Something Old and Something New at St. Francisville’s popular Audubon Pilgrimage

Something Old and Something New at St. Francisville’s popular Audubon Pilgrimage
By Anne Butler

The forty-ninth annual Audubon Pilgrimage March 20, 21 and 22, 2020, celebrates a southern spring in St. Francisville, the glorious garden spot of Louisiana’s English Plantation Country. For nearly half a century the sponsoring West Feliciana Historical Society has thrown open the doors of significant historic structures to commemorate artist-naturalist John James Audubon’s 1821 stay as he painted a number of his famous bird studies and tutored the daughter of Oakley Plantation’s Pirrie family, beautiful young Eliza.
Two venerable townhouses in St. Francisville’s National Register-listed downtown Historic District are featured on this year’s pilgrimage. Amidst meandering Royal Street’s significant treasures is Prospect, built in 1809; during Audubon’s tenure it was occupied by Dr. Isaac Smith, early physician, LA State Senate president and great advocate of higher education. Another public-service minded figure, Dr. O.D.Brooks, purchased Prospect in 1879. As a 16-year-old boy he saw Civil War action alongside his father, owned the Royal Hotel, had a pharmacy, and served on the School Board for three decades, facilitating establishment of the parish’s first public school.

On Ferdinand St., the second of downtown’s two main historic streets, Baier House was a simple four-room cottage considerably embellished by former mayor and master carpenter George Baier when he finally moved from flood-prone Bayou Sara up the hill to the safety of St. Francisville’s high-and-dry location. He had nearly drowned in Bayou Sara in the flood of 1920/21, when the Weydert brothers saved him as he held onto ropes trying to keep his house from being washed away. Its steep backyard gives testament to St. Francisville’s description as the little town that’s two miles long and two yards wide.

In the countryside, Spring Grove was built in 1895 on lands carved from Afton Villa Plantation for Barrow descendent Wade Hampton Richardson IV. It was considered an ideal country home supplied with modern conveniences to make rural life agreeable. When his only daughter married at 18, the house was expanded so that she could raise her family there, and in later years it has expanded even more…a bedroom here, a bigger kitchen there…to warmly welcome subsequent generations.

Another country house is the Lemon-Argue House, fine example of vernacular architecture and a fascinating yeoman farmer’s cottage illustrative of 18th-century timbering techniques with its handhewn logs of blue poplar. Built by Irish immigrant William Lemon around 1801 on a Spanish land grant, it has recently been donated by his descendants to LSU and the Rural Life Museum for use as a classroom, research lab and historic house museum providing hands-on experience for students in many different fields. Minimally furnished for pilgrimage tours, this is a preservation work in progress.

Other popular features of the 2020 Audubon Pilgrimage include Afton Villa Gardens, Audubon (Oakley) and Rosedown State Historic Sites, three 19th-century churches in town and beautiful St. John’s and St. Mary’s in the country, plus the Rural Homestead with lively demonstrations of the rustic skills of daily pioneer life.
Audubon Market Hall hosts an exhibit of vintage jewelry, an Audubon Bird Exhibit will be shown at Oakley, guided birding opportunities pay tribute to Audubon himself, and other exhibits featuring black history will be at the Old Benevolent Society building.

Friday evening features old-time Hymn Singing at the United Methodist Church, Graveyard Tours at Grace Episcopal cemetery (last tour begins at 8:15 p.m.), and a wine and cheese reception (7 to 9 p.m.) featuring the pilgrimage’s exquisitely detailed 1820’s evening costumes, nationally recognized for their authenticity.
New this year will be two evening tours on Friday night only. Sainte Reine on Royal Street, its name a reminder of the area’s first tiny fort dating from the 1720s, was built in 1894 by Max Mann, Bayou Sara saloonkeeper and merchant who had the good sense to move up on the St. Francisville bluff high above the river floodwaters that plagued the immigrant merchants below. On Ferdinand St., Hilltop is a wonderful old Acadian-Creole house probably dating from the 1840s. It was moved from Bayou Lafourche to a lot consisting at most of a foot or two of level ground beside the street and then a precipitous drop 40 or 50 feet to the creek below.

Daytime features are open 9:30 to 5; Friday evening activities are scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m.; Saturday soiree, Light Up The Night, features live music and dancing, dinner and drinks, beginning at 7 p.m. Featured homes: Prospect, Baier House, Spring Grove and Lemon-Argue House will only be shown on Friday and Saturday; Sunday the Sullivan barn at Wyoming Plantation hosts a Gospel Brunch, another inviting innovation this year. Open all three days will be the churches, Audubon (Oakley) and Rosedown State Historic Sites, Afton Villa Gardens and the Rural Homestead.

For tickets and tour information, contact West Feliciana Historical Society, Box 338, St. Francisville, LA 70775; phone 225-635-6330 or 225-635-4224; online www.audubonpilgrimage.info, email sf@audubonpilgrimage.info. Tickets can be purchased at the Historical Society Museum on Ferdinand Street.
Other March activities center around oak-shaded Parker Park in downtown St. Francisville. On Saturday, March 7, A Walk In The Park features music, crafts and art; hours are from 10 to 4, and the local food truck, A Hint Of Lime Tacos, will be there with authentic street tacos with homemade cheese, original salsas and specialty cremas. Then on Saturday, March 28, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., the Tunica Hills Music Festival and Jam features a family-friendly get-together with food vendors and three stages full of continuous performances of many genres of music by the likes of the Bagasse Boyz, Clay Parker and Jody James, traditional gospel choir performances at dusk, and jam circles with attendees encouraged to bring their own instruments and join in the fun.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. Several splendidly restored plantation homes are open for tours: The Cottage Plantation (weekends), Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens is open in season. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation (a National Historic Landmark) and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer periodic living-history demonstrations to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking and bicycle racing due to the challenging terrain, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some nice restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses in St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society at 225-6330 o r 225-635-4224, or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online www.stfrancisville.us, www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, or www.stfrancisville.net (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

West Feliciana’s New Tourism Director Actually An Old Hand

West Feliciana’s New Tourism Director Actually An Old Hand
By Anne Butler
St. Francisville moves optimistically into the new decade with the hiring of a new Director of Tourism who’s actually an old hand in the industry, having spent over four decades directing some of the state’s iconic attractions.
David Floyd began his lifelong interest in history and preservation as a student at LSU’s Rural Life Museum, then headed up the staff at Kent House in Alexandria, went to Oakley Plantation of the Audubon State Historic Site for some 9 years, ran Vermilionville in Lafayette, and returned to LA State Parks in administration. Then in 1994 he was lured by his revered mentor Steele Burden to serve as director of the Rural Life Museum on property the Burden family had donated to LSU to pay tribute to vintage vernacular architecture and preserve touches of the simple life of early Louisiana.
Besides 41 years guiding and directing museums and historic tour houses, Floyd also poured his heart and soul into resurrecting his own home, found languishing in a Lettsworth cottonfield and moved painstakingly piece by piece (its lumbering trip across the Mississippi River to West Feliciana made the television news more than once) to be reconstructed in Weyanoke and rooted to the site with dependencies and landscaping that would make the late Mr. Burden beam with pride.
It was time for a new chapter; that drive from upper West Feliciana to lower East Baton Rouge was getting longer and longer. Floyd’s wife Marla called his attention to a search underway for a new director of tourism and encouraged him to apply, and so he did.

Laurie Walsh, who had served admirably in that capacity for a number of years, had just resigned to concentrate on her demanding position as St. Francisville’s Main Street director, leaving at a time when the atmosphere was finally becoming conducive to positive growth in tourism, both politically and economically.
Floyd, who began his new part-time job the first of the year, said he was looking forward to working closely with Walsh and the Town of St. Francisville. “She and the Tourist Commission did such a fabulous job,” he commented, "growing that budget from $90,000 to $200,000,” and the town itself is always very generous in promoting the entire parish. St. Francisville continues to have such a healthy combination of residential and commercial structures that give the town a 24-hour presence; young families move in for the good school system and sense of community, and older retirees appreciate the little town’s walkability and easy sense of place, while visitors from far away appreciate the small-town historic charm. With wonderful new restaurants, reinvigorated shops and B&Bs, great new hospital and library, plus lots of fun festivals and creative inspirations, it’s no wonder the local logo is “We Love It Here.”
How, Floyd surmises, do you build on that? The demographics of tourism have shifted over the years, and ecotourism is the big passion today. Younger visitors are interested in gardening, but not necessarily estate gardening. They’re interested in farm-to-table operations, birding, hiking, primitive camping, biking on rural byways. And West Feliciana has all that to offer, and more, with the Tunica Hills and Cat Island and hopefully at some point the projected Tunica Preservation Area.
Besides, Floyd says, tourism is without borders. Take what West Feliciana has and combine it, say, with Clark Creek waterfalls in Mississippi, or the Jackson/Clinton area, or the New Roads community thanks to the increasingly utilized Audubon Bridge. And perhaps have some anchors of tourism in the hinterlands, maybe in three different directions to augment town shops and restaurants and attractions: the Tunica/Weyanoke area with its unique terrain and recreational opportunities, historic plantations, Angola museum; the Oakley, Mary Ann Brown Preserve, Bluffs area with prospects of a walking/biking interpretive trail, maybe even from the river like the artist Audubon travelled in 1821; and the Laurel Hill area, with the newly donated Lemon House, St. John’s Episcopal, the old Dawson School, a state visitor center, the 24-hour truck stop casino and the old favorite South of the Border restaurant.
Tourism, he says is a wonderful combination of factors, and it certainly is considered economic development, having been the mainstay of the area’s economy for many decades after the waning of agriculture. Parish president Kenny Havard is supportive, seeing the trickle-down impact visitor spending can have on just about every business in the parish. As David Floyd sees it, tourism benefits everybody, and if you do it the right way, “you can have pleasant company and a good quality of life.” What more could you ask...
Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. Several splendidly restored plantation homes are open for tours: The Cottage Plantation (weekends), Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens is open in season. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation (a National Historic Landmark) and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer periodic living-history demonstrations to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.
The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking and bicycle racing due to the challenging terrain, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some nice restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses in St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.
For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society at 225-6330 o r 225-635-4224, or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online www.stfrancisville.us, www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, or www.stfrancisville.net (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

Oakley Plantation inspired artist J.J. Audubon to Greatness

Oakley Plantation inspired artist J.J. Audubon to Greatness
By Anne Butler
Established on a 1799 Spanish land grant of 600 acres to Ruffin Gray, Oakley Plantation is fascinating in its own right, not just because of its close associations with artist John James Audubon, who in 1821 was hired to tutor the 15-year-old daughter of the plantation in dancing, music, drawing, math and French, plus domestic skills like hair plaiting.
Gray’s wife Lucretia Alston was the daughter of John Alston. who had obtained large land grants from the British near Natchez. When the Spanish governor of Louisiana ousted the English, Alston led an unsuccessful revolt in 1781 and then fled for his life. Sending his wife and three small children overland to safety, Alston was captured and imprisoned. His wife was killed when her horse fell during the flight, but the children were hidden in a one-room cabin on a friend’s Pointe Coupee plantation, cared for by a faithful family retainer named Mammy Patt. At least that’s the family tradition, and in John Alston’s will there is grateful mention of Mammy Patt; other versions place Lucretia in a convent school in New Orleans until her father’s release.

The Oakley house was planned as a simple, sensible structure of colonial architectural style as adapted to the southern climate; originally it had divided Spanish-style steps to the raised front gallery and predated the grand Greek Revival architecture of the mid-19th century. It was a splendid West Indies-style three-story-plus-attic structure, with double galleries shaded by jalousies to block the harsh hot sunlight while permitting cool breezes to blow through the rooms, all of which opened to the outside. Exterior stairways and an interior one on a back gallery long enclosed have such narrow treads that one resident family member called Oakley “a house for warm weather and little feet.”

Lots of live oaks were planted to eventually provide the shade which would make Louisiana summers bearable. But Ruffin Gray would not live to see the fruits of his labor. He died within a year, and in 1801 his widow married millwright James Pirrie of Scottish descent and moved into the Oakley house when it was completed.

It was the focal point of a plantation that was well established by the time Irish-born traveler Fortescue Cuming visited the area in 1809. In his travelogue “Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country,” Cuming records a visit to the Pirries’ fine plantation, with a hundred slaves “and the best garden I had yet seen in this country.” He was somewhat less enthralled by local culinary practices, finding gumbo “a most awkward dish for a stranger,” the okra making it “so ropy and slimy as to make it difficult with either knife, spoon or fork, to carry it to the mouth, without the plate and mouth being connected by a long string.”
By 1824, records show that the Pirries had 5,656 acres planted in cotton and owned 106 slaves. They could well afford to hire a live-in tutor for daughter Eliza. Feliciana planters and their families often travelled by steamboat to New Orleans--on business to check with cotton factors about the sale of crops, or for social events and carnival season, or purely for pleasure and shopping. It was on such a trip to the Crescent City that Lucretia Alston Pirrie came into contact with the struggling artist Audubon and offered him temporary employment at Oakley as tutor for young Eliza.

Like all early plantations, Oakley is illustrative of the interconnections of homes and families. Audubon’s pupil Eliza Pirrie would marry three times. Her first marriage was an 1823 elopement, encouraged by secret romantic correspondences like the following, written on May 7, 1823: “My dear Eliza, The situation in which we are both placed is a sufficient apology for my adopting this method of making a communication to you ...I have borne with much patience the many and constant attempts, and apparent incessant watchfulness, to prevent any intercourse between us...You know Eliza there is but one way of avoiding and defeating this opposition—Your own feelings are the best prompting, in your making a decision on that point. It becomes necessary that we should throw away all reserve in our feelings, and embrace every and any opportunity that offers, for a safe conveyance of our feelings...A Few words would be gratefully received by one whose heart and its affections are, Truly thine, Rob. H. Barrow.”

And so, despite parental objections, Eliza eloped with her dashing 28-year-old cousin Robert Hilliard Barrow of Greenwood Plantation, who would not live to see 29; he contracted pneumonia, supposedly while carrying his young bride across the flooded Homochitto Bayou on their honeymoon, and died six weeks later; born posthumously, his son would carry on his name. Eliza’s last marriage was to an attorney disparaged by her friends as “a trifling sponge,” lured away by the Mexican War and the 1849 Gold Rush, and not even present when she died of childbed fever in 1851.

It was Eliza’s second marriage in 1828, to the eminently respectable first rector of Grace Episcopal Church, which produced the descendants who were still struggling to keep both Rosedown and Oakley Plantations going into the 20th century. Her son James Pirrie Bowman married the beautiful Sarah Turnbull of Rosedown where they made their home and had a large family which included eight daughters, and Eliza’s daughter Isabelle Bowman married William Wilson Matthews and remained at Oakley.

It was in 1947 when a few determined dowagers of West Feliciana, namely the Misses Mamie and Sarah Butler along with Mrs. James Leake Stirling of the Alexander Stirling Chapter of the DAR, persuaded the state of Louisiana to purchase Oakley. Courtly longtime state representative Davis Folkes, called the Dean of the Legislature, pushed it through. The property was in dire need of attention, but its historic connections with Audubon cried out for preservation as a state property accessible to the travelling public.

There was no running water or electricity inside when the state acquired the house and 100 acres of land for $10,000 from the unmarried grandchildren of Eliza Pirrie through her daughter Isabelle. The last resident heirs, Ida and Lucy Matthews, had done the best they could, but massive restoration work was required. Garden clubs, Colonial Dames, Daughters of the American Revolution and other groups as well as interested individuals generously provided help with furnishings and landscaping.

Mrs. Stirling served as the first curator, but longstanding disputes over park management led to her resignation at a time when the state auctioned off many of the home’s contents, property of the original Pirrie and Matthews generations, at very little profit. The Division of Administration noted the two auctions brought in little more than $1,000 for some 36 items of furniture. A half-tester bed went for $15, an armoire for $15.50, a piano for $25, a sideboard $15, 5 Eastlake chairs $26.25, and an entire bedroom suite of mahogany furniture including a tester bed for $186. A rocking chair was eventually sold for 50 cents.

Popular today as the central focus of the Audubon State Historic Site for more than half a century, Oakley has been beautifully restored and carefully furnished in the late Federal style of 1790-1830, reflecting the appearance of the home when Audubon was in residence. On the ground level is the brick-floored dining room, the second floor was the main living space with central parlor, and bedrooms took up the third floor.
Oakley was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The West Feliciana Historical Society sponsors an Audubon Pilgrimage celebrating the artist’s stay, and Oakley is always a popular part of this annual event, with visitors especially appreciating seeing the tiny bedroom where Audubon himself slept and worked during his summer sojourn in what he called his ornithological paradise, a significant period that altered the course of his life.

Within its hundred wooded acres are the detached plantation kitchen reconstructed on original foundations around the early chimney and containing a weaving room and wash room; a barn full of horse-drawn vehicles and farm implements; and several rustic slave cabins. These dependencies are periodically utilized to augment the house tour with demonstrations of old-time practical skills and fascinating living-history events, many catering to school groups. Oakley also has a picnic pavilion, hiking trails and extremely interesting visitor center/museum.

Old houses are bottomless pits, and there’s never enough funding for preservation. A lengthy lead-abatement project and general sprucing up have recently been completed at Oakley, but the current goal of the state parks hierarchy is for all state sites to be self-supporting, not entirely unreasonable but perhaps not entirely realistic either for some sites. Private-public partnerships are being explored in hopes cooperative endeavors might help.

Oakley’s sister state historic site, Rosedown Plantation, has higher head counts of visitors, being closer to town within easy reach of bus tours full of steamboat passengers, and has also leased unused fields for row-crop farming. Rosedown is open daily except holidays; Oakley, at one point in danger of being closed completely, is now open only five days weekly.

Possibilities being discussed for enhancing Oakley’s appeal include an on-site micro-distillery (in a non-historic storage building) that might convince Mississippi River boat tours to include the place on itineraries as passengers disembark to explore the historic Felicianas. Would this be appropriate? Audubon, of course, was not a drinker other than his morning grog, but recall his observation of Squire Pirrie as “when sober, a good man,” and he also records an occasion when he was awakened to accompany Mrs. Pirrie to the home of a dying neighbor: “We went, but arrived rather late, for Mr. James O’Connor was dead. I had the displeasure of keeping his body’s company the remainder of the night...the poor man had drunk himself literally into an everlasting sleep; peace to his soul.” Ever the artist, Audubon continued, “I made a good sketch of his head...”

Perhaps straight history is no longer sufficient to command the interest of tourists, so that plantations must now become commercial resorts embellished with restaurants and spirits, even thousands of inmates at the former plantation now serving as the state penitentiary which has become the most unlikely of tourist attractions. But there are also properties of such incredible historic significance that care must be taken not to detract from what they have to teach us.

Highlight of the summer social season in St. Francisville is the seventh annual Wags & Whiskers Gala at Hemingbough on Saturday, July 27, 2019, from 6 to 9 p.m. This is the West Feliciana Animal Humane Society’s primary fundraiser for the local animal shelter, offering finger foods and cash bar, dancing to the Delta Drifters, silent auction, bargains on gift cards and wine, kissing booth, and a parade of prospective pets from the shelter. Tickets are available at bontempstix.com or at the Bank of St. Francisville.

The James L. “Bo” Bryant Animal Shelter opened in 2012 and is as close to no-kill as you can get. The dedicated volunteers and staff have cared for a total of 2,055 dogs and cats (plus the occasional horse or pig) since computerized record-keeping began in 2014, and of that number, permanent homes were found for 1,573, over 90%. Many lost pets are reunited with owners, sometimes years later thanks to implanted chips. The shelter also has some crackerjack volunteer photographers, whose appealing portraits led a California couple to adopt homely hounddog Ole Red and fly all the way to Louisiana to get him. And then there is Rowdy, Catahoula mix turned school therapy dog and unlikely current “cover girl” for the “Dog Days of Summer” issue of Baton Rouge’s social commentator In-Register magazine!

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. Severa; splendidly restored plantation homes are open for tours: The Cottage Plantation (weekends), Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens is open in season. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation (a National Historic Landmark) and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer periodic living-history demonstrations to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking and bicycle racing due to the challenging terrain, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some nice restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses in St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224, or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

Colorful Azaleas and Costumes of the 1820s Welcome Spring in St. Francisville, LA

Colorful Azaleas and Costumes of the 1820s Welcome Spring in St. Francisville, LA
By Anne Butler

The forty-eighth annual Audubon Pilgrimage March 15, 16 and 17, 2019, celebrates a southern spring in St. Francisville, the glorious garden spot of Louisiana’s English Plantation Country. For nearly half a century the sponsoring West Feliciana Historical Society has thrown open the doors of significant historic structures to commemorate artist-naturalist John James Audubon’s stay as he painted a number of his famous bird studies and tutored the daughter of Oakley Plantation’s Pirrie family, beautiful young Eliza. A year’s worth of planning and preparation precedes each pilgrimage, and with nearly half a century of experience under their belt, society members put on one of the South’s most professional and enjoyable pilgrimage presentations.

Featured this year are three historic plantation homes in the countryside and two townhouses, plus lots of extras.

Sunnyside, built in 1838 in Pointe Coupee Parish, was disassembled, trucked across the Mississippi River bridge in 1997, then meticulously reassembled on the Tunica Trace, retaining its original footprint. A fine example of vernacular architecture, its bluffland design is eminently suite to the historic Weyanoke community and its period landscaping anchors house to site as if it’s been there for centuries. Historian David Floyd and wife Marla have raised two children there.

Laurel Hill Plantation was purchased in the 1830s by Judge Edward McGehee, founder of the early standard-gauge West Feliciana Railroad that hauled cotton through this plantation country to the Mississippi River port at Bayou Sara. In the 1870s daughter Caroline and her husband Duncan Stewart enlarged the original small Carolina-I structure to accommodate their growing family. Beautifully restored, it is now the property of Jimmy and Mary Farrar Hatchette.

Puente Largo, built in the 1850s in Tangipahoa Parish and moved to West Feliciana in 1997, is a handsome raised Creole cottage with four large rooms and spacious hallway on the upper premier etage, above what had been an unfinished ground-floor storage for wagons and buggies but is now closed in. Broad front stairs access the upper gallery. Used as a field hospital during the Civil War, Puente Largo has been beautifully furnished and landscaped by owners Mike and Krista Dumas.

In St. Francisville’s downtown National Register-listed Historic District is the Brasseaux House, quintessentially charming cottage complete with Victorian gallery trim, picket fence and climbing roses. It was built in 1895 by Albert Sydney Brasseaux, who was named for his father’s commanding general in the Civil War. Its architectural style is called southern dogtrot, and its extensive sloping back yard shows why St. Francisville is called the little town that’s two miles long and two yards wide. It is now home to a vibrant young family, the Magruder Hazlips.

And then there’s the Coffin House, tiny stepped-roof structure built around 1903 right on St. Francisville’s main thoroughfare, proving history is nothing if not dynamic and showing the amazing adaptability of even the most unassuming of historic structures. Previously used for strictly utilitarian purposes including the storage of coffins, it is now a delightfully cozy pied-a-terre for visiting doting grandparents, Don and Harriet Ayres.
In addition to the featured homes, pilgrimage visitors are also welcomed to Afton Villa Gardens, Audubon (Oakley) and Rosedown State Historic Sites, three 19th-century churches and Temple Sinai in town and beautiful St. John’s and St. Mary’s in the country, plus the Rural Homestead with lively demonstrations of the rustic skills of daily pioneer life.

Audubon Market Hall hosts an exhibit of the West Feliciana works of the late Charles Reinike (1906-1983), one of New Orleans’ most respected landscape artists. Passionately in love with South Louisiana from New Orleans through the wetlands and the hills of rural plantation country, Reinike and wife Vera opened an art school in the French Quarter in the 1930s-1940s and brought their students to summer art camp on their West Feliciana property where their daughter lives today. Reinike’s paintings are nostalgic but not saccharine, his son Charles III explains; “he liked the grittier side of things...depicting rural Louisiana and chronicling the early African-American cabins and lifestyle for their honesty and simplicity, as well as the residential and industrial scenes of New Orleans and the Mississippi River, and the beauty of the bayous and shrimp boats.”
An impressive exhibit of Audubon’s Birds of Feliciana hangs at Oakley Plantation (Audubon State Historic Site). Other special events called Exploring Nature and Birding remind of continued ties to the birdlife so beloved by the artist: Friday bird walk is led by local artist Murrell Butler at his Oak Hill property; Saturday the Wildlife Hospital of Louisiana offers a glimpse of live-and-in-person rehab survivors (Red-Winged Scarlett, Red-Tailed Hawk, Mississippi Kite, Broad Winged Hawk, Eastern Screech Owl); Sunday’s bird walk is led by LSU avian vet Dr. Tom Tully at Oakley.
Daytime features are open 9:30 to 5; Friday evening activities are scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m., Saturday soiree begins at 7 p.m.

The Historic District around Royal Street is filled during the day with the happy sounds of costumed children singing and dancing the Maypole; in the evening as candles flicker and fireflies flit among the ancient moss-draped live oaks, there is no place more inviting for a leisurely stroll. Friday evening features old-time Hymn Singing at the United Methodist Church, Graveyard Tours at Grace Episcopal cemetery (last tour begins at 8:15 p.m.), and a wine and cheese reception at the newly restored St. Francisville Inn showing off the exquisitely detailed 1820’s evening costumes, nationally recognized for their authenticity. Light Up The Night, the fun Saturday evening soiree, features live music and dancing, dinner and drinks.

For tickets and tour information, contact West Feliciana Historical Society, Box 338, St. Francisville, LA 70775; phone 225-635-6330 or 225-635-4224; online www.audubonpilgrimage.info, email sf@audubonpilgrimage.info . New this year is a package including daytime tours, all evening entertainment Friday and Saturday, and a Saturday picnic lunch. Tickets can be purchased at the Historical Society Museum on Ferdinand Street. For information on St. Francisville overnight accommodations, shops, restaurants, and recreation in the Tunica Hills, see www.stfrancisville.us, www.stfrancisville.net, or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

Beautiful oak-shaded Parker Park in the midst of St. Francisville’s National Register-listed Historic District is the scene for two other special activities in March. A Walk In The Park on Saturday, March 2nd, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. will feature live music plus vendors offering varied crafts, art and culinary specialties, while March 30th from 10 to 10 the Tunica Hills Music Festival and Jam has professional musicians performing on stages but also dispersed throughout the park to encourage pop-up jams everywhere. Visitors are encouraged to bring their own instruments and join in the free fun.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. A number of splendidly restored plantation homes are open for tours: The Cottage Plantation (weekends), Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens is open in season and is spectacular. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation (a National Historic Landmark) and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer periodic living-history demonstrations to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking and especially bicycle racing due to the challenging terrain, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some nice restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224, or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

Celebrate a Country Christmas in St. Francisville

Celebrate a Country Christmas in St. Francisville
By Anne Butler
Used to be, country folks piled into wagons for a trip to the nearest town in anticipation of Christmas, the youngsters pressing noses against frost-covered storefront windows to dream of china dolls or wooden rocking horses. Today that trend has been reversed, as harried urbanites escape from mall madness and compulsive consumption to ease back into the slower pace and peace of a country Christmas. And there’s nowhere to better experience that than St. Francisville’s Christmas in the Country weekend December 7, 8 and 9th.
Spectacular holiday decorations, with millions of white lights gracing gallery posts and tracing soaring Victorian trimwork, turn the downtown Historic District into a winter wonderland, and carefully planned activities provide fun for the entire family. The theme of the Sunday afternoon Christmas parade, Walking in a Winter Wonderland, sets the tone for the whole weekend, and it’s is highly appropriate. The weekend is a safe, small-town celebration of its bedrock beliefs---in the goodness of people, the beauty of nature, and the strength of community and faith. Plus it’s just plain fun! Remember when Christmas shopping was actually a pleasure? It still is in St. Francisville, where each unique little store welcomes shoppers with Open House lagniappe: refreshments, music, and spectacular discounted sales.

Friday evening, December 7th, Christmas in the Country is kicked off around St. Francisville’s Town Hall as the children’s choir Voices in Motion from Bains Lower Elementary School sings at 5:45, followed by jovial longtime mayor Billy D’Aquilla lighting the town tree and hosting a reception complete with fireworks. Participating homes in St. Francisville’s National Register Historic District along Ferdinand and Royal Streets, designated by signs, permit visitors to Peep Into Our Holiday Homes from 6 to 8 p.m. both Friday and Saturday, and a Holly Jolly Jazzy Christmas Concert featuring Willis Delony and friends, sponsored by the St. Francisville Symphony Association with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, starts at 7 p.m. on Friday at Grace Episcopal Church, with tickets available at the door.

Saturday, December 8th, begins with 7:30 a.m. Community Prayer Breakfast at the Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, sponsored by the local church, United Methodist Men, and the Louisiana Egg Commission; guest speaker Abby Cochran is the principal of the local high school, serves on the town’s Board of Aldermen, and is co-chair of the Methodist church’s Missions Committee, evidence of her belief in the power of linking church, school and community. Christmas on the Run for the Relay for Life supporting the American Cancer Society has a one-mile fun run beginning at 8 a.m. and a 5-K run at 8:30 a.m., both starting at Parker Park.

Little ones can enjoy Breakfast with St. Nick at the First Baptist Church; sponsored by the Women’s Service League, two seatings are available at 8 and 9, with reservations encouraged and tickets available online (wslwestfel@gmail.com). The Women’s Service League also offers fresh wreaths on Ferdinand St. from 9 to 5.

In Parker Park from 10 to 4, over 65 vendors offer everything from food and music to arts and crafts; from noon to 2 there will be live music in the park featuring Blu Rouge. The Polar Express train transports visitors through the downtown area from 10 to 2, with a Polar Express movie and fun in the Town Hall meeting room.

St. Francisville’s shops and art galleries are the enthusiastic sponsors of this special weekend, offering a wide variety of inventory, from antiques (there are three sprawling antiques co-ops) and art (both original and prints), decorative items, one-of-a-kind handmade crafts, custom jewelry, housewares, artisanal foodstuffs, clothing for every member of the family. Be sure to pick up your Candy Cane Shopping Card from one of the listed shops, featuring discounts and “I Shopped St. Francisville” t-shirts for purchases over $100.

From 10 to 4 on Saturday, the non-profit organization Friends of the Library sponsors the popular annual Tour of Homes benefitting library programs, showcasing three stately homes featuring varied architecture and eclectic décor, plus a special treat this year. Right in the center of St. Francisville’s historic district beside the iconic Magnolia Café are the 3-V Tourist Cabins, throwbacks to the 1930s automobile age when a tiny garage was provided with each overnight accommodation. Used in the documentary Bonnie & Clyde, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and still renting as B&Bs, these little cabins are on tour this year as decorator showcases, each done up in style by local interior designers Ellen Kennon, Marc Charbonnet and Caroline Alberstat. Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com, the library, or at each home.

Downtown Merchants Open Houses, with music and refreshments, keep the fun and fine shopping going into the evening Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. From 6 to 8 p.m., Oakley Plantation’s Dickens of a Christmas at Audubon State Historic Site features candlelight tours, period music and wassail. From 6 to 7 United Methodist Church hosts a Community Sing-Along. First Baptist Church (LA 10 at US 61) has a Living Nativity inside the church from 6 to 8, a real Christmas journey—travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem and rediscover the miracle of the birth of Jesus; children love the petting stable, crafts, and hot chocolate and cookies. There will also be a concert at historic Temple Sinai (Prosperity St. just off Royal) featuring Nancy Roppolo, Clay Parker and Jodie James beginning at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, December 9th, Candy Cane Shopping Card opportunities continue from 10 to closing, with T-shirt prizes available at the Visitor Center on Ferdinand St. (open 9 to 5). Vendors are in Parker Park from 10 to 4, with live music noon to 3 by the Fugitive Poets. Sunday’s highlight is the Women’s Service League Christmas Parade beginning at 2 p.m., travelling along Ferdinand and Commerce Streets, with floats, bands, marching groups, dignitaries and lots of throws, all under the theme of Walking in a Winter Wonderland.

The following week, Countdown to Christmas draws crowds to the West Feliciana Sports Park on Thursday, December 13, from 5 to 8 p.m. for more free family fun. There will be arts and crafts, bonfires, games, face painting, music and train rides. Santa will make an appearance, a Christmas tree costume contest really does mean dressing as your favorite decorated tree, and concessions and dinner will be available.

Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination. A number of splendidly restored plantation homes are open for tours: The Cottage Plantation (weekends), Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation; Afton Villa Gardens is open in season and is spectacular. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation (a National Historic Landmark) and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer periodic living-history demonstrations to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking and especially bicycle racing due to the challenging terrain, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some nice restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from ethnic cuisine to seafood and classic Louisiana favorites. For overnight stays, the area offers some of the state’s most popular Bed & Breakfasts, including historic plantations, lakeside clubhouses and beautiful townhouses right in the middle of St. Francisville’s extensive National Register-listed historic district, and there are also modern motel accommodations for large bus groups.

For visitor information, call West Feliciana Tourist Commission and West Feliciana Historical Society at 225-6330 or 225-635-4224, or St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873; online www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com, www.stfrancisville.net or www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities).

Music at the Mag

Friday-March 30^th – The Delta Drifters

Saturday-March 31^st – Jake Gunter

Imahara’s Botanical Garden

Open on Saturdays from 10am-3pm and Sundays from 1pm -3pm beginning February 17^th until April 29^th, the garden will close to the public thereafter for more information please call 225-635-6001.

HOME BY SPRING - HALLMARK MOVIE

On Saturday March 31st, check out Home by Spring movie on the Hallmark Channel, this was our latest movie shoot in St. Francisville. 

COMMUNITY EGGSTRAVAGANZA -  Saturday March 31, 2018 9am-12pm

Come one, come all! West Feliciana High School Interact Club is hosting a community Easter Eggstravaganza on March 31, 2018 at Parker Park. There will be games for kids of all ages including an Easter egg hunt for kids up to 10 years old. More details and information to follow on community social media sites.

30^th Annual Hemingbough’s Easter Sunrise Service – Sunday-April 1

10101 Hwy 965 W in St. Francisville.

Interdenominational Service

Free to the public

Held in the Greek Amphitheater overlooking the lake  (Held indoors in case of rain)

Rev. Chris Andrews

Casual Dress

225-635-6617

Hemingbough10101@gmail.com

Audubon Under the Oaks – Sunday-April 8

An afternoon of living history at Oakley Plantation with John J Audubon & the Strong Women of Oakley

This new event is from 4p-6pm at Oakley Plantation Audubon State Historic Site 11788 Highway 965

Louisiana State Fiddle Champion James Linden Hogg with perform, hors d’oeuvres & Open Bar. Tickets are $50.00 in advance and $55.00 at the door.

Tickets may be purchased at www.bontempstix.com

Angola Museum’s Milestones of Memories- Sunday-April 8

The Louisiana State Penitentiary Museum Foundation invites you to join us for the 20^thAnniversary Museum’s Milestones of Memories Celebration at the Museum from 1-4pm.  The event will feature a panel of Angola’s museum directors.  Past and present board members will also attend.  A new exhibit documenting the museum’s history will be on display in the Receiving Center annex.   Tours of the museum will be available and light refreshments will be served.  All activities will take place in the Receiving Center.  The event is free and open to the public.    

Angola Rodeo and Crafts – April 21 and 22

Tunica Hills Music Fest & Jam – Saturday - April 21

WE LOVE IT HERE!!!

WE LOVE IT HERE !!!   HAPPENING IN THE HILLS

MUSIC AT THE MAG

Friday-March 18^th- Dale Sellars
Saturday-March 19^th – The Fugitive Poets
Friday-March 25^th – The Delta Drifters
Saturday-March 26^th – Late Evening

FARMER’S MARKET EVERY THURSDAY ON WILCOX ST.
   9am-1pm    Support our local farmers



ROSEDOWN PLANTATION STATE HISTORIC SITE

Garden Tour Fridays will take place the first Friday of each month at 10am, starting on February 5^th.  A guided walking tour of the historic Rosedown Gardens and Outbuildings. 

Civil War Display for the entire month of March from 10am-4pm A display featuring the Civil War in Louisiana will be mounted in the Gift Shop Conference room.  The exhibit will present various aspects of the conflict and will be displayed the entire month to coincide with the annual Port Hudson re-enactment.



THE BLUFFS ON THOMPSON CREEK GOLF AND CONFERENCE RESORT

Brunch on the Greens:  Sunday Buffet Brunch every Sunday from 10:30am-1:30pm   Call for reservations 225 634-6419. 

Live Music on Saturday March 19^th from 6pm-9pm featuring Kenny Acosta


45^th Annual Audubon Pilgrimage – March 18, 19 and 20^th

Join the West Feliciana Historical Society for a fabulous tour of homes.

The Cabildo, The Myrtles Plantation, Rosale Plantation, Vinci Cottage at Virginia, Woodleigh Garden,

Rosedown Plantation, Oakley Plantation and Afton Villa Gardens.  The churches Our Lady of Mt Carmel Catholic Church, United Methodist Church, Grace Church and St. Mary’s Church.  Presenting Living History, the Rural Homestead. 

Night time activities include Royal Street by Candlelight, Cemetery Tour, Robust Hymn Singing, Period Costumes and Vintage Dancers, Audubon Play and the Saturday Light Up the Night Soiree


For information please visit www.westfelicianahistoricalsociety.org.  Tickets can be purchased at the Museum or online.

Book Signing and Celebration Honoring Gen Trimble and her new book

Sunday March 20^th from 4pm-6pm at Afton Villa Gardens.  Please join the author and friends to celebrate this beautiful new book and the Louisiana Garden Treasure it shares.  All are welcome, refreshments will be served. 


Easter Sunrise Service at Hemingbough
Service begins at 7am on Sunday March 27^th at Hemingbough

Easter at the Bluffs Sunday March 27th Served Buffet Style2 seatings 11am and 1pm   Reservations Required   635-6419