Butler Greenwood Plantation, St. Francisville Louisiana

Date added: August 10, 2023

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In 1770, a physician named Samuel Flower came to the Baton Rouge area from Reading, Pennsylvania, and within a decade established his practice and acquired several tracts of land near Bayou Sara in West Feliciana Parish. He built a house on the bayou and by 1790 he had settled his growing family on the plantation which he named "Greenwood." In 1810 a fire destroyed this house, and Flower built a larger house (the present one) on the same site.

Flower died in 1813, and three years later the title to Greenwood passed to his daughter Harriet (1793 - 1873), one of his five children who survived to maturity. It is not known precisely how it was decided that Harriet would receive the title to Greenwood, but receive it she did.

Sometime after 1809, Harriet Flower married Judge George Mathews (1774-1836), an important figure in the early judicial history of the state, and they made their home at Greenwood. Edwin Adams Davis listed Mathews among several "noted antebellum lawyers" and characterized him as "short, rotund, and placid, with … good humor and good taste." According to William K. Dart, "The most eminent judges prior to 1845 were George Mathews, Francois-Xavier Martin, Alexander Porter, and Henry A. Bullard." These men interpreted the Codes without American precedents; their influence upon the law of Louisiana is as great as the influence of Marshall and Story upon the interpretation of the Constitution." Mathews was one of the presiding judges of the Louisiana Supreme Court in its early phase, and Dart gives special praise to Mathews and Martin for their "creative work in developing the Codes to an American system."

Judge Mathews and his wife Harriet ushered in the most important phase of Greenwood's history. In 1830, George Mathews headed a household consisting of ten white people and 35 slaves. He died at Greenwood in 1836, but Harriet and her son Charles (1824 - 1864) continued to run the plantation and in addition, expanded the family holdings.

In the Census of 1860, both Harriet and her son Charles listed their occupation as "planter." Their household, in addition to themselves, included Charles' wife Penelope (1828 - 1897), three children, an Austrian music teacher, and an Irish gardener, The value of their real estate in West Feliciana Parish totaled $158,000; that of their personal estate was $260,000. At this time Greenwood had 96 slaves living in 18 slave dwellings. The plantation consisted of 1,400 acres worth about $24,000.

Greenwood had $3,500 worth of implements and machinery and $4,680 worth of livestock. In the year ending June 1^st, 1860, the plantation had produced 130 bales of cotton(400-lb. bales), 2000 bushels of corn, 175 hogsheads (1 hogshead= 1000 1bs.) of sugar, and 10,664 gallons of molasses.

The Mathews also owned plantations in the parishes of Lafourche and Rapides. In Rapides they held 6,100 acres of land, 154 slaves, $226,000 in real estate, and $9,000 in personal estate. In Lafourche Parish the Mathews' holdings were listed under "Estate of G. Mathews" and the figures, although incomplete on some items, list 3,100 acres of land, 238 slaves, 684 hogsheads of sugar, and 60,000 gallons of molasses.

Harriet's son Charles died in 1864, and the Civil War apparently took its toll on the Mathews' holdings. The Census of 1870 lists Harriet, now seventy-six years old, at the head of the household, which also included her daughter-in-law Penelope and the latter's five children. The value of their real estate was down to $5,000 and their personal estate to $2,500. In West Feliciana Parish they now owned only 1000 acres, of which 200 were improved and 400 woodland, The cash value of the farm was given as $5000, and the estimated value of farm produce for the previous year was $6200. The Mathews' owned $3210 worth of livestock at this time, and during the previous year, their farm had produced 76 bales of cotton (450-lb. bales), 600 bushels of corn, and 100 bushels of sweet potatoes. No figure was given for sugar production.

Harriet died in 1873 and Penelope took over management of the family holdings, which she continued to take a large part in until her death in 1877. The history of Greenwood Plantation from Judge Mathews' death in 1836 to Penelope's death in 1897 provides an excellent illustration of how in some cases southern women were the most important people in the management of plantations. During this period Harriet and Penelope Mathews kept meticulous records on the business of the plantations, many of which records have been deposited in the Department of Archives and Manuscripts, LSU Library, Baton Rouge. Since 1897 Greenwood has passed through the hands of several more generations and is owned today by the descendants of the Mathews family.

Despite the loss of the 3-story side wing, the early 19th-century portion of the plantation house still stands. Except for the interior kitchen, the existing house is essentially unchanged since the 1850s.

Site Description

Greenwood Plantation consists of approximately 44 acres and a plantation complex which includes the plantation house, a gazebo, a rear brick kitchen, and a couple of small wood frame buildings of comparatively late vintage.

The date of the latter buildings is not known. The complex is approached by means of a long gravel driveway which is lined on both sides with live oaks.

The Gazebo
The octagonal gazebo is a wood frame, lattice work pavilion, with ogee arch doors, and an octagonal ogee molded roof.

The Old Kitchen
This 3-room brick building contains a kitchen, a smokehouse and a dairy. A pair of brick arches form a corner porch, and beneath the porch is a well. An unusual feature of the building is its stepped gable parapets. There is also a modern wooden front gallery. Some of the windows are broken and the roof leaks, but the structure appears to be sound.

The Plantation House
The house began in the early 19^th century with a plan of six major rooms, all with fireplaces. There were also front and rear galleries. In the 1850s, a 3-story wing (demolished in 1977 due to deterioration) and side hall plan was added. Also at that time, the front gallery was replaced and the interior was refurbished.

The house is constructed with large hewn beams which have smaller joists running between which were cut on a straight-bladed saw.

At one time most of the windows were small pane, 9 over 9, sash type. The cornices were simple, and mantels were heavy and wooden in the Adams style. These features remain in the bedrooms and in the rear of the house. However, in the 1850's remodeling, the parlor, the sitting room, and the dining room received fashionable, marble mantels inspired by the Rococo Revival. They also received heavier cornices, and floor-length 9 over 9 windows with large panes. The old faux bois French doors were moved to other locations in the house. The parlor received a large acanthus leaf ceiling medallion. The stairway in the dining room is of simple design and dated from the earlier period.

The exterior was also remodeled, with a Victorian roof gable which had a central round arch window flanked by rectangular windows. This device was possibly inspired by the Renaissance Revival. The two smaller frontal dormers received new windows as did a rear dormer. A new gallery was built which had square posts with molded capitals and jig saw ornamentation under the railing.

The Gardens
The main house at Greenwood is flanked on the north and on the south sides by formal gardens. Major portions of both gardens are sunken, presumably in response to the natural elevation drops on either side of the house. The gardens are reached by stuccoed brick stairways. Both gardens appear to have had a small summer house as a focal element. The north summer house (the gazebo discussed above) survives on its brick foundations; only the foundation remains on the south.

The basic form of the north garden is a geometric parterre, reminiscent of the style developed in French gardens of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, The parterre is outlined in boxwood and the beds within the parterre are accented with plantings of dwarf azalea varieties (Azalea obtusum), camellias (Camellia japonica), sasanquas (Camellia sasanqua), and baby's breath spirea (Spirea thnubergii). Very large specimens of sweet olive (Osmanthus frangrans) and banana shrub (Michelia fuscata), as well as a mature ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba) surround the summer house. Drifts of bulbs are planted on the periphery of the formal areas. Ardisia (Ardisia orispa) and English ivy (Hedera helix) are predominant ground covers. A notable area in the north garden is the bronze sundial which is surrounded by a ring of ceramic ale bottles partially buried in the ground.

The garden on the south side has not survived as well as the north garden because of extensive erosion and slumping of the soil, and the form of the garden is difficult to identify.

In contrast to the formal geometric pattern of these sunken side gardens, the entrance and "front yard" of Greenwood are planted in a naturalized, free-flowing manner, derived from the design of eighteenth-century English gardens. The roadbed of the original entrance drive can be determined, and is lined with live oaks (Quercus virginia) and indica azaleas (Azalea indica). The entrance drive has been relocated and shortened and now winds through an irregular grid of live oaks. Several large metal urns are located in the area in front of the house.