Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1912-05-17

Mr.. Frisby's success with his plantation
depended on his ability to make cotton,
and cotton was, therefore, nearest his
heart. What he thought of his planta-
ton may be judged from chance remark
he once made-a chance remark, but one
of which no one who knew him could
doubt the truth:
81 would not trade my plantation for
England" he said.
Eighteen hundred and fifty-nine was a
terrible year for the cotton crop in the
section which includes the plantation
then owned by Mr.. Frisby. Besides the
high water, it rained necessarily, and
through all the hardship, the water, the
mud and the seemingly useless attempt
TO get stand, which gave any promise
Of crop. Mr.. Frisby toiled and drove
those who worked under him. Levees
we're built at night by the light of great
fires, and bitches were dug while the
rain poured down. No one on the plan
tation for q period of more than two
months worked less than eighteen hours
a day.
"You may make a CROP" one of Mr..
Frisby's friends once said to him, "but
you win kill your slaves"
81 am asking no more Of them than /
do myself" be answered, "and If make
crop can afford new lot of slaves.
1 tell you," he continued, ''it's an end
less chain with me until 1 make 10000
bales of cotton year, to clear land, to
make cotton, and so on. In ten years
will show you that 10000 bales in one
CROP"
Five million dollars or more worth of
cotton in single crop was the ambition
of this man, and there seems to be no
doubt that had he not been interferred
with by the war he would have succeed
ed in his endeavors. The last crop he
made before the approach of the North
ern Army was nearly 1000 bales, and
every year he showed an addition in the
amount OF cotton he produced.
Besides the constant increase in the
size of the crop which he desired, Mr..
Frisby wished his plantation to be beau
tiful and attractive. The location of the
house and the quarters and gin were
chosen with the greatest care, with the
idea not only of convenience, hut OF
beauty. He was intensely interested in
pictures, and within the ruined walls of
his house there are still the remains of
canvasses, SO damaged by exposure to the
weather that no one can now tell their
original value. Though there is no rec
ord of who did the work, there are about
the house some bits of carving which
sugges that among his slaves Mr.. Frisby
discovered one, from the Fiji Islands,
where the natives, with scrap of hoop
iron, can do the most intricate and beau.
tiful work-carvings which all but rival
the work of the japanese. Whoever did
the work, it was all of barbaric intricacy
and finish, and, like theirs, it is purely
decorative and represents nothing actual
ly in existence.
The years Of the war were time of
terrible anxiety to Mr.. Frisby. When it
became evident that the South was being
gradually worn out by superior numbers
and superior resources, Mr.. Frisby be-
came desperate.
Again and again he was heard to say
that had he been allowed little more
time he would have fortified his planta-
ton 90 that il would have taken an army
to conquer it. There seem to be indica-
tions that he was not quite himself dur
ing all that trying time, or if he was him.
self, he was pushed to the last extremity
and entertained ideas at which prior to
the war he would have laughed. There
are now in the weeds remains of en-
bankments which seem to have nothing
to do with keeping the water from his
cotton, and there is story that he in
tended to turn the Tensas River from its
course, and thus surround himself with
a great swamp, which the army would
not trouble to cross.
Finally, however, he seems to have
realized that the Union forces were COM
ing and that whatever it was he had in
his mind to do could not be done, for he
gathered together his slaves and started
for Texas, meaning, it lie said, to make
his way into Mexico and start his prin-
cipality building afresh, but he left his
heart in Tensas. He was never the same
man again. Obstacles were no longer
swept aside in bis old fearless fashion,
and at last he returned to his land with
his hope gone and his dream dead.
What this man would have accom-
plished, bad he been given the thing for
which he prayed, ''time," there is no
way of determining, but certain it is that
he would have made his 1000 acres an
estate such as has seldom been ap-
preached in the South.
Mr.. Frisby died on his plantation In