St. Francisville Celebrates Spring with Audubon Pilgrimage

By Anne Butler

Evergreenzine

The forty-second annual Audubon Pilgrimage March 15, 16 and 17, 2013, celebrates a southern spring in St. Francisville, the glorious garden spot of Louisiana’s English Plantation Country. For over four decades 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 folios and tutored young Eliza Pirrie of Oakley.

Features of the 2013 Audubon Pilgrimage include one historic townhouse (Evergreenzine) and three country plantations (Wakefield, Beechwood and Catalpa), plus Audubon (Oakley) and Rosedown State Historic Sites, Afton Villa Gardens, three 19th-century churches and the Rural Homestead with lively demonstrations of the rustic skills of daily pioneer life. Tour houses are open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Wakefield Plantation

This year’s carefully selected features vividly illustrate how many early families were closely related by blood or marriage, thus intertwining their heritage and homes in the fascinating fabric of Feliciana history. Martha Barrow Turnbull of Rosedown Plantation had a daughter named Sarah who would marry the son of Oakley’s Eliza Pirrie, whose first husband was Martha’s brother and whose second husband was the Reverend William R. Bowman of Grace Church. Wakefield Plantation and Beechwood were both part of early settler Alexander Stirling’s immense landgrant holdings, and Stirling is buried in the Beechwood cemetery beside his wife Ann Alston, her sister Lucretia Alston Pirrie of Oakley, and Lucretia’s daughter Eliza Pirrie. Catalpa Plantation was the home of Willie Fort, who was so taken with Eliza’s beautiful Bowman granddaughters that he married not one but two of them.

All of these early plantations—Oakley whose three-storied double-galleried house whispers of West Indies influence, Rosedown and Wakefield with their grand 1830s Greek Revival structures, plus Catalpa and Beechwood with later but exceedingly pleasant Victorian cottages--were furnished with supplies from the drygoods mercantiles operated in St. Francisville mostly by industrious Jewish immigrants like the builder of the historic townhouse called Evergreenzine.

Beechwood Plantation

The National Register 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 entertainment features a play called “An Audubon Spring Sketch” with middle-school actors at 5:30 p.m. in Audubon Market Hall, old-time Hymn Singing at the United Methodist Church (6 to 7 p.m.), art exhibit at the recently restored Temple Sinai (6 to 9 p.m., and also open during the day Saturday and Sunday 9 to 5:30), dramatic Graveyard Tours at Grace Episcopal cemetery (6 to 9, last tour begins at 8:30 p.m.), and a wine and cheese reception at Bishop Jackson Hall (7 to 9:30 p.m.) featuring a casual style show of the pilgrimage’s exquisitely detailed 1820’s costumes, nationally recognized for their authenticity. The Audubon play will also be presented on Saturday at 10 and 2, and Sunday at 2 p.m. in Market Hall. Light Up The Night, the Saturday evening soiree, features live music and dancing, dinner and drinks beginning at 7 p.m.

Catalpa Plantation

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.

Throughout springtime, the gardens of St. Francisville are spectacular, with some of the state’s finest antebellum plantings showing what a felicitous climate, rich soil, horticultural know-how and unlimited labor could produce in the mid-1900s. Rosedown Plantation’s 27 acres of formal plantings of heirloom specimens and Afton Villa’s landscaped terraces and oak allee underplanted with Pride of Afton azaleas have recently been joined by a contemporary garden, Imahara’s Botanical, where one of the state’s outstanding horticulturists has created a blooming hillside oasis from an old cypress swamp and overgrown gullies (open weekends).

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, all especially enjoyable in the cool weather. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little 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 St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities like the twice-weekly farmers’ market).

A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA,

November 30, December 1 and 2

By Anne Butler

St. Francisville’s economy was predominantly agriculture-based into the mid-20th century; the farmers planted sweet potatoes, the farmers’ wives canned the potatoes at the local processing plant, and prosperity proved elusive. But even then, visitors were drawn to the area by its nostalgic charm.

Grand Greek Revival Greenwood offered house tours and the setting for swashbuckling movies like Drango (1957) starring dashing Jeff Chandler. At gothic Afton Villa, Aunt Shug made pralines for the tourists and her husband in top hat and tails swept deep bows to entice passing carss in from two-lane Highway 61. Bewhiskered Jimmy Bowman and his spinster sisters offered peeks of the rundown but still glorious Rosedown Plantation house and overgrown gardens, timidly proffering penny postcards for sale. The Cottage opened the first B&B where would-be Scarlett O’Haras were served morning coffee on silver trays while snuggled in fine four-poster beds.

Alas, Greenwood and Afton Villa burned; the sweet potato cannery closed. The little town of St. Francisville seemed destined to fade away as well, until 1972 when the passionate preservationists of the recently formed historical society hit upon a plan to bring in tourists---and money---with the Audubon Pilgrimage, opening the doors to private historic homes and gardens one weekend each spring. The pilgrimage had as much to say to residents as it did to visitors, giving locals an increased appreciation of the natural beauty and historic treasures they too often took for granted. Is this history relevant today, the cultural antecedents that made the community what it is? As one rather earthy early New Orleans legislator commented, “If ya ain’t got culcha, ya ain’t got sh**!”

For forty years the popular pilgrimage proved St. Francisville indeed had “culcha,” but all the “culcha” in the world isn’t worth much if it isn’t economically sustainable, and this springtime tour lasted a mere three days a year and featured only historic properties. With changing demographics of tourism and year-round interest in visiting the area, it was only natural to augment the spring festival with what has become the region’s most popular small-town Christmas celebration, “Christmas in the Country,” featuring fabulous shopping opportunities and fun-filled family-friendly downtown activities, plus a library fundraising tour of outstanding contemporary houses as well.


Christmas in St. Francisville has always been a magical time. In the 19th century, country folks from miles around would pile into wagons to do their weekly shopping in the little town’s dry-goods emporiums that offered everything from buggies to coffins. At Christmas, tiny tots would press their noses against frosted storefront windows to gaze with wistful longing at elegant china dolls and wooden rocking horses.

It’s still that way today. Millions of tiny white lights trace soaring Victorian trimwork and grace gallery posts to transform the extensive downtown National Register Historic District into a veritable winter wonderland for Christmas in the Country November 30, December 1 and 2, as the historic little rivertown showcases its continuing vitality as the center of culture and commerce for the entire surrounding region. The enthusiastic sponsors of Christmas in the Country are the downtown merchants, and the real focus of the weekend remains the St. Francisville area's marvelous little shops, which go all out, hosting Open Houses with refreshments and entertainment for shoppers while offering spectacular seasonal decorations, great gift items, and extended hours. A variety of fine shops occupy historic structures throughout the downtown area and spread into the outlying district, each unique in its own way, and visitors should not miss a single one.


Beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, Santa Claus comes to town to kick off the Lighting Ceremony of the Town Christmas Tree, followed by a public reception at Town Hall hosted by longtime St. Francisville Mayor Billy D'Aquilla and featuring performances by the First Baptist Church Children’s Choir and West Feliciana Middle School Choir. The Baton Rouge Symphony presents its annual concert of seasonal selections and dessert reception beginning at 7 p.m. at Hemingbough; tickets are available at the Bank of St. Francisville. And designated residences along Royal and Ferdinand Streets allow visitors to “Peep into our Holiday Homes” Friday and Saturday evenings from 6 to 8 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 1, begins with a 7:30 a.m. Community Prayer Breakfast at United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall just off Royal St., followed by Breakfast with St. Nick for children at Jackson Hall next to Grace Church at 8 and 9:30 a.m., sponsored by the Women’s Service League (reservations recommended; www.womensserviceleague.com or 225-721-3563). The Women’s Service League also sells fresh wreaths and pre-wrapped Plantation Country Cookbooks all weekend on Ferdinand St. next to the library, with proceeds benefiting local civic and charitable activities.



Throughout the day Saturday there will be children’s activities and photos with Santa, the Main Street Band (noon to 2), handmade crafts and food vendors in oak-shaded Parker Park. There will also be entertainment in various locations throughout the downtown historic district, featuring choirs, dancers, musicians, and other performers.

The angelic voices of the Bains Lower Elementary children's choir—Voices in Motion-- are raised at the West Feliciana Historical Society Museum on Ferdinand St. at 10 a.m. From 9:30 to 10:30 the West Feliciana High School Performance Choir sings at the United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, followed from 11 to 11:45 by the school’s Beginning and Advanced Choirs. At 11:30 on Ferdinand St. the Westside Cloggers group put on a lively show at Bella Vita Salon, followed by a Shin Sun Korean Martial Arts demonstration. From 10 to 2 the Sweet Adelines’ Lyrical Quartet strolls and sings along Ferdinand and Royal Sts., while the Angola Inmate Traveling Band from Louisiana State Penitentiary performs across from Garden Symposium Park from noon to 4. Kevin Johnson sings on the front porch of Town Hall 11 to 1, and the Swinging Willows Jazz Band performs at the library from noon to 1. Arts for All hosts a photography exhibit at its studio in the Quarters on Commerce St. 10 to 5.

Saturday’s highlight, of course, is the colorful 2 p.m. Christmas parade sponsored by the Women’s Service League, this year’s theme being “Joy to the World.” Dozens of gaily decorated parade floats vie for coveted prizes, accompanied by cheerleaders, bands, bagpipes, vintage cars, marching ROTC units and dancers. Santa rides resplendent in a magnificent sleigh pulled by Louisiana State Penitentiary's immense prized Percheron draft horses, groomed and gleaming in the sunlight with their sleigh bells jingling. Grand marshall is dedicated town employee Eric Schneider, who spreads his own joy on his daily rounds maintaining St. Francisville’s remarkably litter-free streets.

At 6 p.m. on Saturday, the United Methodist Church on Royal St. hosts a Community Sing-a-long, while the First Baptist Church on US 61 at LA 10 sponsors its very popular Live Nativity from 6 to 8 p.m., reminding of the reason for the season. In addition, Saturday evening from 6 to 8, visitors are welcomed for candlelight tours, period music and wassail at Audubon State Historic Site on LA Hwy. 965, where artist-naturalist John James Audubon painted many of his famous bird studies in the early 1820's. This historic home never looks lovelier than in the soft romantic glow of the candles that were its only illumination for its early years. During the day from 10 to 4, the historic site observes its annual holiday festival.


Christmas in the Country activities continue on Sunday, December 2, with in-town activities and, north of St. Francisville in the Lake Rosemound/Laurel Hill area, the Friends of the Library Tour of Homes, featuring six unique homes on four private properties, with refreshments provided by Heirloom Cuisine. Tickets are available from the West Feliciana Parish Library, at the featured homes and other businesses on the day of the tour (for information, 225-635-3364). Features include the Figges’ lakeside country retreat on Hazelwood Plantation, a cottage called Kwamalusi (Zulu for “place of the shepherd”) housing retired bishop Charles Jenkins and his wife, Paul and Mary Ann Stevens’ Micajah Lodge which began life as a log cabin, and several incredible cypress-and-glass structures surrounded by lakes and waterfalls and gardens owned by the Roland family.

St. Francisville is a year-round tourist destination featuring a number of splendidly restored plantation homes open for tours daily: The Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation. Afton Villa Gardens and Imahara’s Botanical Gardens are open seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, offering periodic fascinating living-history demonstrations so visitors can experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.


The nearby Tunica Hills offer unmatched recreational activities in unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, all especially enjoyable in the cool weather. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from Chinese and Mexican 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 St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

Fabulous Historic Furnishings

St. Francisville area’s fabulous historic furnishings being inventoried

by Anne Butler

The sofa did it.

It was the sofa that actually kicked off this unrelenting quest for historical truth. One single sofa from historic Wakefield Plantation near St. Francisville started the ball rolling and instigated a very exacting and detailed inventory of all of the significant material culture of the Lower South, an ambitious project expected to eventually encompass all of Louisiana as well as Mississippi and Alabama.

Adam Erby rehangs pre-Civil War portrait after measuring and examining it.

It is hardly surprising that the project started in the St. Francisville area, for the historic plantations in this section of the South, called English Louisiana for the origins of its earliest settlers, contained a wealth of fine furnishings, silver and china, books and musical instruments---all the accoutrements of the cultured and refined lifestyle of the wealthy cotton planters. The first settlers came down from the East Coast in the late 1700s with trunks and crates and wagonloads of belongings to furnish the simple early plantation houses---The Cottage, Butler Greenwood, The Myrtles, Oakley. As the planter-families prospered, the homes the second generations built in the 1830s—Rosedown Plantation, Greenwood Plantation--were grand Greek Revival ones requiring even more elaborate furnishings, and so the owners went on Grand Tours of Europe or lengthy purchasing excursions Up East. The fact that so much evidence of this early material culture still survives has astounded and delighted the experts cataloguing the individual pieces.

But to get back to the sofa. A decade ago, New Orleans attorney Paul Haygood, who from time to time took some of his leisure time to indulge his passion for historical research, was notified that a sofa was for sale by a New Orleans antiques dealer that might—or might not—have come from Wakefield Plantation just north of St. Francisville. Having family ties to the Stirlings of Wakefield, Haygood purchased the classical piece, probably made in the 1830s with lots of curves, and began trying to document its provenance.

He knew that Lewis Stirling and his wife Sarah Turnbull had taken a lengthy trip to New York in 1836 to conduct business, socialize, enjoy the cultural scene, and most especially to purchase furnishings suitable for the extravagant new house they were building, a grand columned Greek Revival. In the Stirling papers preserved at LSU, he found an invoice for a Grecian sofa purchased in 1836 from Edwards and Baldwin in New York; the firm had just come into prominence by furnishing mahogany seating for the fancy new Astor House hotel.

Further exploration led to photographs of other Wakefield furnishings being shown to experts in New York, where they generated great excitement. Delving into preserved family and factor receipts revealed that the Stirlings had not only purchased a number of chairs and sofas from chairmakers Oliver Edwards and Cyrus Baldwin, but had also commissioned a large number of four-poster beds and tables from eminent New York City cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe, 28 crates in all. The bill was a grand total of $1900, and the purchase is one of only three major documented sales of Phyfe’s late Grecian-style work. Quite a few of these pieces remain in the Wakefield Plantation house today.

Richie Garrison, head of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, has come down from Delaware to check the progress of his students and explains to them the virtues of a rosewood piano stool.

With Matthew A. Thurlow, Installations Coordinator in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Haygood wrote a detailed article for The Magazine Antiques on his fabulous findings. Encouraged by museum experts to do something more, he arranged to hold a symposium on the classical period of the 1830s in this area. Still not satisfied, insatiable experts encouraged him to see that a professionally done inventory was taken, and that was the impetus for the founding of the Classical Institute of the South to take the lead in the project, an umbrella non-profit organization of important state museums and collections—the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Louisiana State Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the LSU Museum—plus a board of advisors made up of outstanding experts in the field.

Funds were raised for competitive fellowships to allow a summer of research in St. Francisville conducted by several scholars from the Winterthur Program in Decorative Arts at the University of Delaware. Winterthur, premier museum of American decorative arts and sponsor of a number of preeminent research programs, was the home of wealthy collector and horticulturist Henry Francis du Pont; its 175 rooms contain over 90,000 documented objects, plus exhibit galleries. The two interns began their work in New Orleans with several days of orientation with experts on Louisiana history and decorative arts.

 With plans to expand the program next summer, the interns are concentrating this year on the furnishings of four historic sites in West Feliciana—Wakefield Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, Catalpa Plantation and Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site, plus historic items from Wakefield in a more contemporary family home called Woodhill Farm.

Says Haygood enthusiastically, “They have found wonderful things. This will make people all over the country aware of the material culture we have in Louisiana and the Deep South, which has not always been appreciated. The interns have been thrilled to find enormous collections that help to complete the picture of the classical environment in this area, from stunning original parlor furnishings to the Phyfe furniture, early Meeks pieces, wonderful portraits and magnificent silver. It’s amazing to see their excitement and especially to see it percolating up to the great classical experts at Winterthur, who are thrilled as well. The findings will be featured at the Winterthur Symposium next spring, and will be online for use by scholars (with locations and ownership confidential); perhaps there will even be a book, and almost certainly magazine articles.  We are so in hopes that this will help promote cultural tourism in the St. Francisville area especially.”

The two interns working in St. Francisville this summer are Alice Carboni, originally from Rhode Island, and Adam Erby of Lunenburg County, Virginia. Called the “Lois F. McNeil Fellows,” the two bring a passion for historic culture to the project. Alice has spent the past 8 years in New Orleans, attending Tulane and working as the associate collections manager at the New Orleans Museum of Art, while Adam came straight from the University of Virginia with a major in American Studies with emphasis on architectural history.

Alice Carboni examines an antebellum armoir, cataloging primary and secondary woods.

Both say their findings have greatly exceeded their expectations. Says Adam, “There are phenomenal things for such a tight geographic area, bespeaking the amazing wealth here and the high quality of furnishings people were purchasing.” Alice adds that she had not previously studied or visited the southern plantations and was not sure what she would find, and has been “blown away by the survival of so much material culture, still in original families with so much knowledge of the provenance. The quality of the pieces, exceptional examples from all parts of the country, is just phenomenal and exciting.” The two have worked on material culture in the Upper South and have found that pieces there have not survived in such quantities as in the Lower South.

“The St. Francisville community has been so welcoming and gracious, and it has been fun to meet the locals as well as see the objects and houses,” says Alice. “This has enhanced our understanding of this area, these objects and these houses. It’s such a different sort of landscape, and it’s great to be able to study it in situ. We don’t always get to bring it all together in our scholarship requiring so much library research.”

Paul Haygood takes inventory of extensive library of rare books.

A number of years back when St. Francisville’s local historical society hosted a fundraiser like Antiques Roadshow and imported several appraisers from Sotheby’s, the New Yorkers placed advance disclaimers in the newspapers reminding residents that the South had been primarily an agrarian society and early settlers put their money into land rather than furniture, so participants should not be disappointed if items they brought for appraisal were not as valuable as they might hope. Of course the Lower Mississippi River corridor in antebellum days was inhabited by an enormous number of the country’s wealthiest and most cultured families, and their plantation mansions were furnished with some of the finest pieces money could buy. People who would have brought in insignificant little oddities instead brought their finest treasures and knocked the socks off the New York appraisers, who in future years were careful not to be so condescending.

This material culture inventory should do much the same for the entire under-appreciated Lower South. From the classical sofa at Wakefield that launched this whole project to the magnificent silver services, the original upholstery with trim detail and the exceedingly rare slave livery and other treasures found in all the historic houses, the fascinating material culture that remains extant in the St. Francisville area enriches our understanding and expands our picture of early life in the Lower South, and promises to knock the socks off antiques enthusiasts across the country.


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 daily: the Cottage Plantation, Butler Greenwood Plantation, the Myrtles Plantation, Greenwood Plantation, plus Catalpa Plantation by reservation and Afton Villa Gardens seasonally. Particularly important to tourism in the area are its two significant state historic sites, Rosedown Plantation and Oakley Plantation in the Audubon state site, which offer fascinating living-history demonstrations most weekends to allow visitors to experience 19th-century plantation life and customs.

Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site in St. Francisville, La.

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography, hunting. There are unique art galleries plus specialty and antiques shops, many in restored historic structures, and some fine little restaurants throughout the St. Francisville area serving everything from soul food to Chinese and Mexican cuisine, 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 St. Francisville Main Street at 225-635-3873 or West Feliciana Tourist Commission at 225-635-4224; online visit www.stfrancisville.us (the events calendar gives dates and information on special activities, including the lively monthly third Saturday morning Community Market Day in Parker Park and a Farmers’ Market every Thursday and Saturday morning) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.