Proud Main Street Community

St. Francisville: Proud Main Street Community
by Anne Butler

Bayou Sara Flooded

St. Francisville’s location, high atop blufflands overlooking the Mississippi River in West Feliciana Parish, has been both its blessing and, by some accounts, its curse. Safe from the floodwaters that obliterated its sister city of Bayou Sara right on the river’s banks, St. Francisville was precariously perched on a narrow finger ridge that limited its growth potential, for the town lots fell off steeply into deep hollows on either side of the single main thoroughfare. In a way, this was a good thing, preventing inappropriate development and limiting modern incursions in a historic district where the cozy mix of residential and commercial structures from the 19th and early 20th centuries happily coexist to provide present-day viability. And they can still call it the town that’s 2 miles long and 2 yards wide, with not so much exaggeration.
Founded in the opening years of the 19th century by predominantly Anglo settlers, the little town was an important social, commercial and cultural center for the extensive cotton plantations surrounding it. Its early streets were rude dirt tracks along which herds of cattle and mule-drawn wagons piled high with crops were driven before descending the steep hill to the port at Bayou Sara for shipment on riverboats to New Orleans and thence the world.

Hotel in Bayou Sara

But improvements were soon effected. By 1809 a hotel had been erected, serving as legislative headquarters for the fledgling government of the independent Republic of West Florida when, in 1810, the Anglo settlers joined together to overthrow a weak and corrupt Spanish regime still trying to hold onto the Florida Parishes well after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Over St. Francisville have flown the flags of more governments than any other part of the state—France, England, Spain, the West Florida Republic, the State of Louisiana, the Confederacy, and the United States, some of them more than once.
There the Louisiana Territory’s third newspaper was established, the state’s second library was begun in 1812, a Masonic Lodge was chartered in 1817, and in 1819 an open-air brick market hall was built with arches through which produce wagons could be driven (this would later serve as the town hall). By 1828 the state’s first Episcopal congregation outside New Orleans joined to form Grace Church.

Right in town there were gristmills and cotton gins, livery stables and haberdasheries, drygoods emporiums and supply merchants capable of providing everything the plantations needed, from buggies and fine furnishings to coffins and farm tools, often supplying it all on credit against the next year’s crop. In 1853 the St. Francisville Chronicle reported that, according to the tax rolls, the parish of West Feliciana, with St. Francisville at its core, contained 2,231 free whites, 70 free blacks, and 10,298 slaves producing 2,873 hogheads of sugar, 4,318 barrels of molasses, 334,000 bushels of corn and 23,860 bales of cotton selling at about $70 a bale.

Jewish Synagogue

The prosperity of the antebellum Cotton Kingdom gave way after the Civil War to some lean years as the area struggled with a declining economy no longer supported by agriculture. Many of St. Francisville’s historic structures fell into disrepair; many of the merchants of the town, some of them Jewish immigrants who had provided the practicalities and financing for the plantation economy, moved to urban areas where the prospects for success seemed more promising. The little town remained, however, the parish seat of government and commerce, and by the 1970s a movement began, spearheaded by the West Feliciana Historical Society, to foster a renewed appreciation of its history and heritage. An annual Audubon Pilgrimage tour of historic homes encouraged the entire community to work together to spruce up and share its treasures with visitors, and a late 1970’s survey documented over 140 downtown buildings of sufficient architectural significance to be listed in 1980 on the National Register of Historic Places in an official Historic District that was expanded in 1982.
When the St. Francisville Main Street program was established in 1994, it was able to provide incentive grants for a great deal of refurbishing and refreshing of the downtown area, where the practical combination of business and residential use ensures continued vitality. There may still be only a few thousand residents in St. Francisville, but this little Mississippi River town has something many small towns across the country lack: a vital downtown that is very much alive. When the shops close for the evening, the oak-shaded brick sidewalks come alive with dog-walkers and skateboarders and strollers chatting over picket fences with porch-rockers and swing-sitters decompressing on gingerbread-trimmed galleries, before heading on down to the local café for food and fellowship as exuberant youngsters carouse and dance to the live local band.

Grace Episcopal Church

The admittedly slow pace allows for plenty of time to stop and smell the climbing roses and ancient camellias blooming in every yard, and residents wouldn’t have it any other way. When a new Mississippi River bridge was first proposed to connect St. Francisville on the east bank of the river with New Roads on the west, replacing the increasingly unreliable state-run car ferry, economic development proponents wanted the raised bridge approaches to go right through the center of the historic district. Determined (some called them “stubborn”) townsfolk banded together to push the country’s longest cable-stayed bridge farther south, thus saving fragile downtown structures and a quiet way of life from the stress of constant heavy traffic, harmful vibrations and noise pollution.

Old Bank in historic district

While some of the town’s historic structures had been fortunate enough to benefit from privately funded facelifts over the years, even more benefitted once St. Francisville became an official Main Street community, backed by grants and funding from both state and national Main Street programs designed to breathe new life into the nation’s deteriorating downtowns. The grants made to spruce up downtown commercial structures were matched by more than a million dollars in private investments.
From the grandly baroque 1905 bank building housing a nationally popular button jewelry company to the two-story double-galleried 1817 Masonic Lodge and the 1819 Market Hall, from the simple 19th-century structure used to store coffins to the tiny headquarters of the black benevolent/burial society founded in 1883, dozens of downtown buildings benefitted from these grants, turning the entire historic district into a popular and picturesque year-round tourist destination. Writing in “Preservation in Print,” Linda Rascoe of the Louisiana Main Street Program called St. Francisville’s downtown historic district a visual feast, saying “the closely packed, village-like streetscape contributes to the picturesque pastoral setting where the purity and integrity of the architecture provide a tangible sense of history and a major draw for its primary industry, tourism.”
The surrounding countryside has dozens of National Register-listed antebellum plantations and glorious 19th-century gardens, plus unsurpassed recreational opportunities in the rugged Tunica Hills, while right in downtown St. Francisville there are historic churches, Bed & Breakfasts, a bustling courthouse complex in daily use, plus an oak-shaded public park complete with bandstand that hosts a number of celebrations throughout the year---all on just two main streets. On-going restorations of the historic synagogue and first public school, on a site overlooking the Mississippi River, pay tribute to early Jewish contributions to the town, and indeed the wonderful brick Julius Freyhan School was one of the first recipients of a small façade grant the year St. Francisville was designated a Main Street Community. In a restored vintage hardware store, the historical society maintains a fascinating museum and tourist information center, space shared with the parish Tourist Commission and Main Street offices.
The enthusiastic Main Street directors in St. Francisville, following the program philosophy of ‘Promotion, Organization, Economic Revitalization and Design coupled with Preservation,’ have led the way in spearheading the movement to ensure that the downtown area retains its appeal, with great financial back-up from the town’s Economic Development Fund providing extras like public restrooms, bricked sidewalks and tourist information kiosks in central locations.

Home on Royal St.

Local festivals are carefully planned to complement the town’s history and heritage, bearing in mind the shift in tourism demographics toward more active ecotourism and hands-on living history, with many of the smaller festivals---the monthly community arts market in the park, the White Linen Night, the Trick-or-Treat Down Main Street---designed specifically to draw visitors to the downtown area to shop. The spring pilgrimage showcases area plantation homes and historic townhouses in a fun community frolic as the azaleas are at their peak, while the Audubon Country Birdfest and summer Hummingbird Festival are ideally suited for this area where artist John James Audubon painted dozens of his Birds of America studies in 1821. In June, The Day The War Stopped is a Civil War re-enactment like no other, commemorating not a booming battle but a brief moment of civility in the midst of a bloody struggle when Confederate and Union Masons joined peaceably in the burial of a Yankee gunboat commander in the Episcopal church cemetery downtown. Fall’s Garden Symposium and the Yellow Leaf Arts Festival highlight the glorious 19th-century gardens of the area and the generations of fine artists who have drawn inspiration from its scenic vistas and bountiful wildlife, while Christmas in the Country draws thousands downtown for a holiday parade, seasonal entertainment, great shopping, and spectacular decorations that transform the entire town into a veritable winter wonderland.
The five members of the St. Francisville Historic District Commission, supported wholeheartedly by an enthusiastic longtime mayor, oversee Main Street activities and preservation projects, with the Main Street director coordinating and combining efforts like co-op advertising and the publication of tour maps and guides, with the goal of promoting tourism and encouraging the development of new businesses in town while providing the means to preserve its historic character and charm. It’s never easy to find just the right balance between economic development and historic preservation, but St. Francisville seems to be doing just that.
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, but visitors find it especially enjoyable in the winter when the glorious 19th-century gardens are filled with blooming camellias.  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.
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) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

OLD BENEVOLENT SOCIETY

ST. FRANCISVILLE’S OLD BENEVOLENT SOCIETY by Anne Butler The St. Francisville, LA, area is fortunate to retain a number of magnificently restored plantation homes that welcome visitors throughout the year with an impressive picture of life as it was for the upper echelon of antebellum society in the South. But other structures---smaller, simpler---speak in quieter tones to teach a history lesson no less significant. Historic green marker in front of Benevolent Society building. One such structure is the tiny Old Benevolent Society just across Ferdinand St. from the tourist information center/museum in the midst of St. Francisville’s National Register-listed Historic District. Its small green historic marker designates this unassuming wood-frame shotgun house as the oldest black burial lodge in the parish, founded in 1883 by a gentleman whose grandson would more than a century later become president of the parish police jury. The small sign gives just the merest hint of the importance of benevolent societies in the turbulent aftermath of the Civil War, when slaves freed from bondage found few resources to fill needs hitherto addressed by masters on the plantations where they labored. Historic Old Benevolent Society Hall on Ferdinand St. (main street) St. Francisville, La. The most important institution for freedmen in those days, of course, was the church, which struggled to provide not just spiritual but temporal comfort as well in the absence of social service organizations or insurance companies open to persons of color. The church offered sanctuary and socialization in addition to salvation. From tiny black churches sprang the soulful gospel music spiced by the cadences of African chants, the bountiful church suppers and shouting with the spirit, the homecomings and all the other traditional rituals treasured by black congregants to set them apart from the staid Protestant practices of their former owners. And nearly every church had its benevolent society, officially incorporated under the direction of respected elders of the congregation. Preserved documents reveal that, while some of these church leaders laboriously wrote their names on deeds in the fanciful flowing script of the times, others, unlearned, simply signed with an X. But they all took their responsibilities seriously, for the benevolent societies they formed filled dire and pressing needs.  With few other outside resources, these societies offered significant services to their members---sitting with the sick, caring for the infirm, feeding the weak, funding medical care, and finally covering the modest expenses of a decent burial as well.  The charter for the Poor Peoples Benevolent Society, filed August 20, 1904, before West Feliciana’s deputy clerk Eugene S. Muse and certified by District Attorney Robert C. Wickliffe, specified its purpose as being “to help and care for the sick and infirm, and the poor members of the society, and to bury the dead.” Afton Villa Baptist Church By July 1911 when the Union Reform Society applied before the same Eugene S. Muse for a charter, the corporation purposes had been considerably embellished. Article III of the incorporation papers stated: “The purposes for which this corporation is established and its objects are declared to be: To better the condition of its members by shaping their manners, and framing their characters by the promotion of honesty, good morals and the diffusion of knowledge among them; and to care for the sick members of the organization; to aid them in distress, to bury their dead, and generally to promote and foster Friendship, Love and Good Fellowship…under such rules and regulations as they may prescribe, subject to the Constitution and Laws of the State of Louisiana.” When the Greenwood Young Benevolent Society was chartered in July of 1913, the same goals were stipulated in the standardized incorporation papers, with the society given the power for the ensuing 99 years to establish bylaws, elect directors and officers, and also to enter into contracts and purchase property. In 1920, for example, the Royal Benevolent Society, “incorporated under the Laws of the State of Louisiana and filed in the Parish of West Feliciana, at St. Francisville,” purchased from Morris Burgas a parcel of land on the Woodville and Bayou Sara Public Road, bounded on the north by property of St. Andrew Baptist Church. Fronting 50 feet on the Woodville Road, the property was purchased for $350, with $100 payable in cash and the balance in five notes of $50 each spread over the next five years, the mortgage secured by society president Emanuel Williams and Secretary William Wilkerson. According to an 1877 issue of the early newspaper called the West Feliciana Sentinel, benevolent societies’ annual meetings could be elaborate affairs, if the description of that hosted by the Union Benevolent Society was any indication, involving as it did a 75-foot table groaning under the weight of “turkey, chicken, sugar-cured hams, deliciously barbecued beef, mutton and pig, flanked with vegetables, fruits and an extensive variety of dessert and generous supply of wines. To sum up, it was the finest ‘spread’ we have seen in many a long day, and reflected great credit upon our friends of the ‘Benevolents.’  We have frequently had occasion to mark the perfect order and decorum of the society when paying the last sad tribute to the dead, and the spontaneous manner in which they turn out upon such occasions. The objects of the association as set forth in their constitution and bylaws, and indeed, as evinced in their practical working, is (sic) to foster Christian love, union and peace, to attend and alleviate the sick, to administer to the wants of the destitute in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, and to bury the dead…We wish them a hearty Godspeed in their noble efforts to subserve the ends of charity. In all their legitimate and reasonable undertakings the colored people of West Feliciana will find no warmer friend and supporter than the W.F. Sentinel.” Rosedown Baptist Church baptismal While some benevolent societies met in their own small separate structures, others gathered in church halls. Some churches even had more than one society, as did Afton Villa Baptist Church, oldest black church in West Feliciana, founded in 1871 when Mrs. Susan Barrow of Afton Villa Plantation donated a small piece of land for the purpose of erecting a church and school. Mrs. Barrow had an abiding concern for providing formalized religious instruction and education to the black residents of the area, and they in turn had grown increasingly reluctant to be dominated by former masters in matters of religion, giving rise to the large number of black Baptist congregations in an area previously dominated by Anglican worship practices in this section called Louisiana’s English plantation country. Violet Pate, octogenarian historian and lifelong congregant of Afton Villa Baptist Church, recounts some of the old-time practices there---the pond baptisms with white-clad candidates liberally immersed and cleansed of sin, the wake services as congregants sat up throughout the night with the deceased who’d been transported to church in a big black glass-windowed mule-drawn wagon, the “veiling” of the seat of deceased church officers. Mrs. Pate recalls the old folks walking barefoot along dirt roads, lanterns lighting their way at night, cleaning their feet with rags before putting on shoes to enter the church. There were two benevolent societies in the church, the older Afton Villa Benevolent Society dating from 1905 and the Willing Workers society begun by some of the younger men around 1935. Violet Pate explains that these societies filled many needs such as sitting with the sick, plus covering a specified number of doctor visits, prescriptions and ambulance trips per year out of the dues paid by several hundred members; Willing Workers dues began at 25 cents a month, but have risen to $5.  While the Willing Workers society still has about a hundred members, the Afton Villa Benevolent Society has disbanded, and only a few other churches maintain their societies. Their services, after all, are no longer so vitally necessary, with today’s equal access to standard insurance coverage for medical and funeral costs. West Feliciana Sentianel newspaper dated Aug. 11, 1877 The tiny Old Benevolent Society building, too, has seen better days, its horse-drawn black hearse no longer housed in a tin shelter behind it, the woeful wagon that transported the deceased to burial grounds, mourners walking behind, women in white, carrying candles. Over the years, several ideas have been floated for using the building, perhaps to house exhibits on black history and culture, but there has never been agreement on just what modern-day usage would be appropriate or viable. However, the structure deserves to be preserved as a reminder of the significant role benevolent societies played in southern black society of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 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, but visitors find it especially enjoyable in the winter when the glorious 19th-century gardens are filled with blooming camellias.  While the Old Benevolent Society can be seen only from the outside, 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. 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) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.

EVERYBODY LOVES A PARADE

EVERYBODY LOVES A PARADE -- CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY IN ST. FRANCISVILLE, LA

by Anne Butler

Nothing says Christmas to an excited child more than a parade, especially a safe small-town one like St. Francisville’s popular Christmas in the Country parade the first Saturday each December, complete with marching bands and decorated floats, Santa resplendent in his sleigh and important local officials in convertibles throwing lots and lots of candy. And right out there with all the excited children catching that candy, every year for the three decades this celebration has opened the holiday season in the Felicianas, is Ms. Fay Daniel, owner of one of St. Francisville’s iconic downtown shops. 

It’s not that Ms. Fay is exactly a child, but she doesn’t know that, and no one has the heart to tell her. So she keeps anticipating Christmas and celebrating the season with that childlike exuberance and sense of wonder that make the holidays so magical, regardless of age. In her timeless shop, The Shanty Too, purveyor of “gifts and fancy goods” for those same three decades, she loves to share that excitement, with a holiday open house, spectacular decorations, and great shopping. She has also had a hand in planning and executing Christmas in the Country and its parade since the very beginning, many years as the overall chairperson and always the most enthusiastic supporter.

Of course, the parade has grown considerably in three decades (haven’t we all??). Highlight of a weekend designed to draw holiday shoppers into downtown St. Francisville, it started inauspiciously in the late 1970s with a few hay-filled flatbed trailers pulled by farm trucks or tractors, Scout groups trudging along on foot, a couple of costumed Historical Society stalwarts wobbling along on bicycles, and an earlier generation of politicians flinging tootsie rolls from pickups. Everybody who could beg, borrow or steal a horse rode in the parade, which turned out to be a bad idea and was halted in the interest of safety after a few hair-raising runaways. No one had any idea who would actually show up to participate, so the parade was always a surprise even to its organizers, at least until the Women’s Service League took over the project and set some tasteful guidelines.

But even in those early, simple years, St. Francisville’s holiday parade and its ever-expanding roster of wonderful little shops drew crowds. Because, you see, Christmas in St. Francisville, historically the commercial center of surrounding English Louisiana cotton plantations, 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, gents’ fine furnishings and ladies’ millinery. And at Christmas time, tiny tots would press their noses against frosted storefront windows like those at The Shanty Too to gaze with wistful longing at elegant china dolls and wooden rocking horses.

It’s still that way today, and the historic little rivertown’s Christmas in the Country celebration on December 3, 4, and 5, pays tribute to its heritage and showcases its continuing vitality as the center of culture and commerce for the entire surrounding region. As Fay Daniel says, “We have some really nice stores here, and the shop owners work hard to keep them fresh and up to date.”

Millions of tiny white lights trace soaring Victorian trimwork and grace gallery posts to transform the entire town into a veritable winter wonderland for Christmas in the Country, as special activities throughout the extensive National Register-listed downtown Historic District provide fun for the whole family at this celebration of the season, a joyful alternative to mall madness.   The Saturday parade this year has the theme “SaintSational Christmas,” celebrating not only the championship WhoDat Nation but also the local West Feliciana High School teams, also called the Saints, and riding in the parade and reliving former glory will be several generations of sports heroes, cheerleaders, dancers and homecoming queens.

Beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3, Santa Claus comes to town to kick off the Lighting Ceremony of the Town Christmas Tree, followed by a public reception and fireworks display at Town Hall hosted by jovial longtime St. Francisville Mayor Billy D'Aquilla and featuring performances by the First Baptist Church Children’s Choir and West Feliciana Middle School Choir.   From 6 to 8, visitors have the rare opportunity to glimpse beautifully decorated interiors of participating houses along Ferdinand and Royal Streets’ Peep Into Our Holiday Homes. 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.

Saturday, Dec. 4, 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, 9:30 and 11 a.m., sponsored by the Women’s Service League (reservations recommended; call 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--spacewalk and obstacle course,  pictures with Santa—plus 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 9:30. The Bain Elementary Chorus sings at the Methodist Church Fellowship Hall at 9:15, followed by West Feliciana High School's very popular Latin and Spanish Clubs (10:30 a.m.) and the high school choir (11).  At 11:30 on Ferdinand St. the Junior Jazzercise group puts on a lively show, 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. The children’s musical program called A Joyful Noise performs at 12:15 at Town Hall.

Saturday’s highlight, of course, is the colorful 2 p.m. Christmas parade sponsored by the Women’s Service League. The parade features several grand marshalls, including Jimmy Heidel of the original 1967 New Orleans Saints team, and Darren Coates, local high school grad who went on to be named MVP of the infamous Bayou Classic as a member of the Southern University football team.  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. 

The parade lines up on Royal St. and traverses Ferdinand and Commerce Streets, so don’t plan on driving through downtown St. Francisville mid-afternoon. 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 tutored the daughter of plantation owners and 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 5, with in-town activities augmented by a Christmas Tour of Homes presented from noon to 5 by the Friends of the Library, showcasing carefully selected contemporary homes; tickets are available at the West Feliciana Historical Society museum and at the library both before and on the day of the tour.

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 and great gift items.  A variety of quaint little 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. 

From the rich Victoriana of The Shanty Too, for thirty years the anchor of the downtown business community and always noted for eyecatching Christmas decorations, to the jewelry beautifully crafted from vintage buttons at Grandmother's Buttons, and the incredibly extensive selections of carefully chosen gift and decorative items at Hillcrest Gardens and Sage Hill Gifts, downtown St. Francisville is filled with fine shopping opportunities.  Potter Michael Miller, photographer Toni Ladnier and artists Herschel Harrington and Joe Savell (Backwoods Gallery) have studios displaying their own works, while the St. Francisville Art & Antiques, Avondale Antiques, Bohemianville Antiques, and the newly opened A Few of My Favorite Things shop  feature vintage collectibles and fine furnishings. The Wine Parlor in the St. Francisville Inn has a sale on gift bottles of fine wines, Birdman Books & Coffee has an eclectic selection of books, and Belle Glen Traditions stocks children’s toys plus sports memorabilia and gift items. Ins-N-Outs and Coyote Creek nurseries carry live seasonal plants to complement any decorating scheme. The tourist information center/museum in the West Feliciana Historical Society headquarters on Ferdinand St. has a great selection of books, notecards and prints, plus free maps showing locations of all of the other retail outlets, local plantations, restaurants and accommodations.

On the outskirts of town, intrepid shoppers won't want to miss the exquisite creations at Patrick’s Fine Jewelry, the fleur-de-lis decorative pieces at Elliott’s Pharmacy and an extensive collection of the latest in electronics at Radio Shack in Spring Creek Shopping Center, as well as Border Imports with huge selections of Mexican pottery, ironwork and concrete statuary on US 61 north.  Most of the plantations in the St. Francisville area have gift shops, and a visit to those would permit enjoyment of spectacular seasonal decorations as well. Restaurants and B&Bs in the area offer gift certificates to extend the giving throughout the year.

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, but visitors find it especially enjoyable in the winter when the glorious 19th-century gardens are filled with blooming camellias.  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.

The nearby Tunica Hills region offers unmatched recreational activities in its unspoiled wilderness areas—hiking, biking, birding, photography. 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 at225-635-4224; 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) or www.stfrancisvillefestivals.com.