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- History of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/3724/claiborne_parish.html
Spring Lake Plantation
By Irene Shields Moreland
The roads were winding, narrow, hot and dusty in summer, and muddy and cold in winter. They went by everyone's house, and each landowner worked the portion that belonged to him. The traveler could pinpoint the financial status of a planter by the way he kept his portion of the road. Often it ran across a creek and sometimes it ran down a creek-bed for quite a distance. In wet weather, the traveler was often stranded, having to wait for the water to go down before going in either direction. Visitors to the country plantations were few and far between, and even passing strangers were usually welcome. When relatives came, they brought all the children, usually ten or twelve and a week or two was the average stay. All in all, the roads were the only means of communication, and human nature was eager to hear what was going on outside the plantation.
Such was the case as late as 1915 at Spring take Plantation. When Claiborne Parish was opened to settlers, with land grants and cheap acreage, the great covered-wagon trains from Georgia and Alabama, coming from north in Arkansas, began to stop, and some of the people who were on their way to Texas, because of a severe seven years drought and epidemics of sickness, stopped to recuperate and settled here for good. It was one such rest-stop that began Spring Lake Plantation.
Between 1850 and 1852, Mr. Ambrose Augustus Phillips, formerly of Georgia and then of Alabama, brought his family to Claiborne Parish. This family group at that time included Phillips, who was 48 when he came to Louisiana, his wife Elizabeth Frances Grimmett Phillips, 45, their children, William, 18, Mary Amanda, 16, Susan, 15, Emily, 11, Hope, 9, Seaborn, 7, and Henry Addison 6 months. Along with the group was Mr. Phillips' twin brother, Henry R. Phillips, and three brothers of Mrs. Phillips, Thomas Grimmett, age 13, William Grimmett, age 11, and Henry Grimmett, age 9.
All these, along with 100 slaves and the livestock Mr. Phillips brought from Alabama, settled at Spring Lake, and by 1852 they were well on the way to building the big house and clearing the plantation. The house, planned by a Mr. Golden, consisted of eight large rooms and a central hall downstairs, repeated on the second floor, with a small balcony above the front door on the second floor. The third floor was never finished, but was sealed and floored and was livable. Quite often the boys in the family slept there. On the top was a widow's walk which commanded a view of the fields surrounding the house. The kitchen was at first separated from the main house, as was common in houses of that time to lessen the fire hazard but by 1888 it had been joined to the rest. There were porches on the front and back, and long windows with shutters. The house was of lumber cut and finished on the place; and the hand-fluted columns across the front were two stories high. The house was never completely finished, for the builder joined the Confederate Army and never came back.
The house was surrounded by large oak trees and faced the main road, which ran at the edge of the front yard. The present Spring Lake was not formed until the railroad was built and the road-bed formed a dam. The first lake was nearer the house and was not as large as the present lake, nor so deep.
1852 until the war in 1865, Mr. Phillips worked the plantation with his slaves. When the war was over, he found himself, as did so many others, financially and physically unable to run the place. In 1866 he was making plans to sell when his wife died on July 12. He placed her in a metal coffin, preserved the body in alcohol, and made plans to carry it back to Alabama; after some months, however, he sold the plantation to the Kerr family, buried his wife on the home grounds, and moved his family to New Orleans, then to New Iberia. He died in 1869 and is buried in New Iberia.
Mr. Phillips had employed a tutor for his family, but in 1867 the Kerr family established the first public school in the community and called it the Kerr School. Parents of the children contributed to the salary and took turns boarding the teacher. The children and teacher walked to school, and all grades were taught, from the first on up.
Mr. J. B. McFarland bought the plantation from the Kerr family in 1888, the year the railroad first made regular runs. At this time the Phillips and Kerr family cemetery was moved to the Old Homer Cemetery.
The McFarlands lived at Spring Lake from 1888 to 1912, and during these years, with the coming of the railroad, Spring Lake Camp Meeting was born. The train from both North and South made special trips in the late afternoon to bring crowds. There were also many families who came and camped the two or three weeks of the meeting, usually in August after the crops were laid by. The family cottages were lattice, usually with dirt and sawdust floors, and the whole family, young and old, came to the meeting. Provisions were brought, and the family cow and sometimes the calf came along, tied to the back of the wagon. Camp Meeting was a time of spirit renewal. The tabernacle had a mourner's bench, and testifying, shouting, and much rejoicing took place. It was also a time to relax and visit with neighbors and friends one seldom saw at any other time.
There were at least two services a day and often they lasted two or three hours. The floor was covered with sawdust, and the babies and small children slept on the outside edge on quilts. This was handy in case they cried or needed to be carried out. The lake was used for baptizing and bathing water, but the drinking water was brought out from town and sold by the glass or gallon. Camp meeting was a time when men and women experienced salvation, but it was also a time when many romances started, and occasionally a wedding took place.
In 1912, Mr. McFarland having died, the plantation was sold to the J. W. Allison famfly. Mr. and Mrs. Allison, their son Alec, Alec's son, a widowed daughter and her son and daughter, Rebecca, who later became an envoy to Italy, were in residence.
The Allisons sold stock in the plantation to the Great Northern Land Company and developed the place into more or less an experimental station. Many experimental plants and animals were tested. This included blooded horses, holstein and jersey cows, Mexican pigs, chickens, geese, turkeys, rabbits, peacocks, pigeons, canaries, bermuda grass, all kinds of feed grains and vegetables. Mr. Atkins Bailey and Mr. M. P. Wyatt were the overseers. A Mr. Young was the dairy expert; Mr. Flanigan was in charge of the beef stock, and a Mr. Bolsy was the horticulturist. These last three were brought over from Germany and could hardly speak English.
The house was redecorated and running water was piped from the spring. A brick house was built over the spring and is the only building left on the place today. A large dairy was built, as well as many barns, tenant houses, and houses for the overseers. A large orchard was planted, and the pecan trees from this orchard remain. This was a time of great hospitality, when the young people from homer were invited out for parties and week-end visits.
Mr. Allison had business interests in Dallas, and while there in 1918, he was electrocuted. On December 6, 1918, the wife and heirs sold the plantation to Mr. J. R. Kennedy . The Kennedy family lived at Spring Lake until some time in the 1920's. The Camp Meeting tabernacle was floored and used for a dance pavillion. Several dry years made for financial loss, and much of the beautiful furniture was sold. About 1924 the house burned to the ground, and the Kennedy family moved into the dairy house until they sold the place to a Mr. Thrash and moved to California. Since then the Spring Lake Plantation has had a number of owners. At present it is owned by the Yandell Wideman estate and is a tree farm. All through the years there has been a legend of buried treasure on the home grounds, and quite often in the morning a large hole will be found which was not there the night before. I never heard of anything any one found, but once saw a hole large enough to put a car in. Of course the house was supposedly haunted from the time Mrs. Phillips was kept there before burial, and many shivery tales are told about those events.
Spring Lake was used by the L&NW Railroad for water for the engines, and they still own the lake itself. Where the big house stood, only pine trees, thick and shady, still stand, and only the tile spring-house remains of all the buildings that were on the place.
We think of those as the "good old days." Just for the moment, we should remember the Phillips family-husband, wife, brothers, children- and the problems they faced in getting to Claiborne and setting up here. Food, clothing, housing, medicine, and hundreds of other things were lacking when they came. How they brought homes and fields out of the forest and made this a good life is staggering. They have passed on, but we all owe them a debt of gratitude for their part in making Claiborne Parish the pleasant place it is today.
{Also see "Page 19-Spring Lake Plantation House" in the corresponding photo album located in the Claiborne Parish LA GenWeb Archives.}
In June, 1850, the new jury organized, with James B. McFarland, of Ward 5, president; Thomas Henderson, of No. 1, Reuben Warren, of No. 2, Joslin Jones, of No. 3, Robert C. Adams, of No. 4, Tatum M. Wafer, of No. 6 and Silas Gamon, of No. 7 being the members. The president was empowered to make a deed of one acre to each incorporated religious society at Homer.
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1816 - 1899 (82 years)
