St. Maurice Plantation, St. Maurice Louisiana
Most of the antebellum plantation houses in the Natchitoches area strongly tended toward the conservative French colonial tradition. Greek Revival architecture made its appearance but only in terms of details (i.e. doorways,. mantels, and occasionally pillars). By contrast, St. Maurice is a crude but classical-style house featuring a pillared gallery and a 5-bay central hall plan with double rooms on each side. St. Maurice is probably the only extant Natchitoches area antebellum plantation house which features this type of planning. As a result, given its mantels, front door, and other details, together with its plan and gallery, St. Maurice can be seen as a high-water mark of Greek Revival plantation architecture in the area.
It is not known exactly when the house was built. Its architecture suggests the decade of the 1840s and the conveyance records on the property lend support to such a suggestion. In December 1840, Edmund Walford Briggs bought for $35,000 the land on which the house stands through a sheriff's sale. It was described as "a certain tract of land or plantation situated on the Rigolet de Bon Dieu. . . containing six hundred and forty acres. . together with all the buildings and improvements thereon." Also part of the sale were several items declared to be associated with the plantation, including several plows and hoes, ten mules, two horses, a wagon, and 60 bales of cotton. There were in addition a number of slaves included in the sale. At the time of the seizure almost all these items, as well as the land; belonged to Francis Nash Waddell, who had obtained the plantation from John Waddell in 1837. The inclusion of the additional items along with the tract suggests that F. N. Waddell had been carrying on an agricultural operation of moderate size on the plantation, and that there must have been a house associated with it.
Briggs did not keep the plantation long, selling it in early 1841 to William M. Lambeth. Lambeth held onto it for five years, selling it to William Prothro and John Waddell in 1846. At this time the plantation, consisting of more than 1500 acres with buildings and improvements and more than 60 slaves, brought a price of $63,862.50. In 1847, Waddell sold his interest to Prothro, designating the lands as "the St. Maurice Plantation." The present house was almost certainly there by this time or shortly thereafter, given the size of the agricultural operation indicated by the sale of 1846 and given its architecture.
William Prothro (1801-1853) came to Louisiana from South Carolina and in 1846 or 1847 settled at St. Maurice. Until his death in 1853, he operated the plantation along with a trading post, a ferry, and a riverboat landing on the Red River. According to the 1850 Census, his holdings were worth about $87,000, and he was master of more than a hundred slaves. But in 1853 tragedy struck the family as William Prothro, his wife, several of their children, and many of their slaves died in a yellow fever epidemic.
Dr. David H. Boullt was appointed administrator of the succession of William Prothro. Sometime in the mid-1850s, Joshua and James E. Prothro, cousins of William Prothro, purchased 720 acres of St. Maurice Plantation. The remainder, including the house, was bought by Boullt for $116,000, and he remained its owner until 1868.
Boullt arrived in Natchitoches Parish in the 1830s and soon became rather prominent, serving as parish coroner and as a member of the parish police jury. As of 1860, he seems to have been prospering. According to the census of that year, he owned 3000 acres of land, of which 1100 were improved, and 129 slaves. The value of his personal property was listed as $160,000, and that of his real property as $150,000. The year before, his lands had produced 8000 bushels of Indian corn and 400 bales of ginned cotton (400-pound bales).
Boullt served in the Confederate Army and was twice captured. St. Maurice also played a minor part in the war. In 1864, six Federal gunboats were stationed at St. Maurice while Union General Banks marched north toward Shreveport. On April 14th, 1864, Confederate soldiers under General Liddell attacked the gunboats and a brief battle followed which could be seen from the steps of the home at St. Maurice.
After the war, Boullt was apparently associated with the infamous West-Kinball Clan, a gang of cut-throats and robbers in the area. Boullt was alleged to have played an important role in the late 1860s in the murder of a paymaster/quartermaster in the U. S. Army and in the burning of the courthouse in Winnfield. During this period he also served as parish tax collector in the local Radical Republican government and as such made many enemies. In 1875 he left the area never to return, his departure apparently caused by threats on his life.
Since the Winn Parish Courthouse burned in 1868 and again in 1886, it is impossible to establish with certainty an account of the ownership of St. Maurice Plantation during the period. According to some sources D. R. Carroll bought it in 1868, and somewhat later sold it to Dr. Henry M. Prothro. In 1882 or 1883, the plantation was sold to the New York Lumber Company, which hoped to make St. Maurice into a sawmill town on a railroad. There was a brief boom, but the ambitious enterprises of the company soon failed. In 1886 the home and fifteen acres of land were sold to E. W. Teddlie for about $500.
Teddlie ran a store and ferry at St. Maurice. The house continued to be occupied by the Teddlie Family until 1933. At that time it was sold to Judge Thomas Milling, the son of Mrs. E. W. Teddlie by her first marriage. Milling was a vice president of Standard Oil Company and a St. Mary Parish judge. They lived in the house for a time and sold it in 1946, after which it passed through the hands of several owners until it was sold to Luther Small in 1957. Small was a black man who said that his great-grandmother was a slave for the Prothro family on St. Maurice. In 1970, Small sold the house to new owners, who undertook its restoration.
Building Description
St. Maurice is set at the crest of a relatively steep hill in the midst of a pine forest near the Red River about six miles from Natchitoches. The hill slopes sharply away from the front yard. The backyard is level and flat with small groups of frame buildings which though they are modern, are designed to be in keeping with the house.
The house itself consists of one main floor which is raised one full story above the ground. The main floor has a central hall plan with two rooms on each side and a front and rear gallery. The four main rooms have fireplaces which are serviced by a set of four exterior chimneys, two at each end of the house. Although exterior chimneys are most untypical in the Natchitoches area, and some of the chimneys have been rebuilt or extensively repaired, the present chimney arrangement appears to be original. This is because, given the framing, there is no other place the chimneys could possibly have been during a previous period. Also, the present chimneys exhibit brickwork which is obviously old.
Shortly after the house was built the rear portion of the ground level was enclosed. In the late 19th century the front portion was enclosed with wood framing, and a new, more steeply pitched roof was built. The resulting enlarged attic was lit by a pair of large dormers. Although these dormers are an ungainly addition to the building, they are slated to be removed in an upcoming restoration. The old staircase which provides access from the central hall to the attic was taken from an old house and installed at St. Maurice in the 1930's. In 1970 the framed enclosure at the ground level front portion was replaced with a brick enclosure.
The house is supported on piers made of soft brick with coarse sand and lime mortar. The piers on the front have been stuccoed over. Summer beams, sills, and joists are hewn with circular sawn lumber in the late 19th-century attic.
The 5-bay front gallery has square pillars formed of nailed boards with molded capitals. The capitals have principal members that represent crude versions of the Doric astragal and echinus. The rear gallery columns are much simpler. The simple molding in the front gallery capitals is repeated around all exterior doors and windows of the main floor. It is also repeated in the pilasters which flank the four fireplaces. Each fireplace is surmounted by a crude entablature and molded shelf. The interior transom doors have finer ogee moldings and probably date from the late 19th century as do the four-panel doors. Windows are 6 over 9 with fixed louver shutters and the front door has a transom and sidelights. The present shingled roof was installed in the 1930s. The house is sheathed in narrow gauge clapboards with flush board under the galleries.
Entrance front
