USGENWEB PROJECT ARCHIVES: TENSAS PARISH LOUISIANA http://files.usgwarchives.org/la/tensas/ --------------------------------------------------------- Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.org/copyright.htm --------------------------------------------------------- James Howard Netterville, Wilkinson Co., MS., then Tensas Parish, Louisiana Submitted by Mike Miller AUG 2001 James Howard Netterville. Training and experience are most helpful factors in successful business undertakings of any kind, and in such complex enterprises as plantation management but limited satisfaction can be guaranteed without such care and practical preparation. In Tensas Parish may he found at the present time some of the finest and most profitable plantations in this section of Louisiana, but they are managed with the intelligence and sound judgment as to method that long experience has brought to the work. In this line perhaps few more capable men could be found here than James Howard Netterville, general manager of Salmoral, Blackwater and Wyoming plantations, all properties owned by the Panola Company, Ltd. James Howard Netterville was born near Woodville, in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, December 4, 1879, son of Charles Howard and Mattie (Morris) Netterville. Their one daughter and four of their five sons survive: Wade, who is in charge of the Panola Plantation at St. Joseph, Louisi- ana; James Howard, who for the past five years has held his present responsible position of general manager of the three above named Panola properties; Iler, who is a cotton planter in the delta district, at Drew, Mississippi; and Hansford, who is manager of Blackwater Planta- tion. The mother of Mr. Netterville survives and resides in Natchez, Mississippi. His brother, W. B., who died at the age or forty-three years, was a cotton planter at Kingston, Mississippi. During the larger part of his life he was a cotton planter near Kingston, Adams County, Mississippi, a man of substantial fortune and held in esteem in his neighborhood. His death occurred in 1906. James Howard Netterville enjoyed public school advantages and then, being of a business turn of mind, accepted a position as clerk in the plantation store of C. B. Muir in Tensas Parish, Louisiana, where he remained for three years, going then to a similar position for William O'Kelley at Summerset, where he continued for three more years. All this was excellent training for his subsequent work as plantation manager, informing him as to details, enabling him to make correct estimates, and acquainting him to some extent not only with modern methods of production but with facts that are of paramount importance in promoting any industry. Upon retiring from his initial service in plantation stores, Mr. Netterville became manager of Panola Company, Ltd., cotton plantations, for three years being on Wyoming Plantation, ten years on Blackwater Plantation, coming then to Balmoral and for five years has been general manager of all three properties. He depends on negro labor and has 125 colored families comfortably lodged on the three plantations, having little industrial trouble here because of his friendly understanding of the race and his firm but just attitude in the settlement of all disputes. Mr. Netterville married, in 1903, Miss Bessie Swayze, daughter of H. C. Swayze, of Adams County, Mississippi, and they have two daughters, Mattie and Elizabeth. His family belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church at Newellton, in which, although not a member, Mr. Netterville is a steward, in this as in every other direction endeavoring to exert a good influence. He has never united with any fraternal body, nor is he unduly active in politics, but he has a wide acquaintance and many friends, and his opinions on plantation management in this section of Louisiana are accepted as authoritative. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 373, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.