MY 75TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION ON THE ROAD TO ARCOLA!
ARCOLA. Arcola, Alabama - Wikipedia
In preceding brief narrative of the phenomenal physical character of the canebrake; how the magnificent forest yielded with unparalleled rapidity to the brawn of the happy black toilers and how the picturesque plantations became the abode of an agricultural population unique in the refinements of life, a perfect democracy of society. We shall now consider the neighborhood subdivisions of the territory and for this purpose will engage in a succession of biographical notes of various individuals and families. If the task be adequately executed there is something to be learned of the highest type of the civilization upon which American government was founded. The Bonapartists, as we know, laid off the streets of Demopolis, built some red cedar log cabins, fixed the lines of the boulevard along the edge of the grand white bluff, only then to discover that the site of the town was rifle-shot length to the west of the limit of the "French grant.' The substitute town, Aiglesville, near by, came too late to enjoy the confidence of the immigrants.
The site, although not more than a mile away, was too far from the river. The French never leave France. So 1 in the Alabama wilderness they had Marengo. Linden and now Arcola, all in the go. memory of the great Emperor. Agent Ravesies founded Arcola three miles away on the left bank of the Black Warrior.
The landscape of the vicinity differed somewhat from the main body of the in the deeper sloughs and and higher elevations. A more beautiful land could and not be easily found. The town project failed. Arcola remained in name only as a landing, where steamers called to receive or deliver freight and passengers. Finally two North Carolinians built handsome residences there Mr.
Samuel Strudwick and Mr. Alfred Hatch. I knew Mr. Ravesies, the agent of the "Tombeckbe association" and founder of Arcola, in his old age. He was a gentle of accomplished manners and rare man intelligence even then.
Some of his granddaughters now living in Marengo county have a fine portrait of him in oil. The father of Mr. Ravesies abandoned his estates in France at the outbreak of the great revolution in the latter decades of the 18th century. He already owned an estate on the Island of Hayti, thither he fled with his family. The and did not secure the quietude the change sought.
Indeed he had changed from bad to worse. The African slaves and mulattoes excited the most desperate insurrection. Mr. Ravesies' family survived the general massacre and escaped to Philadelphia. The refuges were the father and mother, the young maiden daughter and the youth Frederick.
The rescue from the fury of the servile insurrection was made by a faithful black slave, "'Lono." The tradition is that Lono hid his master and his family under some overturned molasses kettles until a vessel in the harbor was ready to sail. He then secured safe escape for them on board the ship. The father soon died in Philadelphia, where they landed. The support of his family, so precipitately reduced from affluence to penury, now devolved on the youth Frederick. Right nobly did he meet the heavy charge.
After various vicissitudes the young man established himself as a merchant in Philadelphia. There he married Miss Mary Roane, an orphan refugee, the adopted daughter of John Soalller, also a refugee from the French West Indies insurrection. Frederick Ravesies and his wife, Mary Roane, became the parents of two sons and two daughters, born in Philadelphia. The sons were John Godfrey and Frederick Pierre, the latter removing to Alabama A8 we. shall see, and Marie Josephine and Anne Victoire, the daughters, the former marrying Col.
John McRae of the "Athol" plantation in the Canebrake. About the time the "Tombeckbe association"* was organized to distribute the allotments of the congressional grant to the Bonapartists, Mrs. Frederick Ravesles died in Philadelphia. Mr. Ravesies, having accumulated a fortune in mercantile pursuits there, resolved to come as agent of the association to the far away lands seeking enterprise.
He invested largely in the abandoned allotments of the Bonapartists. His lands lay between Arcola and the present railroad station of Van Dorn, a picturesque and splendid estate. From the canebrake Mr. Ravesies returned to Philadelphia for the purpose of setting sail for France to recover and restore the estates of his father, about Bordeaux. When about to take passage on the return voyage Mr.
Ravesles was requested to take under his care to Philadelphia Madame Adele Gertrude Davide and her two Infant daughters, widow of General Davide, one of the great Emperor's soldiers, who desired to come to her mother, Madame Bruel, already settled in that city. This Madame Bruel was a lady of singular accomplishments. Her first marriage was to the Marquis de Savery Madame Davide was a child of this first marriage. Mr. Ravesies married Madame Davide in Philadelphia and brought his wife and her two French born daughters to Arcola.
As the young slave masters from the Atlantic states began to seek canebrake lands he sold his possessions in that kind of property and moved his family to Mobile to reside. One of the step-daughters of Mr. Ravesies, Cecile Agnes Davide, married Colonel Foy, who came from North Carolina, and lived on his plantation near the present Van Dorn station. This handsome plantation came next into the ownership of Mr. A.
B. Winn and finally to Dr. Henry W. Reese, his son-in-law. There came to the canebrake as secretary the Tombeckbe association a youth of 19, from Philadelphia.
George N. Stewart, destined to become an eminent lawyer of Mobile and one of the I prominent men of Alabama. Stewart married the remaining step-daughter of Mr. Ravesies, Marie Pauline Davide. He was the son of an Irishman, captain of a merchant ship.
To Mr. and Mrs. Stewart was born in Mobile a son, Frederick. The young man was one of the early volunteers in the Confederate army, enlisting as a private in the Third Alabama infantry, Col. Jones M.
Withers. The martial spirit of his illustrious grandfather, General Davide, possessed him. He fell at the desperate charge of Malvern Hill, many paces ahead of his line of battle, July 1, 1862. A son, Maj. Paul Ravesies of Mobile, was born to the marriage of Frederick Ravestes with Madame Davide, and he, too, WAs a noble soldier under the bars and stars.
Mrs. Ravesies, the mother, died at Mobile, over 80 years of age. Two children of his first marriage. Frederick Pierre and Marie Josephine, came also with Mr. Ravesien to Arcola.
The son married Miss Isabelle Strudwick of that settlement, and the daughter, as we have seen, became the wife of Col. John McRae. Samuel Strudwick of Arcola was a gentleman in ease and dignity, seldom saw their names in the newspapers. The newspaper reporter of those days never Invaded the parlors and dining rooms of the planters. It would have been at the peril of an editor to permit a description in his columns of a gentleman's dinner table, the names of his guests, the gowns of his wives and daughters, the length of vase to of an J.
to the Owning at Finally the Beecher's in as to In of orator a of on benefit the menu or the variety of the wines. Private life was hedged about and exalted by the fact of privacy in the home. Thus when in this day, 50 years after the lives of those, for the most part, here mentioned, little can be written of personal history. There is enough, however, of circumstance and incident enough of the drama of the broken vase to show that the wonderful land of cotton plantations was inhabited by a list of gentlemen rarely, if ever, equalled, in their class, in the qualities of social refinement and Individual intelligence. Samuel Strudwick of Arcola was a gentleman of exceptional dignity of bearing and culture of mind.
He came thither at an earl period of the settlement of the canebrake and bought a large body of land. He and his wife came from Hillsboro, N. C., from distinguished families. Mr. and Mrs.
Strudwick were the parents of 11 daughters and two sons, one son and one daughter dying in infancy, The ten surviving daughters were married to some of the first gentlemen of the land. Isabelle to Frederick Pierre Rave• sies. Elmira to John Tayloe Lomax, Rebecca to Decatur C. Anderson, Susan to Dr. Theodore Daves of Philadelphia, Matha to Levin Sledge, Rosalie to Dr.
J. 8. Ruffin, Caroline to Martin A. Lyon, Sophia to Dr. James Webb, Ann to Dr.
James S. Ruffin (second wife) and Mary to Judge S. 'A. Holmes of California. The numerous, sons-in-law were gentlemen of the highest standing in their respective professions and in society.
The surviving son, Shepherd, married a neighbor, Miss Webb. Alfred Hatch was the remaining resident of the original settlement of Arcola. He was a native of Craven county, North Carolina, son of Gen. Durant Hatch of that state. He was prepared for the university, as were his brothers, but his constitution proved unequal to the tax of hard study and his scholastic education was necessarily abandoned.
At an early period in his manhood Mr. Hatch married Miss Elizabeth Vall Blount of Newberne, N. C. About the year 1840 he moved to Greene. county, Alabama, and made his home on a plantation some two miles west of Greensboro.
His investment in plantation property, however, was more extensive. Owning several hundred acres he bought plantations near Newbern, now in Hale County, and bought the beautiful estate at Arcola, whither he came to reside. From time to time he enlarged and beautifled his residence and the grounds. Finally the house became a typical southern mansion, with marble floors, Doric columns and wide verandas. Soon after Mr.
Hatch moved to Arcola the agitation of the abolitionists of New England reflected itself aggressively on the politics of Alabama. Sagacious statesmen saw in the phenomenal effect of "Uncle Tom's Cabin' in the northern states and in Europe, whence 8 great flood of immigrants poured into those states; saw in Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's pulpit and rostrum addresses, urging northern people to take possession of the common national domain, "with rifle and Bible," to the exclusion of the south, and in multiplied other evidences of sectional conflict, peril to the union. Mr. Hatch was a disciple of Webster.
He was solicitous that the teaching of Yancey in Alabama should be neutralized. To this end, as far as might be, he prepared annually from his own pastures a great barbecue to celebrate the Fourth of July. Hundreds of visitors. were called to his grounds at Arcola to enjoy the feast. After dinner the appointed ceremonies In honor of the union were called.
A reader appeared to recite the Declaration of Independence. Following him, an orator took the stand, under the shade, to exalt the blessings of the union. The last event of this kind was celebrated with unusual eclat. Waverly Duggar, Esq., a young lawyer of Demopolis, read the Declaration. Jameg Taylor Jones.
also a young lawyer and an orator of established reputation, made the speech. About setting of the gun the great company began to disperse for the drive home, some five miles, others ten miles away, over the beautifully smooth, wide and undulating roads. Not BO, however, with all. Numbers were invited to accept the hospitalities of the mansion for the night or for several succeeding days, where the usual canebrake festivities, with music, dancing, games and horseback riding employed the hours of day and night This broad-gauge master was self-constituted guardian of his negroes. All the operations of his several plantations were on a high plane.
He maintained a distinct dairy farm for the exclusive benefit of his negroes. He supported a fully equipped hospital for the sick; there was a great kitchen with all useful arrangements, where the meals of the laboring people were carefully prepared and delivered hot to them at long shelters in the feld, where they would be protected from the sun and rain at the meal taking hour. His slaves were proud of their master. A number. of friends and neighbors attested their admiration of his high personal character, his great energy and noble philanthropies by giving their song his name.
The children of Mr. Hatch by two marriages numbered eight, four sons and four daughters. All but one son married. Their homes in most instances are near by. Jane Hatch, daughter, married Augustus Benners of Greensboro, a young lawyer, who rose to distinction, and their children and grand-children are distinguished citizens of Birmingham.
Al: lived to honor A8 valuable citizens..
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