William Barrow, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
File prepared by Jan McCoy and submitted by Donald W. Johnson

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From Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees by Herman
de Bachelle' Seebold, M.D. Vol. 1.


                                THE BARROW DYNASTY

    WILLIAM BARROW, of distinguished English ancestry, married on July 8th

1760, a daughter of Robert Ruffin and Anne Bennett.  He became a wealthy

planter and was high sheriff of Edgecomb County, North Carolina.  He was the

father of eight chidren and died at his Tarborough homestead on January 27,

1787.

    In 1798 his widow, Mrs. Olivia Ruffin Barrow, in consultation with her

three sons, Bartholomew, John and William, when many of thier friends were

migrating to Louisiana, decided that they too, would go South.  Getting

their business affairs in order, and disposing of all their immovable

property, converting. First in covered wagons and then on barges they with

their chests of gold and silver, furniture and belongings, slaves, came down

the Mississippi River through Tennessee to Nuevo Feliciana, then under the

domination of the Spanish. On this lengthy, hazardous trip with Mrs. Barrow

came three daughters and three sons.  Two of her sons who remained in North

Carolina later came to Louisiana.  Here they took up extensive Spanish

grants of land and shortly began to erect splendid plantation mansions.

Purchasing other land, their tract soon amounted to seven thosand acres.

Many of the splendid plantation homes built by this family still remain.

    The first family home was built and named Locust Ridge which is still

standing and renamed later Highland Plantation.  It ia a large house, simple

of line but magnificently constructed of choice cypress lumber.  The floors

throughout the house are very heavy, in the main rooms being two inches in

thickness, and sre still in a splendid state of preservation.  The rooms of

the house are quite large, several of them being 22x24 feet.  All of the

materials were made on the plantation except the windows and window frames,

which were shipped from the North.

     Olivia Ruffin Barrow, died April 2nd, 1803, five years after she had

settled in West Feliciana, and is buried at what is now Highland Plantation,

in the ancient cemetery which lies north of the manor house.  Here she rests

with a number of her descendants.

     The children of William Barrow and Olivia Ruffin Barrow,were: (a)

William Barrow, born November 29, 1761, Died Novemberr 27,1762; (b) Robert

Barrow, born Feb. 18th, 1763, died Nov. 9th, 1813-he married Mary Haynes, no

children; (c) William Barrow, born Feb. 26th, 1765, died Nov.9th, 1823.  The

second William married Pheraby Hillard, in North Carolina, June 26th, 1792.

Pheraby Hillard was born Feb. 10th, 1775, and died Oct. 10th, 1827.

     William Ruffin Barrow, born December 21, 1800, died at Highland

Plantation (formely Locust Grove).  He married a cousin, Olivia Ruffin

Barrow, who was born April, 1806, died June 1. 1857-who was a daughter of

Bennett Barrow and Martha Hill.  Willam Ruffin Barrow became the father

of six children by this marriage.

     Other plantations belonging to the Barrow family are Ambrosia and

Independence owned by Mrs.(widow) Nicolo Hall Barrow, who also owned

the Live Oak plantation home recorded as one of the olest in that section.