Rippavilla Plantation
Discover the best travel recommendations by states in the south, regions out of the south, and coastal areas. Plan your next road trip or weekend getaway.
the-dreamyidealist: Springfield Plantation House - Rock Hill, South Carolina
History and hauntings go hand-in-hand with these noteworthy Virginia plantations. Visit at your own risk!
Nestled along the Tyger River near Union, Rose Hill Plantation served as the South Carolina Governor’s mansion during William Henry Gist‘s time in office from 1858 through 1860. However, it had served as the Gist family home for decades prior to William Gists’ service in public office. Either Gist or his father, Francis Fincher Gist,...Read More
Island Pond is perhaps the finest turnkey sporting property available within the Albany area plantation belt. Consisting of 1800+/- acres, Island Pond provides the full range of hunting opportunities alongside new accommodations and improvements. Intensive timber and habitat management provide optimal quail cover, while at the same time fostering bountiful deer and turkey populations. Two fully established […]
Story and Photos by Elodie Pritchartt “My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.” ~ Pat Conroy Andre de La Barre and I sat in his car at the fork in the road and tried to decide what to do. “She didn’t say anything about a fork,” said Andre. We looked at each other and laughed. “Can you call?” Andre looked at his cell phone. No signal. “Aw, heck,” I said. “Go right.” We were in Lorman, Mississippi, thirty miles north of Natchez on a gravel road looking for a house a friend had told us was for sale: 1854 Greek-revival, raised cottage-style mansion on 3.3 acres for around $20,000. Needs a lot of work. I had posted it on my Facebook page and was surprised at how quickly Andre sent me a message. “We’ve got to go see this place! Can you go this weekend?” Then he sent me a link to a book on Amazon called Mississippi in Africa by Mississippi author Alan Huffman. Huffman’s book tells a tale spanning two continents and two centuries, and had all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy—wealth, greed, war, family, murder, redemption, sorrow and hope—the story of Prospect Hill Plantation. And what a story it is. Prospect Hill was built by Isaac Ross, a Revolutionary War veteran who moved to Mississippi in 1808. Extremely wealthy, Ross had over two hundred slaves with whom he operated a successful cotton plantation. He was known for seeing to the comfort, wellbeing and education of his slaves. Ross knew slavery wouldn’t last, and had heard about the American Colonization Society, which hoped to repatriate freed slaves to the African country of Liberia. When he died in 1836, his will stipulated that upon the death of his daughter, Margaret Reed, the plantation should be sold and the proceeds used to pay passage for those of his slaves who wanted to go to Liberia. But Ross’s grandson, Isaac Ross Wade, contested the will and although Margaret Reed would die only two years later, the case was held up in the court system for a decade with suits and countersuits, the slaves’ side being aided by the Colonization Society. In 1845, a handful of slaves decided they couldn’t wait any longer. The cook drugged the coffee, and after everyone had gone to bed, the house was set afire. Everyone but a six-year-old little girl was rescued. After the uprising a vigilante committee hanged eleven slaves in the big white oak tree behind the ruins of the house. Even so the will was eventually upheld and the slaves who chose to go to Africa were allowed to do so, establishing a colony called Mississippi in Africa. These educated blacks were prosperous. They operated plantations on which they built large homes reminiscent of the antebellum homes of their former masters, and battled with the native tribes, a cultural conflict that continues even now. After learning about the story, I remembered finding an old family tree tucked away in a forgotten drawer at home and discovered that I was, in fact, a descendant of the Wades of Mississippi. I also found an old family album from the 1800s with several pages devoted to Wades. Unfortunately nearly every Wade-identified page had been stripped of its photo, only one intact, and not a direct descendant. So our journey was a bit more than idle curiosity—I was exploring a heretofore unknown chapter in my family heritage while Andre hoped to find a way to help save the house—built after the fire that destroyed the first one, completed in 1854. "The present dwelling at Prospect Hill was built by the current owner, Judge Isaac Ross Wade, who received the plantation as a fee for nine years service as the only qualified executor of the estate of his grandfather, Captain Isaac Ross of the American Revolution. The house was started in June 1853. That is, the brick were burned in kilns near the site of the house, in what was part of the orchard for the plantation. The water for mixing the clay for the brick was brought from nearby Turkabee Spring named for an old Choctaw Indian Chief. Two Negro slave boys, Nick and Zack, brought the water in pails carried on their heads. They were sometimes aided by other boys and girls when the plantation work was not pressing. The contractor was named Mattingly and the chief mechanic was Ephriam Boyce. The house was a splendid piece of work when it was finished, April 30, 1854. In those eleven months, the beautiful home was finished complete with two fine outbuildings on brick foundations; one had two rooms and a wide front gallery and was used for a kitchen and storeroom. The other had two rooms for yard servants, a wide front gallery, and under the end room, a brick room used for ironing or a laundry room. These in later years were used for a loom or weaving room. There were two fine arched cisterns, one for the house or family use was twenty six feet deep and fourteen feet in diameter. The other, not so large, was used for the kitchen and laundry and servants about the yard. Both were bricked and heavily cemented throughout. Yard and garden fences had been made and painted or white washed, the entire premises were ready to be occupied and the keys handed to Judge Wade. The Judge moved his family in on the second day of May, 1854." ~ Jennie Allison Wade Killingsworth, daughter of Isaac Ross Wade. Jennie was born May 2, 1854, the day her family moved into Prospect Hill. My advice to take the right fork was wrong, but after about twenty minutes and a few missteps, we finally found the entrance, manned by Jessica Crawford, a tiny slip of a girl who had promised to meet us. We followed her SUV as she led us through the backwoods of Lorman, over old logging roads and under modern power lines into an opening in the trees. Jessica had driven nearly four hours to meet us from her home in Marks, Mississippi, where she serves as southeast regional director at the New Mexico-based Archeological Conservancy. She helps acquire archeological sites for the Conservancy, usually Indian mounds or villages, Civil War sites, some Colonial forts. “Normally we try to avoid any kind of structures,” she said. “We’re set up to manage what’s under the ground. On top of the ground is what my boss calls ‘the money pit.’” The Conservancy hopes to stabilize the structure until they can find someone to buy and restore it while retaining an archeological easement so they can continue to study those artifacts still below ground. The sight of the ancient, crumbling mansion with its bare wooden façade and tall chimneys rising above the tree line was beautiful and sad and amazing. “Be careful where you step,” cautioned Jessica. “I’ve gotten the yard cleared for the first time in years, but there are stumps, so watch where you walk.” She’d done much of the work herself, coming frequently and often alone to this remote spot to rescue it from the encroaching jungle. It was clear she loved it and wanted to save it. An ancient brick staircase covered in lichen, rose gracefully from what had once been the main entrance to the plantation, framed by large cedar trees. Old-growth garden plants punctuated the grounds—camellia, crape myrtle, wisteria, dogwood, all dripping Spanish moss. The front porch hung at a crazy angle, having lost many of its graceful, fluted columns. The stairway threatened to collapse altogether. An elegant doorway stood trimmed with dentil moulding, jib windows opened onto the porch, the façade still showing traces of the plaster and scoring over wood once used for grander houses. In the backyard the same white oak that had borne the bodies of eleven slaves had fallen in a storm and taken off the back of the house and part of the second floor. A fireplace hung high over our heads hugging the side of the house. A set of shelves on the remaining back wall still held bottles, all tilting toward oblivion. A peacock sat among the flotsam, quiet and proud. “That’s Isaac,” said Jessica. “He’s been here seven years. We named him after Isaac Ross.” “How long since anyone’s lived here?” asked Andre. “I’ve found mail in there from 2007, but I know the front porch roof had fallen down as early as 2000,” said Jessica. The previous owner loved the house fiercely, but a string of bad luck and tragedy had forced him to finally move. We explored the basement rooms crammed halfway to the ceiling with furniture, pianos, farm implements, and the junk of a thousand years: three pianos in the basement, alone, another upstairs, all in ruinous condition and far past help; a kitchen area with sink, refrigerator, stove, etc. Permeating the air was the smell of funk and decay, mildew and something else….possibly the droppings of raccoons and other wild animals that had taken up residence. Upstairs, we stepped carefully around rotten floorboards and decaying furnishings, books, mattresses and clothes, all left by the previous owner, and saw what a beautiful place it had once been. I was amazed that the mirror in the dining room had not been stolen. A lone bat kept Isaac company inside, hanging from the molding in a back room while Isaac roosted at night on the top of a bedroom door. We walked to the family cemetery behind the house. Like coming onto a secret garden among the trees, vines and thorns, the cemetery stood anchored by a massive columned monument—its beauty and size difficult to describe. According to Huffman’s book, the monument was commissioned in 1838 by the Mississippi Colonization Society for the astronomical price of $25,000 and bears the following inscription: “His last will is graced with as magnificent provisions as any over which philanthropy has ever rejoiced and by it will be erected on the shores of Africa a monument more glorious than marble and more enduring than time.” The remains of a wrought-iron fence enveloped the headstones and crypts, many damaged by a falling tree in another storm. Ignoring the real possibility of rattlesnakes, I crawled underneath the house where ancient farm equipment waited as though expecting to be used again. Jessica pointed out a beam overhead with handwriting on it in chalk. I could make out the word “Jefferson” and the date “1872.” “This is where the workers would come to practice their penmanship,” said Jessica. On our next visit in November to a fundraiser Jessica had organized to finance stabilization of the roof, I was stunned at how much work had been done. The basement had been cleared, the porch removed and temporary stairs erected to allow visitors ingress. That wasn’t all. “We have discovered foundations in the back of several buildings,” she said. “…what we think is probably a kitchen, a laundry and a smokehouse and also a brick structure that was possibly for the house slaves. We think we have the cotton gin down the hill by the creek.” I was excited. Alan Huffman was there, along with descendants of the Rosses, the Wades, and the slaves, some of whom were recent refugees from the conflict in Liberia. They had driven down from Washington, D.C. to attend this gathering. Alan had traveled to Liberia when writing his book, a risk I would have been too cowardly to take. I could only imagine what this meeting meant for him. We heard stories about the plantation from Jessica, Alan, local historian Ann Brown, and James Belton, a descendant of the slaves from McComb, Mississippi who told us stories that had been passed down to him through the generations. It was an amazing experience. We shared a meal together—all these many years later—descendants of master and slave. We told stories and asked questions and crossed the barriers of time and place and culture. It was a good day and I trust that good things will come of it, not the least of which are the future prospects of a house with a story in Jefferson County, Mississippi. The mirror, furnishings and trash have all been cleaned out in order to show the house. So far, the Conservancy had one individual who is seriously interested in purchasing the property. Those who want more information or wish to help with the stabilization efforts can send contributions to or contact The Archaeological Conservancy’s Southeast Regional Office, P.O. Box 270, Marks, MS 38643, [email protected] or visit their website at americanarchaeology.org. To read more on Prospect Hill, visit Alan Huffman's blog where he has several posts pertaining to the history and the house. This is not my photograph. I don't know who took it, but if the photographer should happen upon it and objects to my using it, please let me know and I'll take it down.
The many incarnations of an elegant 18th-century Virginia plantation home
Explore Prepcowboy's 636 photos on Flickr!
This plantation's history is anything but boring!
Photos, history, and description of the Rose Hill Plantation House located near Bluffton South Carolina.
Built 1843. Largest and nicest private chapel in the state of Mississippi. It is only open four days per year - two in March and two in October ---- or by special arrangement. This is privately owned and located in the country. www.stmarybasilicaarchives.org/fromthearchivedesk/laurelh...
Photos, history, and description of the Rose Hill Plantation House located near Bluffton South Carolina.
This plantation's history is anything but boring!
Just outside Macon, Georgia in the small community of Bolingbroke is this substantial brick mansion on a historic 329 acre estate made up of rolling lawns, woodlands, shaded groves, formal gardens and a picturesque lake.
Built of brick in 1837. This is the largest and nicest private plantation chapel in the state of Mississippi. The moss draped live oak is very unusual in its extreme height.....it is majestic. www.stmarybasilicaarchives.org/fromthearchivedesk/laurelh...
visit to pebble Hill Plantation thomasville ga
A Recent in-depth international article on the Prospect Hill Plantation, preserved & protected by the Archaeological Conservancy and loving over seen by our Southeast Regional Director Jessica Crawford, highlights the significance of this site to descendant families and our country.
The many incarnations of an elegant 18th-century Virginia plantation home
=== — — === We all know that the weather here in the South is unpredictable, to say the least–especially in Florida! After it rained for two days straight, Victoria and Marcus’ outdoor ceremony and reception at the Pebble Hill Plantation had to be moved indoors. With Mother Nature throwing a wrench in your wedding […]
Bissex Hill Plantation, St. Joseph, Barbados
While the large white, symmetrical mansion with columns is the stereotypical "plantation home design" not all southern mansions are built in this style. In fact, the architecture across both historical and contemporary southern home designs
Naples Wedding Photographer serving Marco Island, Fort Myers, Sanibel and Sarasota
Story and Photos by Elodie Pritchartt “My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.” ~ Pat Conroy Andre de La Barre and I sat in his car at the fork in the road and tried to decide what to do. “She didn’t say anything about a fork,” said Andre. We looked at each other and laughed. “Can you call?” Andre looked at his cell phone. No signal. “Aw, heck,” I said. “Go right.” We were in Lorman, Mississippi, thirty miles north of Natchez on a gravel road looking for a house a friend had told us was for sale: 1854 Greek-revival, raised cottage-style mansion on 3.3 acres for around $20,000. Needs a lot of work. I had posted it on my Facebook page and was surprised at how quickly Andre sent me a message. “We’ve got to go see this place! Can you go this weekend?” Then he sent me a link to a book on Amazon called Mississippi in Africa by Mississippi author Alan Huffman. Huffman’s book tells a tale spanning two continents and two centuries, and had all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy—wealth, greed, war, family, murder, redemption, sorrow and hope—the story of Prospect Hill Plantation. And what a story it is. Prospect Hill was built by Isaac Ross, a Revolutionary War veteran who moved to Mississippi in 1808. Extremely wealthy, Ross had over two hundred slaves with whom he operated a successful cotton plantation. He was known for seeing to the comfort, wellbeing and education of his slaves. Ross knew slavery wouldn’t last, and had heard about the American Colonization Society, which hoped to repatriate freed slaves to the African country of Liberia. When he died in 1836, his will stipulated that upon the death of his daughter, Margaret Reed, the plantation should be sold and the proceeds used to pay passage for those of his slaves who wanted to go to Liberia. But Ross’s grandson, Isaac Ross Wade, contested the will and although Margaret Reed would die only two years later, the case was held up in the court system for a decade with suits and countersuits, the slaves’ side being aided by the Colonization Society. In 1845, a handful of slaves decided they couldn’t wait any longer. The cook drugged the coffee, and after everyone had gone to bed, the house was set afire. Everyone but a six-year-old little girl was rescued. After the uprising a vigilante committee hanged eleven slaves in the big white oak tree behind the ruins of the house. Even so the will was eventually upheld and the slaves who chose to go to Africa were allowed to do so, establishing a colony called Mississippi in Africa. These educated blacks were prosperous. They operated plantations on which they built large homes reminiscent of the antebellum homes of their former masters, and battled with the native tribes, a cultural conflict that continues even now. After learning about the story, I remembered finding an old family tree tucked away in a forgotten drawer at home and discovered that I was, in fact, a descendant of the Wades of Mississippi. I also found an old family album from the 1800s with several pages devoted to Wades. Unfortunately nearly every Wade-identified page had been stripped of its photo, only one intact, and not a direct descendant. So our journey was a bit more than idle curiosity—I was exploring a heretofore unknown chapter in my family heritage while Andre hoped to find a way to help save the house—built after the fire that destroyed the first one, completed in 1854. "The present dwelling at Prospect Hill was built by the current owner, Judge Isaac Ross Wade, who received the plantation as a fee for nine years service as the only qualified executor of the estate of his grandfather, Captain Isaac Ross of the American Revolution. The house was started in June 1853. That is, the brick were burned in kilns near the site of the house, in what was part of the orchard for the plantation. The water for mixing the clay for the brick was brought from nearby Turkabee Spring named for an old Choctaw Indian Chief. Two Negro slave boys, Nick and Zack, brought the water in pails carried on their heads. They were sometimes aided by other boys and girls when the plantation work was not pressing. The contractor was named Mattingly and the chief mechanic was Ephriam Boyce. The house was a splendid piece of work when it was finished, April 30, 1854. In those eleven months, the beautiful home was finished complete with two fine outbuildings on brick foundations; one had two rooms and a wide front gallery and was used for a kitchen and storeroom. The other had two rooms for yard servants, a wide front gallery, and under the end room, a brick room used for ironing or a laundry room. These in later years were used for a loom or weaving room. There were two fine arched cisterns, one for the house or family use was twenty six feet deep and fourteen feet in diameter. The other, not so large, was used for the kitchen and laundry and servants about the yard. Both were bricked and heavily cemented throughout. Yard and garden fences had been made and painted or white washed, the entire premises were ready to be occupied and the keys handed to Judge Wade. The Judge moved his family in on the second day of May, 1854." ~ Jennie Allison Wade Killingsworth, daughter of Isaac Ross Wade. Jennie was born May 2, 1854, the day her family moved into Prospect Hill. My advice to take the right fork was wrong, but after about twenty minutes and a few missteps, we finally found the entrance, manned by Jessica Crawford, a tiny slip of a girl who had promised to meet us. We followed her SUV as she led us through the backwoods of Lorman, over old logging roads and under modern power lines into an opening in the trees. Jessica had driven nearly four hours to meet us from her home in Marks, Mississippi, where she serves as southeast regional director at the New Mexico-based Archeological Conservancy. She helps acquire archeological sites for the Conservancy, usually Indian mounds or villages, Civil War sites, some Colonial forts. “Normally we try to avoid any kind of structures,” she said. “We’re set up to manage what’s under the ground. On top of the ground is what my boss calls ‘the money pit.’” The Conservancy hopes to stabilize the structure until they can find someone to buy and restore it while retaining an archeological easement so they can continue to study those artifacts still below ground. The sight of the ancient, crumbling mansion with its bare wooden façade and tall chimneys rising above the tree line was beautiful and sad and amazing. “Be careful where you step,” cautioned Jessica. “I’ve gotten the yard cleared for the first time in years, but there are stumps, so watch where you walk.” She’d done much of the work herself, coming frequently and often alone to this remote spot to rescue it from the encroaching jungle. It was clear she loved it and wanted to save it. An ancient brick staircase covered in lichen, rose gracefully from what had once been the main entrance to the plantation, framed by large cedar trees. Old-growth garden plants punctuated the grounds—camellia, crape myrtle, wisteria, dogwood, all dripping Spanish moss. The front porch hung at a crazy angle, having lost many of its graceful, fluted columns. The stairway threatened to collapse altogether. An elegant doorway stood trimmed with dentil moulding, jib windows opened onto the porch, the façade still showing traces of the plaster and scoring over wood once used for grander houses. In the backyard the same white oak that had borne the bodies of eleven slaves had fallen in a storm and taken off the back of the house and part of the second floor. A fireplace hung high over our heads hugging the side of the house. A set of shelves on the remaining back wall still held bottles, all tilting toward oblivion. A peacock sat among the flotsam, quiet and proud. “That’s Isaac,” said Jessica. “He’s been here seven years. We named him after Isaac Ross.” “How long since anyone’s lived here?” asked Andre. “I’ve found mail in there from 2007, but I know the front porch roof had fallen down as early as 2000,” said Jessica. The previous owner loved the house fiercely, but a string of bad luck and tragedy had forced him to finally move. We explored the basement rooms crammed halfway to the ceiling with furniture, pianos, farm implements, and the junk of a thousand years: three pianos in the basement, alone, another upstairs, all in ruinous condition and far past help; a kitchen area with sink, refrigerator, stove, etc. Permeating the air was the smell of funk and decay, mildew and something else….possibly the droppings of raccoons and other wild animals that had taken up residence. Upstairs, we stepped carefully around rotten floorboards and decaying furnishings, books, mattresses and clothes, all left by the previous owner, and saw what a beautiful place it had once been. I was amazed that the mirror in the dining room had not been stolen. A lone bat kept Isaac company inside, hanging from the molding in a back room while Isaac roosted at night on the top of a bedroom door. We walked to the family cemetery behind the house. Like coming onto a secret garden among the trees, vines and thorns, the cemetery stood anchored by a massive columned monument—its beauty and size difficult to describe. According to Huffman’s book, the monument was commissioned in 1838 by the Mississippi Colonization Society for the astronomical price of $25,000 and bears the following inscription: “His last will is graced with as magnificent provisions as any over which philanthropy has ever rejoiced and by it will be erected on the shores of Africa a monument more glorious than marble and more enduring than time.” The remains of a wrought-iron fence enveloped the headstones and crypts, many damaged by a falling tree in another storm. Ignoring the real possibility of rattlesnakes, I crawled underneath the house where ancient farm equipment waited as though expecting to be used again. Jessica pointed out a beam overhead with handwriting on it in chalk. I could make out the word “Jefferson” and the date “1872.” “This is where the workers would come to practice their penmanship,” said Jessica. On our next visit in November to a fundraiser Jessica had organized to finance stabilization of the roof, I was stunned at how much work had been done. The basement had been cleared, the porch removed and temporary stairs erected to allow visitors ingress. That wasn’t all. “We have discovered foundations in the back of several buildings,” she said. “…what we think is probably a kitchen, a laundry and a smokehouse and also a brick structure that was possibly for the house slaves. We think we have the cotton gin down the hill by the creek.” I was excited. Alan Huffman was there, along with descendants of the Rosses, the Wades, and the slaves, some of whom were recent refugees from the conflict in Liberia. They had driven down from Washington, D.C. to attend this gathering. Alan had traveled to Liberia when writing his book, a risk I would have been too cowardly to take. I could only imagine what this meeting meant for him. We heard stories about the plantation from Jessica, Alan, local historian Ann Brown, and James Belton, a descendant of the slaves from McComb, Mississippi who told us stories that had been passed down to him through the generations. It was an amazing experience. We shared a meal together—all these many years later—descendants of master and slave. We told stories and asked questions and crossed the barriers of time and place and culture. It was a good day and I trust that good things will come of it, not the least of which are the future prospects of a house with a story in Jefferson County, Mississippi. The mirror, furnishings and trash have all been cleaned out in order to show the house. So far, the Conservancy had one individual who is seriously interested in purchasing the property. Those who want more information or wish to help with the stabilization efforts can send contributions to or contact The Archaeological Conservancy’s Southeast Regional Office, P.O. Box 270, Marks, MS 38643, [email protected] or visit their website at americanarchaeology.org. To read more on Prospect Hill, visit Alan Huffman's blog where he has several posts pertaining to the history and the house. This is not my photograph. I don't know who took it, but if the photographer should happen upon it and objects to my using it, please let me know and I'll take it down.
Explore Dogbite's 2683 photos on Flickr!
These old plantations in Mississippi have been abandoned and left to the elements for numerous reasons. They are, however, still beautiful.
Exterior view looking from the driveway. Built by Littleton and Catherine Capell.
The Underwood Plantation Home, also known as “Black Thistle”, is a Greek Revival-style home that was built circa 1837 by the Greene Underwood Family. It was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on November 2, 1990. This house is located in the community of Pleasant Hill in east Dallas County at the […]
