A Cotton Plantation and a Museum

Today we drove about 15 miles west of Vidalia to a little town named Ferriday.   We spent approximately six hours in and around a town with a population of only 3500.   We drove to Frogmore Plantation but a tour bus had just pulled into the parking lot so we were told that it would be better to return to Ferriday and tour the Delta Music Museum and return after a couple of hours.  So that is what we did.  We visited the museum and had lunch.

The Delta Museum features many singers from what they call "the delta area."  Of course, the most famous are these three:  Mickey Gilley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Jimmy  Swaggart.  Some of the others were Fats Domino, Johnny Horton, Aaron Neville, The Hemphills, and Conway Twitty.

The picture above and below show that the museum was once the  Ferriday Post Office.

The postmaster had a nice office.

We happened upon this street sign.  I sure the other two more famous singers had streets named after them too.

We ate lunch at Big Bob's BBQ.

Carol had fish, fries, and a salad.  It came with brown gravy to dip his fries in.  The gravy must be a southern thing.

 After lunch we returned to  Frogmore Cotton Plantation which was established in 1815 by a man named Daniel Morris.  He admired the English royal family and named it after the Frogmore estate which is a part of Home Park in Windsor, England.  During the Civil War the plantation had approximately 800 enslaved people.  The current owner of Frogmore was a kind man and treated the enslaved people very well.  Today several descendants of the original enslaved people still work on the farm.

This old general store was moved to the plantation by the current owners, the Tanners.   They are not only farming the land but trying to set up the area we were as historically correct for the 1800's.  Most of the buildings we were in are original but not original to Frogmore.  Mrs. Tanner lived in Monticello, Illinois as a little girl.

In this building we learned how cotton was ginned.  An enslaved person could pick 10 acres of cotton during the cotton growing season of September-November.  The cotton plant would be picked four times during during that season.  The picker could carry 70 pounds of cotton before emptying it into a sided-wagon along with what others were picking. Picking was done sunup to sunset

This tree is called a "turkey pine."

The first bloom on the cotton plant is white and it is white for only 24 hours.

After 24 hours, the bloom turns pink and remains pink for another 24 hours before the cotton boll begins to form.  It is 45 days from first planting the seed until it can be harvested.  

In 1897 boll weevils came into the United States from Mexico.  It only took them five years to completely wreck havoc cotton crops.  It wasn't until 2005 that boll weevils were completed eliminated from the United States.

The lady doing the tour was so interesting and had some many facts that my brain went into overload.  The tour lasted about two hours.  You could tell that she knew the history of Frogmore and cotton and wanted to share it with us.  

When we got back to camp, the sun was shining so I took a couple of pictures from the side window of the motorhome so I could remember the view from our camper. 

After these pictures were taken, the sky filled with storm clouds and it rained and the winds blew.  I had hopes of sitting on the levee and taking beautiful pictures.  Finally, the rains and winds stopped and the clouds began to break up.  I was able to take a few pictures.

We had a great day learning about cotton plantations and the musical talent that comes from the Delta area.  We have the car loaded so tomorrow we can be on the road early.  We only have a little over 300 miles to Terrell, Texas just outside of Dallas.  Texas, here we come!

Natchez, Mississippi

 Today we toured two antebellum homes each one had a much different story from the other.  The first we toured was Longwood.   Construction was begun in 1860 for an octagon-shaped plantation home on 80 acres of land.  Haller Nutt and his wife Julia wanted this home to be their summer home.  Amish skilled craftsmen were brought in from Pennsylvania to work on the home.  Work was stopped in 1861 when the Civil War began.  The Amish wanted to be in Pennsylvania and the when Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, he lost all of his enslaved people.  When work stopped only the first floor was completed.  Nutt had an order of protection for the house so he never lost the house itself but did lose all of the acreage .  Financially he lost everything except the house so he did not have the financial means to complete the house.  He died in 1864 leaving his wife and 8 children.  By selling garden products, eggs, and chickens, she was able to stay in the house.  When the war was over, she sued the federal government for three million dollars.  Occasionally, she would receive a small amount of money from the government. There was a small family cemetery on the property when Mr. and Mrs. Nutt and all but one of their children were buried.  One son had fought in WW I and is buried at Arlington.

This was the original finial on top of the dome.

The house is constructed of cypress timbers resting on a brick foundation.  All the walls were brick.  There were 775,000 handmade bricks made on the property by his enslaved people.  The frame of the house and all the windows were put in before the work stopped.  The walls of the first floor were covered with plaster.  This picture was taken on the second floor.  

This picture was taken from the second floor looking up to the sixth floor just under the dome.

The circles on the floor are covered so visitors will not step through them.  There were six of these in the second floor.  There purpose was to allow light from the top floor windows shine through to the first floor; thus, providing sunlight on the first floor.

Before the Amish craftsmen left, they covered all the windows with wood to protect them.

It is hard to tell but the corner blocks are five-sided.

This block is wood and every five rows the row ended with a wooden block so the door frames could be attached.

This is the architect's drawing of how the rooms of the second floor would be used.  The bedrooms would all be on the third and four floor.  

All the775,000 bricks used to construct the house were made on the property by Mr. Nutt's enslaved people.  Some of the bricks had the fingerprints of the person who made that brick.

 

Natchez was the second largest slave market in the United States.  The area was known as "Forks of the Road."  Enslaved people would be brought here for buyers to look over and possible buy.

This  represents the business that was done on this property.

We ate at Fat Mama's Tamales

We both had "Gringo Pies."  It was three tamales covered with chili, cheese, onions and jalapenos on it  I got mine without the jalapenos.  It was very good.  Dessert was chocolate chip and crushed pretzel cookies...yum!

As we left Fat Mama's I decided to cross the street to get a picture of the restaurant. I was in a hurry.  My brain told me to quickly cross the street but my feet did not cooperate....I tripped and sprawled out in the middle of the street.  I yelled for Carol (he didn't see me fall) and he quickly came to my rescue.  I have a couple of very raw spots on my right elbow and my left wrist is hurting but otherwise, I am going to live.  After that, Carol would always tell me when I got out of the car to watch my step.

The next home we toured was The Rosalie.  The garden were beautiful.

A nice young lady graciously took our picture in front of the home.

The bells over the door were used to call the enslaved workers into the house.  Each bell was a different size and rang a different tone so the enslaved worker would know what room they needed to go to.

This bell was on the USS Mississippi in 1917.  When the ship was decommissioned, the bell was brought to the Rosalie.

The Rosalie sits on the banks of the Mississippi and has a beautiful view of the river.  During the Civil War the home was used by the Union Army as headquarters for the commanding General.

 

There are so many antebellum homes in Natchez.  Because the Union captured the city early in the war and used it as headquarters, most of the home remained undamaged.  Many of them are open for tours. We drove around and took pictures of some of them.

The very last picture is a restaurant called "Mammy's Cupboard.":  Lunch is served here Tuesday-Saturdays.  It looked like an interesting place.

We finally made it back to the motorhome around 4:00 just as it began to rain.  We relaxed a bit before I got busy downloading pictures for my blog.  It was a nice day.  Both of the homes we toured were different from the other.  I wonder about the stories of all the rest.  I wonder how different each would be.  There will be no levee-sitting this evening to watch the eastern sky for the western sunset tonight...rain!