt’s Uncle Abijah Hunt bought 350 acres in Concordia
Parish, LA.,[clxxxviii] which may have been the beginnings of Hole
in the Wall Plantation. William thought the problem at the
plantation was the manager; so the manager was fired and William
sold the house in New Orleans, let the servants go, and moved the
family up to the plantation to live.
The family moved into
the story and a half manager’s house. Their furniture would barely
fit in this house – a much less elegant one than they had left in
New Orleans. The house had a wing with two bedrooms in it as well.
The house was just behind the Mississippi River levee on Maxwell
Road,[clxxxix] and could be seen by the boat passengers going by. In
those days the levees were lower. They yard had many beautiful
flowers in it in the springtime.
The family had an African
American cook, and Miss Mary cooked as well. They ate well having
lobsters by the barrel shipped up from New Orleans. Like the adults,
the girls and young people did a lot of partying when they should
have been saving every penny and figuring out how they were going to
earn a living.
William Ogden had been a city lawyer and
wasn’t good at managing a 3,500 acre plantation. His son Nash seemed
like he was going to be a natural at it, but he drowned in the
Mississippi River during this time at age 18. He was watering some
horses in a borrow pit. They got out too far and started going down.
Nash got tangled in the horses’ harnesses and drowned. William Ogden
almost drowned too trying to save his son Nash. William’s health was
broken by that incident, and he was never totally well again.
Hole in the Wall was about to be lost, and the man holding the
mortgage asked William to let William’s oldest son also named
William (by then a Memphis cotton broker) take over the plantation.
William senior refused and shortly lost the plantation for a debt of
$3,000. The family moved to Vidalia across the river from Natchez
where William senior tried to start a law practice. But his health
was so bad that he didn’t succeed. After about a year Miss Clara and
Ernestine Walworth invited them to live with them in Natchez at the
Burn. Miss Clara’s niece, who was Miss Ernestine’s cousin had
married William Ogden’s son (also named William). The Walworths let
Mary and William live with them at the Burn and take in additional
boarders for income. Photos of the Burn are at www.theburnbnb.com.
William died at the Burn, Feb 26, 1899[cxc] at age 54 and was buried
in Lafayette Cemetery number one in New Orleans.
[i]Allen Duane Hunt, “RootsWeb:HUNT-L[HUNT-L} Mississippi Hunts –
D02 (of D01 through D02),” Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:13:10-0700,
Ancestry.com,
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/HUNT/2000-07/0963425590 , (28
Oct 2005).
[ii]Harnett T. Kane, Natchez on the Mississippi, (New
York: Bonanza Books, 1947) 179.
[iii] Col. Sanford Hunt, “The
Ralph Hunt Family Lineage,” The HUNTList, 29 Nov 1997,
http://members.fortunecity.com/doughunt/fam00161.htm , (28 October
2005)
[iv]Dunbar Hunt, “Sketch of David Hunt”, by his son,
Fayette Chronicle, 29 May 1908, Vol. XLI, No. 35.
[v]Ibid.
[vi] Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, (United
States: William Collins + The World Publishing Company, 1978), 1435.
[vii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[viii] College Hill
Historical Society, Book, Chapter 15, “Morgan’s Raiders,” pages
180-184, http://www.selfcraft.net/UBOB/CollegeH.pdf , (3 Nov 2005).
[ix] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[x] College Hill Historical
Society et al., loc. cit.
[xi]Hunt-Morgan House (Hopemont),
National Park Service, www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/lexington/hun.htm ,
( 3 Nov 2005).
[xii]College Hill Historical Society et al., loc.
cit.
[xiii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[xiv] Hunt-Morgan
House et al., loc. cit.
[xv]Kane, op. cit., 175.
[xvi] Dunbar
Rowland, “Mississipi Vol.I A-K,1907, page 801-803,” “Diggin’ for
Roots, Greenville,” RootsWeb, 12 July 2005,
www.rootsweb.com/~msjeffe2/greenville.htm , (28 Oct 2005).
[xvii]“Results List,” Bureau of Land Management – General Land
Office Records, n.d.,
http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch/Results.asp , (23 Feb.
2005).
[xviii] “Concordia Parish Place Names and Information,”
RootsWeb, n.d., http://www.rootsweb.com/~laconcor/place.htm , (2 Nov
2005).
[xix] Rowland et all, loc cit.
[xx] Dunbar Hunt et al.,
loc. cit.
[xxi] Jefferson County, Mississippi State University,
n.d., http://www.ssrc.msstate.edu/grr/jefferson.htm , (4 Nov 2005).
[xxii]Virginia Weeks Warbington, “David Odam, Sr. of Cole's Cr.,
Miss. Territory,” January 23, 2005,
http://genforum.genealogy.com/odam/messages/13.html , (1 Nov 2005).
[xxiii]Edgar Tobin, Everette Truly and Ann Brown, “Jefferson County
Plantations and Tracts,” RootsWeb, 12 July 2005,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/plantations.htm , (28 Oct 2005).
[xxiv]Ann Brown, “Jefferson Tidbits,” RootsWeb, 12 July 2005,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/tidbits.htm , (28 Oct. 2005).
[xxv]
Edith Ziegler , Tensas Parish Clerk's Records Tensas Parish,
Louisiana , RootsWeb, Jan 2000,
http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/la/tensas/census/1860par.txt. ,
(2 Nov 2005).
[xxvi]E.R. Jones, “Jefferson County,” The Fayette
Chronicle, 29 July 192?4?, RootsWeb, 1 Mar 2005,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/Newspapers/ExpoJefferson.htm , (28 Oct.
2005).
[xxvii] Jefferson County, Mississippi State University,
n.d., http://www.ssrc.msstate.edu/grr/jefferson.htm , (4 Nov 2005).
[xxviii] Warbington et al., loc. Cit.
[xxix] Rowland et al., loc.
cit.
[xxx] Jones et al., loc cit.
[xxxi]Melrose Collection,
Folder 1131-1136, Federal Writers Project Collection, Northwestern
State University Library, LA,
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:cdQcwBmuyoAJ:www.nsula.edu/watson_library/cghrc_core/federal_writers_project.htm+%22Federal+Writers+Project%22+%22Abijah+Hunt%22&hl=en
[xxxii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[xxxiii] “Natchez Trace
Parkway,” National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior
(Government Printing Office, 2003-496-196/40561).
[xxxiv]Allen
Duane Hunt et all, loc. cit.
[xxxv]Kane, op cit, 176-177.
[xxxvi]“Biographical Directory of the United States Congress,” n.
d., http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000402
, (28 Oct 2005).
[xxxvii] ”County Formation Maps,” n. d.,
http://www.mymississippigenealogy.com/ms_maps/ms_cf.htm , (28 Oct
2005).
[xxxviii]“Farnsworth and Related Families,” n.d.,
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:_Ad86N8FVAUJ:sportsltd.net/family/pafg81.htm
, (28 Oct 2005).
[xxxix]Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[xl]Samuel H. Williamson, “What is the Relative Value?” Economic
History Services, April 15, 2004,
http://www.eh.net/hmit/compare/ , (28 Oct 2005).
[xli]Loren
Quart, “History of Port Gibson Mississippi,” (25 Oct 2005),
http://www.portgibson.org/History%20of%20Port%20Gibson.htm , (28 Oct
2005).
[xlii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[xliii] Williamson
et al., loc. cit.
[xliv] Edgar Tobin, Everette Truly and Ann
Brown, et all, loc. cit.
[xlv] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[xlvi] Arthur E. LaSalle, Historic Springfield Foundation,
Springfield Plantation, n.d.
[xlvii] Allen Duane Hunt et all,
loc. cit.
[xlviii] Edgar Tobin, Everette Truly and Ann Brown, et
all, loc. cit.
[xlix] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[l]David
Blackman Calvit, “Re: Ann Calvit - Ms. ,” genealogy.com, n. d.,
http://genforum.genealogy.com/calvit/messages/10.html , (28 Oct
2005).
[li] Barbara Jane McCormick, “Ann Calvit - Ms.,”
genealogy.com, n. d.,
http://genforum.genealogy.com/calvit/messages/8.html , (28 Oct
2005).
[lii] Kane, op cit, 176-177.
[liii] “The War of 1812,”
History Central, n.d., http://www.multied.com/1812/Index.html , (28
Oct 2005).
[liv] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[lv]Orville F.
Howe, “Letter,” Bobs M. Tusa & Yvonne Arnold, “Collection Title:
Howe (Orville F.) Letter,” June 23, 1882, The University of Southern
Mississippi Libraries Special Collections, December 9, 2004,
http://www.lib.usm.edu/~archives/m150text.htm , (1 Nov 2005).
[lvi] W.J. Cash, The Mind of the South, (Knopf 1941).
[lvii]
Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[lviii] Allen Duane Hunt et all,
loc. cit.
[lix] Benny Calvit, “Re: Elizabeth Calvit & John Ford
Natchez,” 16 Jan 2001,
http://genforum.genealogy.com/calvit/messages/73.html , (1 Nov
2005).
[lx] Will of Thomas Calvit, Wills from Book A 1800-1833,
RootsWeb, “Diggin for Roots,” 15 Aug 2002,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/wills2.htm , (1 Nov 2005).
[lxi]“History of the Trace,” n.d.,
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msswterr/trace.htm#history , (1 Nov 2005).
[lxii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[lxiii] Williamson et al.,
loc. cit.
[lxiv] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[lxv] From a
map on the back of paper advertising Historic Springfield Plantation
and the surrounding sites by Historic Springfield Foundation.
[lxvi] Results List – BLM GLO Records, “U.S. Department of the
Interior Bureau of Land Management” U.S. Government ,
http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/PatentSearch/Results.asp?Index=1&qryid=36563.39
,
(23 Feb 2005).
[lxvii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[lxviii]Miriam Jones Shillingsburg, “Southern Quarterly Magazine,
Winter 2003, www.findarticles.com n.d.,
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4074/is_200301/ai_n9232606
, (2 Nov 2005).
[lxix] Work Projects Administration, Peter Brown
Interview, “Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the
United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas
Narratives, Part 1,” February 24, 2004 [EBook #11255],
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11255/11255-h/11255-h.htm#BrownPeter
, (2 Nov 2005).
[lxx] Samuel S. Taylor, “Work Projects
Administration, Cyrus Bellus Interview,” RootsWeb 12 Jul 2005,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/aframerican.htm , (2 Nov 2005).
[lxxi] David Hunt, “David Hunt Letters, 1804, 1810-1811,
1815-1818,1820-1839,” Louisiana State University Library, n.d.,
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/exhibits/natchez/collections/hunt ,
(2 Nov 2005).
[lxxii]Linda Durr Rudd , “1860 Jefferson County
Slave Schedule – Mississippi,” anglefire, n.d.
www.angelfire.com/folk/gljmr/1860JeffersonS.html , (3 Nov 2005).
[lxxiii] Edgar Tobin, Everette Truly and Ann Brown, et all, loc.
cit.
[lxxiv] Kane, op. cit., 179.
[lxxv] Rudd et. al., loc
cit.,
[lxxvi] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[lxxvii] Edgar
Tobin, Everette Truly and Ann Brown, et all, loc. cit.
[lxxviii]Tom Blake , “ISSAQUENA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI
LARGEST
SLAVEHOLDERS FROM 1860 SLAVE CENSUS SCHEDULES,” mindspring, April
2001,
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ajac/msissaquena.htm , (3
Nov 2005).
[lxxix] “Results List,” Bureau of Land Management –
General Land Office Records et. al., loc cit.
[lxxx] “General
Highway County Maps,” Mississippi Department of Transportation,
n.d., http://www.gomdot.com/maps/County_maps/Issaquena.pdf , (3 Nov
2005).
[lxxxi] Tom Blake, “Concordia Parish, Louisiana, Largest
Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules,” mindspring, April
2001, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ajac/laconcordia.htm
(3 Nov 2005).
[lxxxii] “Concordia Parish Place Names and
Information,” et al, loc cit.
[lxxxiii]Tom Blake, “Concordia
Parish, Mississippi, Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census
Schedules,” mindspring, April 2001
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ajac/latensas.htm , (3 Nov
2005).
[lxxxiv] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit
[lxxxv] Results
List,” Bureau of Land Management – General Land Office Records et.
al., loc cit.
[lxxxvi] Results List,” Bureau of Land Management –
General Land Office Records et. al., loc cit.
[lxxxvii] ”County
Formation Maps,” et al, loc cit.
[lxxxviii] Bob Franks, “Federal
Land Patent Grantees: Range 9 West,” “The Issaquena Genealogy and
History Project,” rootsweb, 2003,
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/land2.html , (3 Nov 2005).
[lxxxix]“General Highway County Maps,” et al, loc cit.
[xc] Tom
Blake , “ISSAQUENA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI
LARGEST SLAVEHOLDERS FROM
1860 SLAVE CENSUS SCHEDULES,” et al, loc cit.
[xci] Results
List,” Bureau of Land Management – General Land Office Records et.
al., loc cit.
[xcii] Kane, op. cit., 179.
[xciii] “General
Highway County Maps,” Mississippi Department of Transportation,
n.d., http://www.gomdot.com/maps/County_maps/Sharkey.pdf , (3 Nov
2005).
[xciv]Bob Franks, “The Issaquena Genealogy and History
Project,” 1860 Federal Census Schedule 2: Slave Enumeration,
rootsweb, 2003, http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2 , (3 Nov 2005).
[xcv]Bob Franks, Issaquena Genealogy and History Project, “1863 Deer
Creek Steel’s Bayou Plantations Map.” ,
http://rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/plantations.jpg (3 Nov 2005).
[xcvi]Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit.
[xcvii] ”County Formation
Maps,” et al, loc cit.
[xcviii] www.blm.gov
[xcix] Dunbar
Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[c] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[ci]
Williamson et al., loc. cit.
[cii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[ciii] Frank Alexander Montgomery, “Reminiscences of a Mississippian
in Peace and War,” (Cincinnati: The Robert Clarke Company Press,
1901) 7-8.
[civ] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[cv] Dunbar
Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[cvi] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[cvii] Howe et al, loc. cit.
[cviii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc.
cit.
[cix] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[cx] Kane, op. cit.,
180.
[cxi]Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit.
[cxii] Allen Duane
Hunt et al, loc cit.
[cxiii]1898-1899 Obituary Record of
Graduates of Yale University,
http://mssa.library.yale.edu/obituary_record/1859_1924/1898-99.pdf ,
(4 Nov 2005).
[cxiv] Edgar Tobin, Everette Truly and Ann Brown,
et all, loc. cit.
[cxv] Rudd et. al., loc cit.,
[cxvi]
1898-1899 Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University et at.,
loc. cit.
[cxvii] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit.
[cxviii]
Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[cxix] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc
cit.
[cxx] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[cxxi] Allen Duane
Hunt et al, loc cit.
[cxxii] Results List,” Bureau of Land
Management – General Land Office Records et. al., loc cit.
[cxxiii]Kane, op. cit., 179.
[cxxiv]Bob Franks et al, loc. cit.
[cxxv]Bob Franks, 1860 Federal Census 2: Slave Enumeration, page 87,
“The Issaquena Genealogy and History Project,”
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/slave60_87.html , (4 Nov 2005).
[cxxvi] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit.
[cxxvii] Dunbar Hunt et
al., loc. cit.
[cxxviii] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit
[cxxix] Ann Allen Geoghegan, Jefferson County Mississippi Marriage
Database, Rootsweb, 2002,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/Marriages/marrjeff_h.htm , (8 Nov
2005).
[cxxx]Linda Durr Rudd , “1860 Jefferson County Slave
Schedule – Mississippi,” anglefire, n.d.
www.angelfire.com/folk/gljmr/1860JeffersonS.html , (3 Nov 2005).
Note – the census transcription says Edgar G. Wood – but this is
possibly some sort of error along the way – and it should possibly
read Edgar C. Wood.
[cxxxi] Ann Brown, “Jefferson County Tid Bits
# 26 & 27,” “Diggin for Roots, Church Hil,” Rootsweb, 12 Jul 2005,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/churchhill.htm (8 Nov 2005).
[cxxxii] Tom Blake et al, loc. cit.
[cxxxiii] Allen Duane Hunt et
al, loc cit.
[cxxxiv]Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[cxxxv]Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit.
[cxxxvi] Tom Blake ,
“ISSAQUENA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI LARGEST SLAVEHOLDERS FROM 1860 SLAVE
CENSUS SCHEDULES,” mindspring, October 2001,
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ajac/msclaiborne.htm , (8
Nov 2005).
[cxxxvii]MISSISSIPPI - Claiborne County, “National
Register of Historic Places,” n.d.
http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/MS/Claiborne/state.html
, (8 Nov 2005).
[cxxxviii] Linda Durr Rudd , “1860 Jefferson
County Slave Schedule – Mississippi,” anglefire, n.d.
www.angelfire.com/folk/gljmr/1860JeffersonS.html , (3 Nov 2005).
[cxxxix] Edgar Tobin, Everette Truly and Ann Brown, et all, loc.
cit.
[cxl] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[cxli] Bob Franks,
1860 Federal Census 2: Slave Enumeration, page 87, “The Issaquena
Genealogy and History Project,”
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/slave60_75.html , (4 Nov 2005).
[cxlii] Kane, op. cit., 179.
[cxliii] “General Highway County
Maps,” Mississippi Department of Transportation, n.d.,
http://www.gomdot.com/maps/County_maps/Sharkey.pdf , (3 Nov 2005).
[cxliv]Bob Franks, Issaquena Genealogy and History Project, “1863
Deer Creek Steel’s Bayou Plantations Map.” ,
http://rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/plantations.jpg (3 Nov 2005).
[cxlv] Bob Franks, 1860 Federal Census 2: Slave Enumeration, page
87, “The Issaquena Genealogy and History Project,”
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/slave60_87.html , (4 Nov 2005).
[cxlvi] ”County Formation Maps,” et al, loc cit.
[cxlvii] Ann
Allen Goeghegan, Susan Sillers Darden Diary 1857, MSGenWeb Project,
12 Jul 2005,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/darden1857.htm , (8
Nov 2005).
[cxlviii] Report of Col. Hamilton N. Eldridge, One
hundred and twenty-seventh Illinois Infantry, Bob Franks, 2003, “The
Issaquena Genealogy and History Project,”
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/steele7.html , (8 Nov 2005).
[cxlix] Bob Franks, Issaquena Genealogy and History Project, “1863
Deer Creek Steel’s Bayou Plantations Map.” ,
http://rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/plantations.jpg (3 Nov 2005).
[cl]
Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit.
[cli] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc.
cit.
[clii] Catherine Van Court, “Old Natchez,” (Garden City, New
York: Doubleday, Doran, 1937), pp 92-93.
[cliii] Allen Duane
Hunt et al, loc cit.
[cliv] Kane, op. cit., 182.
[clv] Map of
the City of Natchez and Suburbs, Adams County, Mississippi, 1891,
courtesy of Thomas and Joan Gandy, Mary Ann Hetrick, 2001-2007
Richard P. Sevier, dicksvier@bellsouth.net,
http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/maps/mississippi/citymap/natchez1891.jpg
, (9 Nov 2005).
[clvi] Kane, op. cit, 182-183.
[clvii] Bob
Franks, “The Issaquena Genealogy and History Project,” 2004,
Rootsweb http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/balfour.html , (9 Nov
2005).
[clviii] [clviii] Bob Franks, 1860 Federal Census 2: Slave
Enumeration, page 87, “The Issaquena Genealogy and History Project,”
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/slave60_88.html , (4 Nov 2005).
[clix] Bob Franks, “The Issaquena Genealogy and History Project,”
2004, Rootsweb http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/balfour.html , (9
Nov 2005).
[clx] Kane, op. cit, 182.
[clxi] Bob Franks et al,
loc cit.
[clxii] Kane, op cit, 184-187.
[clxiii] Bob Franks,
“The Issaquena Genealogy and History Project,” 2004, Rootsweb
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/balfour.html , (9 Nov 2005).
[clxiv] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit.
[clxv] Kane, op cit,
180.
[clxvi] Tom Blake et al, loc. cit.
[clxvii]Kane, op cit,
180-185.
[clxviii] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit.
[clxix]
Kane, op cit, 180-185.
[clxx] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit
[clxxi]Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[clxxii] Allen Duane Hunt et
al, loc cit
[clxxiii] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc. cit.
[clxxiv]
Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit
[clxxv] Dunbar Hunt et al., loc.
cit
[clxxvi] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit
[clxxvii] Howe et
al, loc. cit.
[clxxviii] Mary Bowman, “Diary of Walter Bisland
Wade,” 1986 RootsWeb,
http://jeffersoncountyms.org/WadePDF/WBWadeBook1.pdf (9 Nov 2005).
[clxxix] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc cit
[clxxx] Virtually the
whole section about Elizabeth Hunt came from a family account that
was written by Mrs. Anderson, daughter of Estelle (Ogden) and Thomas
Reed, and granddaughter of Elizabeth Hunt. My grandmother Margaret
(Ogden) Stewart passed a copy of the account down through my family.
It’s mostly quoted. I rearranged it into a more chronological order
and shortened it from it’s original 21 pages.
[clxxxi] Allen
Duane Hunt et al, loc cit
[clxxxii] Allen Duane Hunt et al, loc
cit
[clxxxiii] Warren C. Ogden, “The Seven Siblings,” This is a
book written by a family member and distributed among the family.
[clxxxiv] Barbara Anderson gave me this date. She is the wife of
Robert Reed, great grandson of Elizabeth Hunt.
[clxxxv] Warren C.
Ogden, et al, loc cit.
[clxxxvi] This information came from a
Nashville, TN Public Television show about the history of diseases
spread by mosquitos, ticks, fleas, etc.
[clxxxvii] Bob Franks,
“The Issaquena Genealogy and History Project,” 2004, Rootsweb
http://www.rootsweb.com/~msissaq2/balfour.html , (9 Nov 2005).
[clxxxviii] List,” Bureau of Land Management – General Land Office
Records et. al., loc cit.
[clxxxix] “Concordia Parish Place Names
and Information,” RootsWeb, n.d.,
http://www.rootsweb.com/~laconcor/place.htm , (2 Nov 2005).
[cxc]
Barbara Anderson et al, loc cit.