Echoes From The Attic and Poems, Carter Home, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Don Johnson, Feb. 2001
Typed by Belford Carver
Written by by Edna F. Campbell
Copyrighted by Edna F. Campbell
With special thanks to her family for permission to use her works.

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CARTER HOME IN SPRINGFIELD

Carter Plantation has been a working plantation for 155 years.  The present 
residents, Mr. and Mrs. John Robert Burgess, represent the seventh generation of 
the same family to occupy the house.  The house is owned by Mrs. Burgess and her 
brother, Wiley H. Sharp, Jr., of Hammond.

Intricately-carved sofas and chairs formed conversational seating in the living 
room where an ancestral portrait graced the wall and Sevre clock set graced the 
mantel.  In the front bedroom a Baltimore quilt of 1799 era covered the bed and a 
handmade French cabinet was noted in the room, along with a portrait of John 
Burgess 1873-1937.

An original Burgess clock of the 1820s told the hour of the day in the hallway.  
An oriental rug covered the floor of the music room where an antique piano of 
solid ebony dominated the furnishings.  A table in the hall of late 1700s was 
said to be the oldest piece in the house.

Indigo blue was emphasized on the quilt blocks of the original bed in the room of 
Nancy Catherine Sharp.  Christening apparel was on the bed along with Burgess 
christening apparel.  A Burgess quilt of 1887 draped a chair in the room.  The 
morning after wedding dress worn by Nancy Sharp was displayed and emphasized her 
16 inch waistline.  The Louisiana wood canopied bed with blue covered tester was 
a four post type.

A rare plantation desk in the foyer held a worn register of 1874 from the school 
taught in the back yard.

The dining area wing built around 1888 was said to have originally been two rooms 
and the walls were covered in imported Oriental silk.  A mural of the house was 
placed on the wall.  The 13 leaf late Victorian table in walnut was illuminated 
overhead by Provincial chandelier designed of wood.  A stained glass window in 
the formal dining room featured the Carter family crest.

The old portion of the kitchen featured the building originally housing the 
private school in the back yard.  Features of interest included various crocks 
used for cooling liquids on the place and a wine cellar recently installed.

(From ECHOES FROM THE ATTIC, IX, 1976, by Edna Campbell)

(Pic of the house)