Linwood Plantation, Newellton Louisiana

Date added: July 31, 2023 Categories: Louisiana House Plantations & Farms

The main home at Linwood Plantation was rebuilt after the Civil War, in about 1875. The main house burned to the ground in the late 1980s.

Tensas Parish is named for an Indian tribe found in the area by the French when Rene Robert Cavalier, the Sieur de La Salle, explored the Mississippi River in 1682. Located in the northeast portion of the state, the Tensas region was included within Concordia Parish when the latter was first created in 1805 and reorganized in 1807. However, the area was prone to flood and remained largely unsettled for many years. By the 1840s the Tensas region's population had finally grown large enough to justify the creation of a separate political subdivision, and on March 17, 1843, the northern reaches of Concordia officially became Tensas Parish. The village of St. Joseph was designated as parish seat.

Because the Mississippi's repeated overflows kept the soil's fertility high, the parish developed a successful plantation economy. On the eve of the Civil War, its population was 91% slaves and there were 118 large slaveholdings (i.e., fifty or more slaves). Of these 118, the average size of a slaveholding was 100. The absentee ownership rate was 34%. Hence of the 118 large slaveholdings in the parish, 78 of them involved individuals who resided on the property. Given the above, it is clear that there must have been numerous Greek Revival houses in Tensas Parish on the eve of the Civil War. Twenty of these plantations were located along the shores of the oxbow Lake St. Joseph. These planters were so prosperous that one Union soldier who crossed the region during the 1863 Vicksburg campaign described it as "...the nicest and richest country that I have been in." Linwood was the southernmost plantation on Lake St. Joseph's eastern shore. However, all but one of the Lake St. Joseph houses (Winter Quarters House) were destroyed by the invading forces.

Plantation Manager's House Description

The Linwood Plantation Manager's House (c. 1875) is a one story frame late vernacular interpretation of the Greek Revival style. The house stands facing Lake St. Joseph in a rural agricultural area near the Tensas Parish community of Newellton.

The house consists of a post-Civil War main block and a rear connecting ell whose pegged framing indicates it to be much older than the structure to which it is connected. Although the ell's floorplan has been altered, that of the main block remains intact. It consists of five rooms within two ranges. The front range contains a central hall with one room on each side. The shallow rear range contains three rooms, and its middle room is wider than the center hall behind which it is located. Galleries are attached to the front and side of the main block, as well as to the side and rear of the ell.

The home's notable Greek Revival feature is its use of simple pediment-shaped lintels. These are found above most of the windows on the main block and ell, indicating that the latter's exterior was remodeled when the main block was constructed. Pedimented lintels are also found above all of the interior doors within the main block and above two exterior doors. The lintel above the main entrance is larger than the rest, for it surmounts a single-leaf door accompanied by a transom and sidelights. While the door and sidelights themselves have been replaced, the original transom survives. Though not specifically a Greek Revival feature, the molded vertical and horizontal wooden members surrounding the transom and sidelights add a mark of distinction to the entrance. Simple entablatures surmount the pillars along the galleries.