Historic Places: St. Maurice Plantation, Winn Parish Source:Rural Louisiana September 1972 Submitted to USGENWEB by Gaytha Thompson 540 May Drive Madison, Tn 37115 LaFamTree@aol.com ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Note: The St. Maurice Plantation is in Winn Parish, but I am listing this in the Grant Parish Archive because of it's close location to the Grant Parish line. The old plantation home burned in 1980 but was located just a few miles north of the Grant Parish line on Hwy 71 N. St. Maurice Plantation Is Restored in Winn Parish by Rick Shinabery Age and the burden of a long and trying history had begun to weigh heavily on St. Maurice Plantation in Winn Parish when three local professional men purchased the 146 year old plantation and undertook its authentic restoration. These men were Robert Smith, A Winnfield architect, Charles Bice, an attorney in Winnfield and Jerry Willes, a Baton Rouge accountant. Asked why he had taken part in the project, Smith at first joked that most architects are "kind of nuts," then added seriously that the old St. Maurice mansion on Highway 477, east of Natchitoches, represents a type of architecture native only to Louisiana and he and his partners feel it should be saved. No less fascinating is the story of the home's restoration at the hands of 22 year old LSU senior architecture student Danny Erskins, and Ricky Bates, 20, a sophomore industrial arts education student at NSU in Natchitoches. These Winnfield youngsters literally tore down and completely rebuilt the entire home, relaying over 21,000 bricks in the process and devoting more than 300 hours of painstaking work with pocket knives, whittling wooden pegs, latches, locks and other items for the mansion. If the home's newly acquired majestic appearance isn't enough to inspire interest, its long and difficult history certainly is. According to historic accounts collected by Dennis Pinder of the NSU History Dept., St. Maruice was a long grant in Spanish occupied Louisiana, the first owner begin Ignatio Sequin many years before the Battle of New Orleans. The newly restored house dates to 1826 on its present site over looking the fertile Red River bottomland. In 1846 one of its most brilliant periods began when William Prothro purchased the plantation and renamed it St. Maruice. The Prothro family history at St. Maruice is one marked by contrasting periods of elegance and tragedy. The Prothro era began in the 1840's when the family moved its home to Louisiana from South Carolina. William Prothro was born in 1801, married his first cousin, Emily Ann, at the age of 25 and she gave him five children. Until his death in 1853 he operated St. Maruice together with a trading post, a ferry and a riverboat landing on the Red River and his holdings were valued at $87,000 at his death. Records of the Prothro period are vague. Most of them result from a small pocket notebook kept by William Prothro's son, Sanders Cecil. The period came to a violent and back end as a yellow fever epidemic in 1853 gripped most of the state and four of the seven members of the Prothro family perished in its wake. Their names on headstones in front of the mansion led to its widely known title "The Prothro Mansion." The two remaining children ordered the house locked up as they moved away and later sold it, ridding themselves of any association with the dreaded disease. Pinder's research shows that shortly thereafter a most interesting figure came into possession of the home, the famous Dr. David H. Boullt Sr., who enjoyed very little popularity in the area. The good doctor (there's some uncertainty as to this title) purchased a part of the plantation, including the mansion in 1856 and held it until 1868 when events forced him to take a hasty departure to New Orleans, via Galveston. Boullt had been implicated in some of the cut throat activities of the infamous West Kimball Clan, a band of robbers and murderers, but it was his suspected part in the burning of the Winnfield Courthouse in 1868 that finally forced his flight. Boullt's dishonesty as the tax collector and his connection with the West Kimball Clan, according to period news accounts, resulted in his accumulation of a personal fortune of more than $200,000 in five years while holding a public office paying $5,000 per year. It was during Boullt's period of ownership that the mansion had its closest shave with fate. Chance alone saved the old home. On April 14, 1864, six Union gunboats on the Red River were attacked by Confederate forces and after a bloody battle visible from the front steps of the mansion, the defeated Union forces retreated south on the west side of the river, destroying most of the plantations in their path. St. Maurice had the good fortune to be on the opposite shore and escaped. The only Negro owner of the mansion was Luther Small who bought it in 1957 and lived in it with his family until 1970. In that time he estimated over 4,000 visitors from all over the United States toured the old house. In 1970 the history of the home came full circle when the three Winnfield men bought it and started its restoration. Now residing in it is Mrs. Chiquita Squires, the artist in residence, who is busy restoring some of its old furniture. She is a famed painter and a nationally known artist. The home is now open to the public. So one chapter in the history of St. Maurice Plantation closes, but a new, and perhaps a far more rewarding, one is about to begin.