Metz Calls us back to Nature in St. Francisville
Metz Calls us back to Nature in St. Francisville
By Anne Butler; images by Darrell Chitty
Justin Metz has a musical ear and an artistic eye, and he puts both to work crafting his gorgeous duck calls that are in demand all across the country. And he does it all in a little well-equipped workshop in the wooded paradise called the Tunica Hills.
He had the good fortune to be born into a family that for generations lived close to the land---loggers and hunters, cattlemen and self-sufficient farmers, horticulturists and of course hunters. His favorite memory, back when he started duck hunting as a young teen, was heading out at 3 or 4 a.m. for the simple cottage on the edge of Cat Island swamp; he could hear the television blaring way down the road along Bayou Sara creek, because Uncle Moochie and Uncle Dump were both hearing impaired after years of running chainsaws and heavy machinery. There was always coffee brewing, breakfast on the table even at that hour, and after a brief visit, Justin would be off into the swamp waters, with ducks coming in, the excitement of a brisk north wind in his face, and he felt like he was in heaven. He was hooked.
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Flying Charlie McDermott and St. Francisville’s New Elementary School Suit Each Other
Flying Charlie McDermott and St. Francisville’s New Elementary School Suit Each Other
By Anne Butler
The loss of historically significant structures, whether to fire or flood or neglect, is disheartening to say the least. Sometimes, though, these historic homes are replicated. Sometimes, when the home itself is a total loss, the gardens and landscaping can be salvaged. And sometimes, when home and gardens are gone, the property itself can be rejuvenated in unexpectedly appropriate ways. That’s what is going to happen at Waverly Plantation, just north of the attractive campus where all of the St. Francisville area students go to school.
The West Feliciana Parish public school system is considered one of the best in the state, and its newer Lower Elementary and Middle School buildings are top rate as well. Parish residents are so supportive of the system that they recently voted tax funding to provide upgrades to the high school and some of its attached facilities. With student enrollment increasing yearly, the funding also covers an entirely new Upper Elementary building to replace the crowded and dated current structure.
And happily, just to the north of the Middle School complex lay Waverly Plantation. The main house there, built on a 1790s Spanish land grant, was a beautifully austere double-galleried frame structure, its entrance doors enhanced by fanlights and sidelights. It was actually located in the tiny community called Bains after Dr. Henry Bains, and when it burned in 1972 it was the home of another longtime parish physician, Dr. Alfred Gould.
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St. Francisville in the Time of Covid-19
St. Francisville in the Time of Covid-19
By Anne Butler
So, in this scary time of social distancing and sheltering in place, some of us are using the downtime to reconnect with family and commune with nature, exercising and eating sensibly. Others, not so much…our only exercise is jogging to the icebox and getting lazier by the minute; we’ll be sorry when we have to give up our comfy pants and PJs for clothes with belts or waistbands. And it’s far from funny, but there are times when humor and prayer are our only comforts, and Lord knows there’s some hysterical stuff on social media these days.
We’ve been down this road before. A wonderful fact-filled article by that esteemed historian/author Brian James Costello of Pointe Coupee, just across the Mississippi River from St. Francisville and thus experiencing similar trials and tribulations, examines the historical antecedents of the Covid-19 Pandemic through the early years of constant floods and epidemics which plagued the area. There were 18 major river floods from 1770 through 1927; he reminds us that the disastrous 1882 flooding of the Mississippi River put four feet of water on Main Street in New Roads and five feet in St. Mary’s Cemetery, necessitating that Mrs. Philogene Langlois’ funeral procession proceed by boat and her remains had to be entombed in the uppermost vault). There were also numerous disastrous outbreaks of yellow fever, cholera, typhoid fever and influenza. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic, according to New Orleans and Baton Rouge newspapers of the time, reported 245,000 flu cases throughout Louisiana, resulting in over 5,000 deaths.
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Touch of St. Francisville Travels to New Orleans Museum of Art
Touch of St. Francisville Travels to New Orleans Museum of Art
By Anne Butler
It is called one of the South’s best preserved formal Victorian parlors, and the New Orleans Museum of Art now has it on permanent exhibit. Moved in its entirety from English Plantation Country in St. Francisville, it is shown not only as a perfect representation of an era in history, but also as a tribute to those skilled craftsmen, both free and enslaved, capable of creating such beauty.
On a plantation established in the 1790s by her father, the area’s first physician, Harriett Flower Mathews began assembling the room’s elegant furnishing and decorations as clouds of Civil War gathered. The ninth generation of direct descendants occupy the property now, but it was five generations of strong women who preserved the parlor intact.
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