Kent Plantation Part I

Kent House, the oldest known standing structure in Rapides Parish, was built by Pierre Baillio, completed in 1800. Baillio constructed the house on land received through a Spanish land grant circa 1794.

I am a history buff fascinated by the way people used to live "back in the olden days" so I couldn't wait to tour a real southern plantation. We drove to nearby Alexandria, Louisiana to visit the historic Kent Plantation House.

I was a little surprised when we arrived. I had expected to see something straight out of "Gone With The Wind". The Kent Plantation House, while beautiful in its own right, was very different from what I had envisioned, much smaller and less ornate. Apparently I am not the only visitor expecting to see Scarlett O'Hara fanning herself on the porch as it was the first topic covered on our guided tour.

The Kent Plantation was a working plantation typical for the French Creole homesteaders of the Colonial Era. The land was granted to the original owner by a Spanish Land Grant in 1794 prior to the Louisiana Purchase. The land grants were large (1,500 acres) but narrow tracts so that each plantation owner had access to the Mississippi River, their means of transportation. The homes were built atop pillars of handmade bricks to protect them from flooding without closets or hallways as the tax collector based his tax on the number of rooms in the house.

Notice the toe prints (left) and finger prints (right) dried into the handmade bricks.
These prints almost certainly belong to a slave.

The Lady of the House, affectionately referred to as "Mama" by our delightful tour guide, was not a pampered lady of leisure. Although they did own slaves, all members of the family including "Mama" worked hard to operate the plantation. Mama raised 14 children in 4 rooms of the original plantation home! A 5th room with outside access only offered a place for travelers to stay. It was typical for guest rooms to have outdoor access only as it allowed the plantation owners to be hospitable to strangers while still protecting their families. Although it seems odd to us to offer complete strangers a place to stay, travelers were welcomed into homes back then because they provided news and information from the outside world.

The portraits above are paintings of two of the 14 children that were raised here. Although allowed, it was difficult to take photos inside the Kent House. The house was restored to its original state to accurately depict plantation life from 1795 to 1855. Therefore, no electricity. It was slightly overcast the day we visited and quite dim inside. I didn't mind. It helped put things into better perspective. Life was not all sunshine for these people. They were successful plantation owners that could afford a little luxury but their luxuries were a long way from what we would consider comfortable today. The original master bedroom and the boy's room shown below.

Spinning wool in the original master bedroom.

The boys bedroom

The boys bedroom

The boys bedroom

The parlor (below) was much more ornate than the bedrooms and there was good reason for that. It seems the people of this time period were all about the show. They reserved their fanciest furnishings, objects and foods to show off to their guests. The bedrooms, which company did not see, were quite utilitarian.

The things I found most interesting about the parlor, first the shoofly over the parlor table. A slave would have stood in the corner pulling the rope attached to the shoofly to fan and cool the people sitting at the table. It also helped keep the flies off the food hence the name shoofly. Also the tea box and brick of tea shown below. Tea would be shaved off the brick for brewing. The tea was kept locked in the tea box as it was expensive and hard to come by.

Tea, coffee and imported spices were all kept under lock and key. Mama wore pockets under her apron to keep all of the keys handy and safe from those who might steal her precious supplies. These pockets (right) are made of hide. They are over 200 years old!

The final room of the original structure was the girl's bedroom. It was much nicer than the boy's bedroom as girls were viewed as more delicate.

Prayer Chair (above) Settlers in this area were predominantly Catholic as the Spanish Land Grants were given only to the Catholics.

The thought that girls were more delicate than boys was most evident in the bathroom facilities provided to the girls verses the boys. The boys had a simple potty chair that was used for sitting by day and well, you know, by night. The girls on the other hand had this beautiful commode. You would have never known this beautiful night stand hid a chamber pot.

Do you by chance know what this is? This ingenious contraption is a baby walker woven out of willow branches. Mama would place her baby inside the walker so baby could scoot around. The bottom of the walker was made larger than the doorways so baby stayed contained in one room unable to get into trouble. So clever!

The second owner of the plantation added on two more rooms of much different style. The first we were shown was the library, also the plantation owners office. It was a beautiful room with tall ceilings furnished to impress.

Clock from the 1600's

Horse hair wingback chair

Piano with wheels so it could be easily moved to the parlor.

A walk across the porch led to the new master bedroom, the 2nd room added on by the new owner. Notice the narrow staircase. When the home was built women's dress styles were fairly simple with long, narrow skirts. Later, when dress styles changed to the wide hoop skirts, a section of the front porch railing was removed and a brick staircase was added to the front of the house to accommodate the change in lady's fashion.

This is bousillage. It's an adobe like mixture made of local clay, Spanish Moss and other grassy fibers used in construction as insulation and chinking. Commonly used in the 1800's by French Colonial settlers, it was painted over if you could afford to do so.

Our final room on the tour of the Kent Plantation House was the new master bedroom. Obviously, life had improved a great deal by the time of the additions. This room is a huge upgrade from the original master bedroom.

Bousillage

Another prayer chair and a beautiful rolling pin bed named for the detachable rolling pin on the headboard used to roll out the feather bed mattress.

Notice the beautiful porcelain bathroom set. It was a wedding gift to the owner's daughter. Very unusual that a complete set would remain intact all these years.

Holy Water Dispenser in Master Bedroom

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the Kent Plantation House. It was well worth the $10 price of admission. Our bubbly tour guide was very interesting and informative. She certainly covered a great deal of history during our tour.

The Kent House was just the first stop on the tour. The plantation boasts several restored outbuildings and the guided tour continues through each one. Our tour of the outbuildings will be the subject of my next blog posts. I hope you enjoyed exploring the Kent Plantation House as much as I did.