Duncan in Mississippi
Duncan had no doubt made money in Tennessee. In Mississippi he became a planter and his house suggests a successful one.
The inventory of his estate[1] at his death in 1820, only 9 years after his arrival, lists the following household items:
9 featherbeds and furniture $675
1 set of dining tables $ 60
1 clock $ 80
18 chairs $ 45
1 bureau with books $ 75
1 piano $300
2 pair candle sticks $ 30
5 dozen wine glasses $ 49
2 sets china $245
1 blue dining set $ 35
Silverware $ 79
4 looking glasses $ 22
His personal property included:
1 horse, bridle and saddle $100
1 gold watch $ 80
1 brace of pistols $ 12
The plantation was devoted to cotton and included 65 slaves, his most valuable possession at $51,605.
Other plantation items include:
13 head of horses $930
60 head of sheep $180
4 yolk oxen $160
70 hogs $140
30 head of cattle $180
Carriage, wagon and gear $175
2 ox carts and 1 old wagon $ 80
1 gig and harness $300
Blacksmith tools $ 77
It is thought that the first house at Holly Grove was a Carolina I house, two story, probably hall and parlor style. This may have been started as early as 1809. The house became much larger with the addition to the north of a center hall and another room. The inventory at his death suggests such a larger house. He may or may not have added the six Tuscan columns that define the façade.
Early attempts to find a regional cash crop had failed: tobacco because it was of an inferior quality and entered a glutted market; and indigo because of insect damage, the necessities of too much equipment, and the fear that the dye was injurious to slaves health. There were large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, both for home consumption, and cattle for export as well. In the eastern section of Wilkinson County there was some production of naval stores, the residents being known as “rosum heels.”[2]
Cotton was established in the Natchez District by the time Duncan arrived. Eli Whitney had invented the cotton gin in 1795 making large scale cotton production feasible. At the same time, new technology made production of cotton cloth more efficient for the cotton mills of New England and Great Britain.[3] The crop in Natchez was 36,351 pounds in 1794, 1,200,000 pounds in 1798, 3,000,000 pounds in 1800. Cotton was a harsh master, however, and price fluctuations on the Liverpool and New York markets spun a roulette of flush times and lean years in the distant Natchez district. But for a generation, from the late 1790’s through the 1820’s, the pioneer cotton planters of the Natchez District made quick fortunes.[4] The well-known Mexican or Petit Gulf cotton made its debut in 1807, and slaves were still purchased from Africa as late as 1807, smuggled in from the Spanish territories, or bought from dealers elsewhere in the States.[5] When he died in 1820 Duncan Stewart had 65 slaves. He had inherited slaves from his father in North Carolina. Did he take these to Tennessee? Did he bring slaves from Tennessee to Mississippi? In 1802, Duncan paid taxes on 8 slaves in Tennessee. This suggests he added significantly to his slaves when he moved to Mississippi to plant cotton.
Beginning with the privations of the embargo, the onslaught of cotton rot in 1811, and generally low prices for the staple, there was an economic depression until 1815.[6] But a good year could yield a fortune. Duncan became Lieutenant Governor in 1817. Perhaps a grand house was needed to display his wealth and position.
The acreage at Holly Grove at that time is not known. A patent is granted from the US government from the Land Office west of Pearl River to Duncan Stewart, an assignee of Richard Graves, August 12, 1812, “Section twenty-five in Township one, north of Range one, east of the Washington Meridian, Mississippi, containing seven hundred fifty and ninety-nine-hundreths acres of the lands directed to be sold at the Land Office west of Pearl River.” [7] The patent is filed in 1917. This suggests that Duncan may have been on the property before 1812. There is also a patent to Duncan Stewart as assignee of Richard Graves, fraction section 24, 255 acres, granted and issued March 17, 1814.[8] In 1876, “said boundaries the entire tract of land claimed by the heirs of Penelopie Stewart, deceased, containing Two Thousand three hundred Sixty-seven 57/100 acres.”[9] In 1955 Holly Grove contained over 1200 acres.[10] There is a record of Penelope buying 205 acres after Duncan’s death that he had sold in 1816, part of section 25 and 24, and another purchase of 550 acres in section 34 and 45. This land had been patented to Jesse Harper, February 27, 1817.[11]
A map of the sections shows that the average section was about square and contained a little over 600 acres. Section 25 is irregular and contained 821.16 acres. Section 24, east of the northern part of 25 is small and contained 234.73 acres. Section 34 is also irregular and only contains 115.99 acres. It is located east of the middle part of section 25. Section 35 located east of section 34 is also truncated and contains 490.41 acres. We have a record of original entries published in 1875 by RC Kerr, register, the keeper of those records showing that Fract Sect 24, 255 acres purchased by Richard Graves, Jan 13, 1810; A Grant Sect. 25, 821.16 acres, Richard Graves, Jan 1, 1812; Frac Sec 35 and 34, 595 acres, Jesse Harper, purchaser, Samuel Lacy, Assee, Oct 31, 1810. [12]
Why is Section 25 listed as a grant? There are several irregular sections, all with attached names of claimants. These are earlier claims or grants before the regular sections were offered for sale by the US Government. Richard Graves who is listed for section 25 arrives very late, after the US had taken control of the Natchez Territory in 1798. Richard Graves (1755-1829) m. 1. Mary Lawress, 2. Mrs Olivia Ellis Savage, is in Natchez in 1799 and in Wilkinson Co in 1802. He may have purchased land from an earlier grant or claim.
Saunders in his book states that Duncan and his brother-in-law, Lovick Ventress came to Mississippi in August 1809 and purchased adjoining property outside Woodville. The above original entries do have a purchase of Frac Sect 26, 610 acres, by Lovick Ventress Dec 19, 1809. (Ventress also purchases a fract. Section 16 and 14, 372 acres, July 9, 1816. Section 26 is adjacent to and west of section 25 which Duncan would apparently later purchase. (Sections 16 and 14 are small sections north of 23,24 and 25.)
When did Duncan first purchase land? When did he start his house? He first came to Mississippi in 1809, moved his family here in 1811. If he didn’t purchase Section 25 until 1812, where did he live in the meantime? Tradition had it at the time of the bicentennial in 1976 that Holly Grove dated from 1795. Was there a house there when Duncan purchased the property that he later enlarged?
There is no 1810 census for Wilkinson County. Listed in an 1813 census are Duncan, John and Charles Stewart and Lovick Vines. (An 1825 census shows Charles, Duncan, James, John, Walter, and William Stewart in Wilkinson County. In 1825, Charles, John, Walter, William and Penelope Stewart. In 1823 Charles Stewart has 2 slave births and 2 slave deaths; Penelope Stewart, 12 slave births and 1 death.)
The first permanent settlement in the Old Southwest (Natchez and the southwest corner of what is now Mississippi) was in 1770. The population increased in the mid 1780’s. The magnet was land, claimed by grants from Great Britain, Spain and later the United States. When American settlement was first encouraged, after 1798 it was agreed that small grants and the provision of preemption rights were essential for those who held no foreign titles. The various types of claims as well as the rights of squatters were taken into account in the passage of the land act of 1803: British and Spanish grants were confirmed for those in residence in 1797; others living in the Natchez District without firm title received 140 acres and preemption rights. Registering and resurveying proceeded slowly. Time extensions were granted for filing and sales postponed until January 1, 1809. Proffered tracts included all the surveyed territory between the Pearl and Mississippi Rivers.[13]
The Spanish granted large parcels of land. The British system utilized ‘metes and bounds.’ The Americans, namely Thomas Jefferson, developed an entirely different and revolutionary system with his Land Ordinance of 1785 to sell federal property acquired through the Enabling Act. This act required that when a territory agreed to enter the Union, all unclaimed land entered the public domain. Those lands considered “inappropriate lands” were appropriated as property of the United States and made available for sale as land patents, surveyed according to the Township and Range system. The Public Land Survey “township-and-range” lot system was introduced in 1807. This modified long lot system used the acre as a unit of measure.[14]
Saunders proposes that Duncan could have cleared land and built a house in 1810 but we know he cleared up unfinished business in Tennessee in 1810 and sold his big home on the Little West Fork of the Red River in January of 1811. He was in Natchez on February 5, 1811.[15] His son, James Alexander, was born in Mississippi in July 1811. It is possible that he did purchase Section 25 in August 1812 and started the house then since this is the section where the Holly Grove house stands. Perhaps a building had already been erected on the Ventress place next door. Or perhaps Duncan began building on Section 25 before the purchase was registered.
Duncan was a political animal in North Carolina and Tennessee and would be the same in Mississippi. Shortly after his arrival in Mississippi he was elected to the territorial legislature as a senator in 1813.[16] He was also the territory’s surveyor general. He was a senator when chosen lieutenant governor in 1817, an office he held until 1820.[17] David Holmes of Natchez was governor when Duncan was lieutenant governor.
In October 1796 Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo de Real giving the United States the Natchez District, land north of the 31st Parallel. In 1797 President George Washington sent Andrew Ellicott, a noted mathematician and surveyor, to ascertain and mark the 31st Parallel. He set up camp on what is today known in Natchez as Ellicott’s Hill and raised the American flag over the Mississippi Territory for the first time in defiance of the Spanish Government which refused to withdraw its garrison from Natchez.
In 1798 the Spanish Governor Gayoso relinquished control of the Natchez Territory to the US and the congress that year created into a territory, called Mississippi, the region between 31° and 32°28’ and Natchez became the first capital of the Mississippi Territory. John Adams appointed Winthrop Sargent, of Massachusetts, as governor. The land just three miles south of Holly Grove remained under Spanish rule until 1810 when it became an independent republic briefly before becoming part of the Louisiana Territory governed by the US. In 1799 Adams County was created with Natchez as the county seat. Wilkinson County was formed from the southern half of Adams in 1802. Woodville was incorporated and became the county seat in 1811.
In June 1800 Gov. Sargent established Washington County as the territory east of the Pearl River as far as the Chattahoochee. The Chattahoochee River forms the western border of Georgia. The Pearl River bisects present day Mississippi from its mouth at the present day Louisiana Mississippi border just east of Lake Pontchartrain and goes northward to Jackson. This area called Washington County would become later the state of Alabama and the western third would be in Mississippi. However the coastal area of present day Mississippi and Alabama was still Spanish Territory. Also in 1800 congress provided for a legislature for the Mississippi Territory.
The arbitrary conduct of Gov. Sargent caused the people to petition for his removal. In 1801 President Jefferson sent William C. C. Claiborne of Tennessee to succeed him. Claiborne, a native of Virginia, possessed much ability. In 1802 he moved the capital of the territory from Natchez to Washington, a village six miles east of Natchez.
The General Assembly of Mississippi in 1802 incorporated Jefferson College, named after Thomas Jefferson, in the town of Washington and Claiborne served as president of the college’s first board of trustees. After years of financial difficulties it opened its doors on January 7, 1811, as a preparatory school with fifteen students. By 1817, it had become a full fledged college although it continued to offer primary and secondary classes. Ten year old Jefferson Davis of Wilkinson County attended the next year. But there appears to be no record of participation or attendance by the Stewart family. In 1819 a new building was constructed, the East Wing, designed by the prominent Natchez architect Levi Weeks. In 1830 the college purchased the Methodist Church building where the constitutional convention was held in 1817.
In April 1802 Georgia ceded to the federal government all the territory north of parallel 31° from the Chattahoochee to the Mississippi for $1,250,000. This extended the boundaries northward to the Tennessee line trebling the size. Yet Indian title remained to all save a strip of country above and below Natchez and the one on the Tombigbee.
A treaty was concluded October 17, 1802 between the Federal government and the Choctas re-establishing a cession made to the British giving to the Choctas an area between the Chicasaha and Tombikbee Rivers. This was signed by Brig. Gen James Wilkinson of the federal army. Wilkinson would give his name to the county in southwest Mississippi in 1802.
In 1805, Robert Williams of North Carolina succeeded Claiborne as governor of the territory. The same year a purchase was made from the Chicasas including a large body of land in Tennessee and a section of the Tennessee Valley in the Mississippi Territory. Also in 1805 the Choctas ceded a large district in southern Mississippi.
In 1809 David Holmes of Virginia succeeded Gov. Williams. Although Governor Holmes lived in Natchez, the capital remained in Washington.
Indians still remained as some threat in the area. Treaties with the Chickasaw and the Choctaws had allowed completion of a wagon road in 1802 and by 1809 the federal government has greatly improved the Natchez Trace. In 1812 the powerful Chief Tecumseh of the Shawnee, a British ally, visited many Indians in the Mississippi territory urging them to attack white settlers. In southern Mississippi a Choctaw, Pushmataha, who was friendly to the Americans, refused to cooperate with Tecumseh. David Holmes, the territorial governor said that in 1813 the Mississippi Territory was incapable of subduing the Creek threat without outside help. While Holmes was seeking reinforcements, a group of Mississippi militia men attacked a group of Creek Indians at Burnt Corn Creek, on July 27, 1813. Burnt Corn Creek is located in present day Monroe County, in western Alabama. Although surprised in the attack, the Indians recovered and turned the ambush into a rout. Then on August 30, the Creeks attacked Fort Mims, one of several hastily built stockades, and killed over 500 men, women and children who had taken refuge there. Fort Mims is located just to the south of Burnt Corn Creek in present day Baldwin County near Mobile, Alabama. Although these actions took place a good distance east in the Mississippi Territory, the western inhabitants of the territory were afraid the shift of armed man-power from the west to the east would encourage the Choctaw to attack them. In March 1814, Andrew Jackson bought his troops to confront the Creeks in a bend of the Tallapoosa River known as Horseshoe Bend in present day Tallapoosa County in east central Alabama. There he defeated the Red Stick Creeks, effectively ending the Creek War. In August he forced the Creeks to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, ceding 23 million acres, half of Alabama and part of southern Georgia to the United States government. The threat of Indians settled down. [18]
The 8th general assembly meeting of the Mississippi Territory was postponed to December 1813 on account of the Creek War. Wilkinson County’s representative was Duncan Stewart. The 9th general assembly was held in November 1815 with Gerard C. Brandon as the Wilkinson County representative. The last territorial session was in November 1816.[19]
At the same time the US was fighting the War of 1812. With the end of the war and Jackson’s defeat of the British in New Orleans in January 1814, the life in Mississippi seemed a bit more settled.
Just shortly after his arrival in Mississippi, Duncan Stewart was elected to the territorial legislature in 1813 and he also served as the state’s surveyor general. He no doubt would have frequently traveled to Natchez and the capital, Washington during the next few years.
On April 22, 1815, 200 citizens entertained in Washington, Mississippi, General
Andrew Jackson on his return from the Battle of New Orleans. Was Duncan there?
David Holmes, the territorial governor (1809-1817), had petitioned the federal government for admission into the Union. On 1 March 1817, President James Madison[20] signed the resolution recently passed by the US Congress and Mississippi became the 20th state. The eastern portion of the Mississippi Territory became the Alabama Territory. David Holmes became the first governor. Duncan Stewart became the first lieutenant-governor, resigning as a representative of Wilkinson County in the state legislature.[21] Duncan served until January 5, 1820.
Forty-seven delegates from now 14 counties met on 7 July 1817 to draft a constitution for the new state in the Methodist Episcopal Church building in Washington. It was adopted on 15 August. The counties at that time included Adams, Jefferson, Claiborne, Warren, Franklin, Wilkinson, Amite, Pike, Lawrence, Marion, Hancock, Wayne, Green, and Jackson. Delegates from Wilkinson included George Poindexter, Daniel Williams, Abraham M. Scott, John Joor, GC Brandon, and Joseph Johnson. One delegate voted against the constitution because he thought Alabama should not be separated from Mississippi.
The first election was held in September 1817. Duncan Stewart was elected both as senator and lieutenant governor. He was made president pro tempore of the senate. On 30 September Governor Holmes changed the meeting of the legislature to Washington on the first Monday in October 1817 due to an epidemic in the city of Natchez, the place appointed. House representatives from Wilkinson were Thomas M. Gildart, Abram M. Scott and John Joor. On 10 December 1817, the capital was changed from Natchez to Washington. In 1821 Jackson was established as the state capital with the legislature meeting there for the first time in 1822.
Duncan saw his oldest child, Eliza, age 20, married at Holly Grove in 1818 to William S. Hamilton.
William S. Hamilton, Lt. Col. US Army, descended the Mississippi from Fort Rock Island, Ill. in flat boats to New Orleans where he fought in 1814. Coming back north they made encampment near the Louisiana Mississippi border where he met Miss Eliza Stewart. Hamilton returned north and then came back to marry Miss Stewart and resign his commission.[22] He was practicing law in St. Francisville when he married.[23]
Col. William S. Hamilton married Elizabeth (Eliza) Stewart, daughter of Duncan and Penelope Jones Stewart of Holly Grove on June 11, 1818 at Holly Grove.[24] William S. Hamilton, late Lieutenant Colonel, Rifle corps, who served in the late war, counselor at law, St. Francisville, La. and Miss Eliza Stewart, daughter of Lt. Gov. Duncan Stewart of Miss. Married 11 June at the plantation of her father.”[25]
Col. and Mrs. William Hamilton settled at Tanglewild Plantation in Louisiana, now near Laurel Hill in West Feliciana Parish. But Eliza returned to Holly Grove in May 1819 for the birth of her first child, Duncan Stewart Hamilton. Duncan saw the birth of his first grandchild but also the child’s death the next August.
Duncan’s second child Catherine, age 16, married 4 March 1820, Harry Cage of Tennessee whose older brother had already married Mary Ventress, daughter of Lovick Ventress, of nearby Lone Hall Plantation.
Duncan died November 27, 1820 and was buried next to his twin brother James about one mile west of Holly Grove on his sister’s place, the Ventress Place (now known as Stewart II Cemetery). The twin brothers had vowed to be buried together and so they were.
Duncan left three children at home. The eldest Tignal Jones was 20 and could be of significant help with the plantation. The two youngest brothers, James Alexander, and Charles were age nine and five respectively. Penelope was 41.
[1]
Wilkinson County Inventories and Accounts, Vol. II, p. 281.
[2] Lynda
Crist
[3] Madness
and the Mississippi Bonds, by Robert Bruce Smith, p. 6.
[4] Classic
Natchez, History, Homes, and Gardens. By
Randolph Delehanty and Van Jones Martin, 1996, p.19.
[5] Lynda
Crist
[6] Lynda
Crist
[7]
Conveyance Records, Wilkinson County, Book WW, Page 619, dated November 14,
1917. Noted that “This patent is granted
as and for a patent intended to have been granted and issued on August 12,
1812, but the issuance of which is not sufficiently evidenced by the records of
the General Land Office or by other obtainable evidence.”
[9] Abstract
of title of the lands of Charles B. Dudley, prepared by HC Leak, attorney,
Woodville. P. 167.
[10]
Abstract of title by Watson and Wilkerson, attorneys, Woodville.
[11]
Abstracts for Charles B. Dudley, vol I, p. 99, 104.
[12]
Abstracts for Charles B. Dudley, Vol I, pp. 4-7.
[13] Lynda
Crist, p. 10
[14] Hard
Scrabble to Hallelujah Legacies of Terrebonne Parish, LA by Christopher E.
Cenac, Sr. with Claire Domangue Joller, p. 31.
[15]
Saunders, p. 28,29.
[16]
Political graveyard gives Duncan as a member of the house in the territorial
legislature in 1813 and no date as Lt. Gov.
[17] Lynda
Crist
[18] Duncan
Stewart by Saunders.
[19] America
the Great by Edward Hawkins Sisson.
[20] James
Monroe was inaugurated on 4 March.
[21] Duncan
Stewart by Saunders.
[22] Miss.
Contemporary Bio, ed Dunbar Rowland
[23]
National Intelligence, 5 Sept 1818.
[25]
National Intelligencer, 5 Sept 1818. The
National Intelligence was published in Washington, DC from 1810 until 1869.
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