Historic Places: Hargis Home, Grant Parish, Louisiana Source: Colfax Chronicle Jan 5, 1984 Submitted to USGENWEB by Kay Thompson Brown 250 Dupont Ave Madison Tn 37115 Diggersinc@aol.com ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ORIGINAL OWNER OF HARGIS HOME, BUILT IN 1856 WAS MURDERED By P.A. "Pap" Dean Nobody seems to know what happened to the family of one Mathis, the gentleman who was reported to have large holdings on the road from Montgomery to Verda and on to Winnfield; and what happened after Mr. Mathis was murdered in his downstairs bedroom by a slave who later confessed and was hung from an oak tree still standing on the Winn Parish Courthouse square. Mathis' brother - in - law conspired, and left the country. The Colfax Chronicle of Feb 2, 1951 tells it in a story by J.W. Quinalty about what happened back in 1840 and later. More of Mathis and those of his day could be told had the Winn courthouse not been destroyed by fire twice in the 1800's. This did not mean everything was lost, as Lucy Mae Hargis (Mrs. Quincy Allen Hargis, Jr.) Has a file on the Hargis family. It was Mathis who built the house shown here, in 1856, and Dr. Quincy Anson Hargis who bought it, supposedly shortly after the murder of the builder. Quincy A. Jr. is a great - grandson. Other great -grandchildren include Dr. Vernon Gifford Hargis, Mary Nell Hargis Moresi, and Richard Cade Hargis. There have been several owners like the J. N. Fletcher Sr's J.N. Jr says it was sold to the Reeves and was known then as the "Old Reeves Place". Mabel Fletcher Harrison and others of the seven were born there. It had been owned also by a Deen family, later by Troy Jackson., who purchased from Ebbin Reeves in 1958. His former wife sold to the Ray Fletchers in 1977 and they are carrying on some additions. Troy tells, as does Lucy Hargis, about the blood stains of the 1800's murder still showing in the back room, especially when the floor is dampened. The old Mathis grave is on the place, now part of the Teddlie property and Troy remembers plowing around it. No dates show up on the slab. Jackson also tells of a Fletcher boy falling off the old house while climbing on a lightening rod. Generally, the place is known as the Old Hargis one. The doctor owned it and much land he acquired through patents, purchasing one piece with Benjamin F. Teddlie for 50 cents per acre using "Choctaw Script", a form of money acceptable to the federal government. It was Winn Parish until 1869 when Grant was carved from portions of Winn and Rapides. Dr. Hargis had come from a family of Scotland, transplanted to the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. in 1746. The Douglas family came, too, and soon afterwards a Hargis boy married with a Douglas girl. A generation or later two brothers journeyed to Mississippi. One was Quincy Anson Hargis, a Baptist minister and a later candidate for Governor. This caused a disappointment when Hargis lost the race in a close on; he said it was due to a lie concerning him. At any rate, he went to Arkansas while son Quincy Anson Hargis (born 1825) went to Nashville Medical School, then to Tulane University, and settled in Winnfield. Here he was practicing in 1852 while acquiring land. Hargis community was named after him as he settled into the old Mathis house. His wife was Clementine Havard of Amite County, Mississippi. Quincy was also a State Representative from Winn. When he died in 1899 at age 74 he was still well - proportioned man whose wavy hair was still black, says descendant Joe T Wilson Ball whose mother lived in Pollock where both Quincy and Clementine are buried. Fourteen children had been reared, one of whom was Richard Cade Walpole Hargis who first lived in Texas, then moved across from Colfax on Cane River. His son was Quincy Allen Hargis Sr., the father of Quincy Jr. whose wife Lucy Mae Nugent Hargis keeps the family records. Asa's son is retired assessor of Natchitoches. The house needs a "double" showing, one as it chiefly was from 1856 to 1977. The other shows the place as the Ray Fletchers have it now, except that the steps are to come as Ray does his welding work. They've added 22 feet to the right side, removed the left chimney and redone the right one. The door in the center opened into steep stairs, these removed to the right living room and the space utilized by the left bedroom. The old door left of the center one was made into a window, and a window was added to the new part, with one door where there were three. There are four bedrooms, two down, two upstairs. The new is a carport, utility and workroom. It's for comfort but leaving most of the original, this place where a murder took place, and much living took place, too, including that of a Fletcher boy who fell off the roof while "messing around" on a lightening rod.