MySource:Jlanoux/Shaffer Family and Personal Memories

Memories, by Marguerite L. Shaffer Granbury [b. July 1863, d. Mar 1939]

[untitled, 40 holographic pages, written in brown fountain pen ink on lined note paper]

[p. 1]

Capt. John Jackson Shaffer, Captain 26th La Infantry C.S.A. Commanded Braxton [Bragg] Camp at Thibodaux, La., United Confederate Veterans.

He was senior warden of St. John's Episcopal Church, Thibodaux, La. Also member of the church councils.

M. L. Shaffer Granbury, dau of Capt. Shaffer, was appointed on Good Roads Committee by Gov. of Va.[?] but did not accept it.

Appointed by the Gov. of La. to help the Near East Relief.

Life member Memorial United member United Daughters of the Confederacy. Belle Chasse Benjamin[?] Memorial United Confederate Veterans

[p. 2]

Capt. John Jackson Shaffer fought in the battle of Bayou Chickasaw with distinction near Vicksburg, Miss. under General Stephen D. Lee. He was Capt. Co. F, 26th La. Infantry commanded by Col. Winchester Hall.

Graduated at Western Military Institute, Lexington, Ky., 1851.

The name of Blain, who was a teacher of his, appears on Capt. Shaffer's diploma. See Col. Winchester Hall's 26th Louisiana. He was living at the Bull Run Plantation home during the war between the states when he had to leave his beautiful loving wife & children. She was the bravest of the brave.

[pp. 3-6 missing]

[p. 7]

It did not seem to be the style at that time to have many flowers in [the] main big yard around the house, but instead they were planted in the vegetable gardens & mostly on the banks of the ditches & out of the way of the general cultivation. Usually when visitors (in the family) came, strolls were taken to the garden to see the flowers, specially roses which always grew there [sic] very best in the vegetable garden.

I must not forget to tell of an instance which my oldest sister Effie said she remembered seeing when a child. Some visitors came to call at my grandmother's, a bride among the number of ladies, & Effie said the bride had on her full bridal dress of white material of some kind and was also wearing her white tulle bridal veil & walked (with this costume on) into the garden to see the flowers. I could scarcely believe such a thing could happen until I went to France & out to Versaille[s] & I saw this very thing in

[p. 8]

in broad daylight (a bride & groom strolling thru the walks). I could scarcely believe my eyes, but immediately "thot" of what Effie had said of the bride coming to Crescent Farm plantation dressed like that. Upon asking about (what was to me such an unusual thing) I was told that it was a custom in particular class, for the wedding couple to come first after the wedding & stroll about the beautiful grounds of the Trio non -- the King's Palace Grounds.

All from the big yard & divided off were numerous smaller yards fenced off for ducks, turkeys, geese & chickens, the chicken yard was quite large with a big chicken house as my grandfather was a great lover of fine poltry, he was specially prepared for it. The place for the turkeys was a yard with a high fence & called a turkey fort.

[p. 9]

The fowls, it seemed to me, were raised without much effort, each yard having an attendant & they vied with each yard, as to which one could be the most successful.

On the opposite side of the big yard was the barn where the feed and grain was kept for the stock employed about the farm.

A large long house was built with quite a few rooms, all opening on a wide gallery, & this house was the hospital, where the sick slaves were sent, to be taken care of.

On the side of the big yard next to the garden stood a very pretty small cottage, paint white (as all the houses in yard were painted) & this was called the office. It had only one [or] two big rooms with fire places wide enough to put several huge logs where a cheerful fire could throw out its splendid heat.

An arbor was built directly in front of the cottage, going to the gate & all filled

[p. 10]

with vines in glorious bloom & on each side at the gate grew graceful crepe myrtle trees of delicate pink. I can see them now.

One very important building not far away, having its own big lumber yard, was a two-story sawmill, as all the lumber used on the place for building purposes was sawed out & dressed on the plantation. Even the large residence was built with that kind of lumber so it was unusually heavy and full. The logs came thru the swamp & thru the canal (made for the purpose), huge logs after passing thru the canal were drawn up an incline to the 2nd story to be sawed up. The canal & swamp held huge rafts of logs tied & nailed together, resting & waiting their turn to assend [sic] the incline, pulled up by a chain attached securely to it, the incline was very steep. Many times I watched the load going up &

[p. 11]

a man would be seated on the log, never seeming to think of an danger in "taking the ride," but if only one of the links had broken, he would have been a "dead nigger," as the chain that seemed so string was only as strong as its weakest link, so many times I looked and shuddered as I looked at the careless man for he was not allowed for he was not allowed to ride up on the logs.

All the slaves seemed to have real respect for "Old Master" & perhaps love (as far as they were capable, I suppose), for sometimes after sugar making and they were all paid off & happy they took "Old Master" upon their shoulders and carried him home while shouting & singing in all their glee. Or if he was in his buggy, they took out the horse and attached themselves to the buggy and pulled "Old Master" home as a [blank half-line] of their great reverence and respect. Then of course he would treat them all to a Xmas drink or some little present, for they always prized

[p. 12]

even the smallest present more than anything.

One of the old slaves, however, was not as true, as he might have been during the war & one day he watched Old Master put something (money or letters) in a bee hive in the garden & he told a Yankee officer, who went and took the bundle & read the letters from Old Master's boy, Captain John Jackson Shaffer, 26th La. Infantry, Co. F, which Regiment was at that time fighting at Vicksburg with honor during the siege & at the battle of [blank space] bayou, where the 26th fought with destruction. One of Capt. Shaffer's letters referred to Butler (Ben) as "old hell-begotten Butler" and grandfather was arrested for having such in his possession. The trial came off & my grandfather got back the money & letters, many of those letters written by my father, Capt. Shaffer, during the war to my mother Minerva Ann (Cantey) Shaffer are in our possession today. The letter I have was one to my mother (about "old hell-

[p. 13]

begotten Butler") & not the one to my grandfather, & altho I said he got the letters back I am not sure that he did, but the money was returned (about $700), as I remember it. He became a very successful businessman cultivating a large sugar plantation of many thousand acres which he named "Crescent Farm Plantation." He got much of it from the U.S. government, buying smaller places in [the?] market place & farm land & adding them to his plantation. I believe he bought other land also, as I have some communication between Mr. Minor & Wm. Alexander Shaffer about some land lying between Southdown, Hollywood & Crescent Farm for which my grandfather Wm. Alexander Shaffer bought for $20,000.00 -- twenty thousand dollars. From the communication, I learn that Mr. Minor wanted to borrow $20,000.00 & Wm. Alexander Shaffer wanted to buy the piece of land so they traded. I do not know if the trade was ever. [?]

[p. 14]

The Plantation looked like a little village, but at first, a perfect wilderness.

Since he was very fond of nature, he loved beautiful trees & brought many foreign [trees] to this soil & had very beautiful land, he planted later many Lombordy popular trees about the sturdy live oak. There was a very large orchard with luscious oranges, plums of many varieties, rhattocks (now grap[e]fruit), bananas, and so on.

When my sister Effie & I were at school in Ky., Father sent us a barrel of those grand oranges, of which we gave many to our teachers & girls in the Stuart school where we were boarding. The youngest Trotter[?] boy, & two of the Professor's David Todd Stuart sisters, Florence & Annie, became our dearest friends while there.

Surrounding the wonderfully made large brick sugar factory were the quarters (houses for the slaves) with a church & a large brick kiln where I often saw the brick piled up (in

[p. 15]

certain ways pertaining to a kiln) to dry in the sun. Sun-baked bricks from which the sugar house was built & walks & foundations, there seemed to be an abundance of brick about the place.

The houses for the slave quarters were built in rows with shacks between like a town, & each house had its garden, yard, [and] chicken house, which they could cultivate at their leisure. They were allowed half of Saturday & a mule to plow & hard wood for the winter. Having much wooded land, all that necessary was to get it, which most of them did & piled & corded it by their houses. There was also a boarding hose for the transient people who came to work just thru the grinding or rolling, as it still called, because the sugar is made after extracting the juice, mashed out between heavy rollers after the cane is ground up. In olden times, only open kettle brown sugar was made, the thick syrup put in tanks to granulate, then put up in hogsheads (used at that time in place of barrels were used) & a

[p. 16]

cooper or 2 were employed to make the hogsheads on the place in a place called the cooperage. All the stores and other necessities were made & put up into the hogsheads which held [black space] times what the present barrel holds.

Quite a large store was necessary on the place also as the sugar began to be refined & white sugar made, more competent workmen were employed, and a big boarding house became necessary to feed & house the men who came for the grinding season & many things gradually had to be changed, specially the process of making sugar & some new & expensive machinery required. My grandfather, however, managed to keep up with everything modern required and at the time of his death -- in his nineties -- b. April 1796, d. May 5th 1887 -- he was considered one of the state's most successful business men.

It all comes back to me so vividly as Tonite

[p. 17]

I can see so many things that happened then & one of the things that stands out is the wedding of my young Aunt Isabelle Shaffer to James Fields of Maine (a very cultivated, refined man whose [blank space] was with the South & he joined [blank space] Company & fought for the South). [Transcriber's note: The wedding was recorded as taking place 22 Dec 1867 in Lafourche Parish.]

their wedding took place Xmas Eve in the old home at Crescent Farm and the elite of the parish was in attendance. Candles galore & a band played dance music, the front gallery was canvassed in & dancing there in the candle & moonlight was an unusual sight, nothing ever was as lovely in an old plantation home than tall, tapering candles giving their soft beautiful light. The big, wide hall was also the scene of gay dancing.

The back gallery was also canvassed in & supper was served there, where ropes of cedar trimmed about with wreaths of beautiful flowers helped to make it look festive. "Be Happy" was made in large letters of green & were placed up on the canvas, or

[p. 18] it may have been "May You Be Happy," but in my childhood days only "Be Happy" stands out in my memory today. I can see the brilliant occasion as if it took place only yesterday.

My recollections of the bride (considered the most beautiful woman in the parish) is very vivid -- tall, lovely & exquisite in her white satin dress & long white tulle wedding veil, as forward came the couple (to stand beside a little table, where the minister stood waiting), followed by two dainty little nieces, Effie Shaffer & Belle Brooks, flower girls, who wore white dresses made with little sleeveless Ealon jackets & a long piece of white tulle, tucked in at the shoulder & flowing in the breeze as they walked, each carrying an exquisite little nosegay made round & surrounded with lace. One was presented to the bride & one to the groom after the ceremony. I am glad the memory of it is with me still because it was the only affair of such brilliance I eve witnessed in the old homestead.

[p. 19]

And my mother in her own beauty & attractiveness & personality stands out above all but the bride. Aunt Belle had blue eyes & light brown hair was slender and tall.

This wedding was my first social event. I was four or five years old, but everything is very clear before me today, as if it only happened yesterday.

The next big event in my life was an afternoon reception given at the old home by my grandparents (Mr. & Mrs. Wm. Alexander Shaffer). There one of the old "At Home" cards was[?], which I will pin here when I come across it later. The reception was in honor of another bride, Anna Pelton (reared in Paris) who had just lately married my uncle, Thomas Jefferson Shaffer in [blank space]. [Transcriber's Note: Thomas Jefferson Shaffer married Anna Powers Pelton, 23 Apr 1868 in Terrebonne Parish.]

I only recall a few things that happened, however, I tasted ice cream for the first time & of course I did not forget that. It seemed that my mother was very much beloved by her in-laws & was always asked to take charge & put things "thru."

[p. 20]

She was very young herself but she seemed to know just what to do & just how to do it. I can see my dear mother now, so lovely in a black taffeta-made princess trimmed down the front with black & white bugle beads put on a narrow braid & used in diamond shapes down the entire front, like this [drawing of a cris-cross pattern]. It was very stylish & very refine & elegant, too.

Everybody in the parish that worth while was there & thus ended for me another very lovely affair at Crescent Farm. After the couple married a few years, they took quite fancy to me & asked my parents to give me to them, said they would send me to Paris to be educated, but my parents knew if I went -- I would be educated at the same convent in Paris that Anna Pelton had gone to & as our religion was different, it did not appeal to them & besides they said they could not part with even one of their children. I never could see what there was in me for two families to want, & while I could

[p. 21]

never belong to them, they often borrowed me for different periods of time (as they had no children then).

For some unknown reason to me again, my grandmother seemed to like me, too. (I must have been more lovable when I was young.) Anyway then as now, I always prided myself on being truthful, I laid great stress on it & nothing in all my life misused[?] me more than to have my word doubted, & to this good day I feel the same about it.

My grandmother Emily Bourgeois (Mrs. William Shaffer) d. 17 Dec 1874] often sent for me to come & stay a few days (& sometimes longer) with her. I remember her so well the last few years of her life and [am] glad now if I gave her any comfort or pleasure, as in those last few years, she became a semi-invalid. My sister and I went off to Ky. to school & some [time] after our grandmother passed beyond, in Jan 1874. Being young, we were deeply depressed by her passing as we were that same year to receive another telegram telling of the death of our

[p. 22]

mother's mother death (Mrs. Thomas Singletary Cantey).

Effie and I were taken to Ky. to school by our aunt Lizzy Brooks who was taking her own two daughters (ed note (jls): Carrie and Belle) up to Shelbyville Ky to school. Intending to leave Belle up there with Effie and me, we went in March and stayed away several years alone - as in the first summer when my Aunt returned she brought Belle back home & we never knew why we were attending the same boarding school that my two aunts (Belle & Lizzie) went to, while my father & his two brothers, Wm. & Thos., went to Lexington, Ky. to the Western Military Academy or School - They lived at the home of Senator Randle Lee Gibson. My mother's mother was buried near Baton Rouge, La., and my father's mother was buried in St. John's Cemetery, Thibodaux (Protestant). Her tomb, like my grandfather's, is a handsome white marble tomb, with names & dates for each tomb.

My grandfather died years later, April 1887. A special car carried his remains to Thibodaux & the slaves[!!] who wanted

[p. 23]

to attend the funeral going on the same special car that carried "Old Master's" remains from his plantation in Terrebonne Parish.

The planters had built a branch R.R. to the Southern Pacific, from Schriever (then Terrebonne Station) to Houma, It went thru Crescent Farm Plantation and was called the Houma Branch R.R. The train was chartered for the funeral, as was a train chartered coming out of N.O. to bring the remains of my Uncle Wm. Lafayette Shaffer to Thibodaux. The chartered train was thru the courtesy of a lifelong friend, Mr. Wm. Owens.

Wm. "Billy" Shaffer had died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the Phister Hotel. Wm. Shaffer was buried in [the] same lot as his parents, quite large, but now filled with tombs of the family, the lasts one having passed.

The original lot was bought from Mr. Kee and added to after my grandmother was buried. It is enclosed in a very nice iron fence & the tombs are placed thus: [drawing of the layout of the family plot but the names assigned to each tomb are not legible]. When my mother passed beyond, she left in her will

[p. 24]

$1,000.00 to keep up the John Jackson Shaffer Mausoleum & if anything was left of the interest on the $1,000.00 after being invested, then it could be used for the rest of the cemetery. The cemetery association (of which I was made president until I resigned the 2nd year) invested the thousand dollars in bonds & twice a year draws the interest, which is applied to any necessary work to be done on the mausoleum.

Some years later, when my Aunt Belle (Shaffer Field) Saunders died, she willed some bonds to the cemetery assoc., the interest to be used on Wm. Alexander Shaffer's lot (her father) and I am very thankful they did this for it guarantees the upkeep of the lots.

One of our dearly beloved sister, Annie Laurie (Shaffer Bartlett) Van Syckle, is buried way up in Bound Brook, New Jersey, on the Van Syckle lot, much to our regret.

One of our brothers,John Dalton Shaffer, is buried in Houma, La., in Magnolia Cemetery where his family is buried on a large lot

[p. 25]

I often heard my mother speak of the passing of [[1]] army thru the Chacahoula swamps, woods, & bayous, on their way to Mansfield where the battle was fought & won by the Confederates. Mother said, "As Banks' army passed our Bull Run plantation, it was a brilliant sight, splendid new equipment, uniforms glittered with gold braid & long fine swords clanking as their sides, all horses & trappings were equally as splendid, even the wagons all covered over & so splendidly fill[ed] were a great sight, they stopped as they passed our home & asked mother where her husband was & she replied 'at Mansfield, waiting for you,' & on they went to return a little later after the Battle of Mansfield was won by the Confederates. It was entirely a different sight, their wagons all battered with covers all lopsided, horses all tired out, & the equipment of the soldiers damaged terribly by the battle, uniforms tattered, gold

[p. 26]

braid all tarnished, men with dirty unshaved hungry faces which looked longingly towards the hen house, & how my dear young mother could have been so brave I do not know, but she stepped in front of the hen house & outstretched her arms across the door & said "You cannot come in here except over my dead body these chickens are all I have for my little children." However, she said to them, you can have those old hens in the coop," but they spurned what they "thot" were old hens & left them untouched (where in reality they were just young chickens put up to fatten). They killed all the hogs & put them in their wagons & stole any number of hogsheads of sugar from the factory, even took one of the wheels off the carriage & threw it in the well, but the old faithful slave, Wash, found it & and later mother went to N.O., claimed the sugar, and got the money for it. She was as brave as any soldier, remaining on Bull Run Plantation with her little children &

[p. 27]

all alone, except for a housekeeper who remained with mother all during the War between the states."

Once my uncle, Wm. L Shaffer, & his wife were on a visit to Galveston & met a Presbyterian minister & his wife, Rev. & Mrs. Bunting, & they said their daughter was engaged to a Mr. Shaffer in Indiana who claimed he had relatives in La. that he had never seen, & that remind me, that when my uncle Wm. L. Shaffer left school in Lexington he came thru either Indiana or Ohio to visit Shaffer relatives who had a country place with fine horses but would trust their driving to no one. However, they did let Uncle Will take the girls to ride behind some of their fine horses. I guess he had his relatives fooled some way & they must have thot he had had a lot of experience.

Gen'l David Hunter Strother, related to my grandfather, Wm. Alexander Shaffer came thru Benjamine Strother, midshipman in U.S. Navy, & Col. John Strother, who m Elizabeth Pendleton [Hunter] . [jls Research note: This relationship to Wm Alexander Shaffer is not very close.]

[p. 28] [[Person:David Strother (1)|Gen'l David Hunter Strother ("Port[e] Crayon") was on the Union side in West Va. He wrote for the Harper's Magazine & illustrated for it, stories of the South.

I once heard that Confederate soldiers on some train heard the Butcher boy calling out their new magazines & he said Harpers with Gen'l Strother's latest story of the South, the old Confederate called to the boy, selected all his Harpers Magazines, & threw each one out the window.

I remember, when a child after the war, none of us were ever allowed to speak of Gen'l. Strother unless with bated breath, being related to my grandfather & on the Union side, we did not appreciate his talents as we might have done. He became very distinguished later, being sent to Mexico as representative of [the] U.S.

I have a wonderful lot of Strother papers that he sent to Mrs. McLean (Clara Victoria Dargan), whose mother was Mary Strother, dau of Col Wm Strother & Catherine Dargan & sister to Gen'l William Strother of Militia S.C. [jl research note: Clara is the grand-daughter of Mary Strother and John Dargan. She is the daughter of Kemp Strother Dargan.

[p. 29]

The Newark, New Jersey, library has books about [the] Shaffer home at Shepherdstown, Pa. The old Shaffer home had the first water works in America. "Shaffer" translated is "Shepherd." I don not know yet if there is any relationship, but I will try to find out.

During the time of the American Revolution, the British came to Winnsboro, Fairfield Dist.,[South Carolina,] on their way to Yorktown & hearing this the men of the Shaffer-Strother house left thru the back door & lost themselves in a palmetto thicket, as the British officers approached their house. They were notified (of course) of the approach of the Red Coats by a signal (a boy had ascended a tree & was told to whistle if he saw any coming of the Red Coats) & in this way our ancestors escaped. But the British officers were very angry not to find them at home & upon seeing some milk gourds on a shelf suspended from the wall & a rope or cord holding the shelves, he

[p. 30]

the British officer cut the cord with his sword & down fell all the milk. He had gotten his lace ruffled sleeve in the cream when feeling about in the gourds to satisfy his curiosity if any money was in them. When he cut the cord, letting down the milk, old Aunt Strother became very angry & reached for a long-handled frying pan & struck at the officer. Missing him, she struck the jamb of the door, leaving a big dent, which my grandfather said he often saw when a boy.

I am trying to find out just who this Aunt Strother was. Oh, there are so many things I want to know. I am sure that time was Oct 1881[?] when Cornwallis' army was passing thru Winnsboro, S.C. on their way to Yorktown, where Cornwallis surrendered. [jls research note: The Yorktown surrender was 19 Oct 1781. There were battles in the area near Fairfax County.]

They had surrounded Winnsboro & given the order to put to death or put in prison all the natives who refused to take up arms against their countrymen, & many were put in prison & chained with heavy irons. Some

[p. 31]

died during the hot days of summer & Wm. Strother, a great patriot, was one who died in the Camden prison. I would like to find out if this Wm. Strother was the husband of Catherine Dargan & my ancestor.

The (Militia)Gen'l William Strother did not die until 1834 son of the [long blank space] above. His father died ca. 1783? So the judge in Camden said when he sent me a copy of the will of William Strother from Camden. The will was so old and rat-gnawed, a few words were missing.

My grandmother, Hepsibah Elizabeth (Strother) Shaffer died of pneumonia in 1803 when she was 22 years old in Winnsboro, S.C., Fairfield Co. She was short, a little stout, & had Titian colored hair. Some of the Strother & Dargan homes were among the chains of forts at the time of the Revolution.

There were 3 Strother brothers. Geo died unmarried. Charles m[arried] Mary Cross, lived in Charleston SC. Wm m Catherine Dargan lived at Winnsboro, S.C.

[p. 32]

They came from Fairfax, Va., after Braddock's defeat 1755 to Saluda & French Broad River & settled a little farm called to this day "Strother" on the Southern R.R. They had a lot of blooded stock but only had them for their own use.

William Strother was born 1730 & died about 1783. His will was dated 1779. (I have a copy from Camden.) He married Catherine Dargan dau of Timothy Dargan & Catherine Lee (or Lide) of Amelia Township, later Knotaway County, Va. [jl Research Note: Nottoway was a parish in Amelia County, Virginia. It became a separate county in 1788. However, in South Carolina, Amelia Township was changed to St Matthews Parish in the 1730s. It is the seat of Calhoun County, SC]

The above Wm. Strother founded the Mt. Zion Society at Winnsboro, S.C., which today is a public school. Their children were:

1. Gen'l William m. 1st ______ Coleman; m. 2nd Sally Woodward. 2. Kemp Talliaferro 3. Richard 4. Catherine m. ______ Pope? Was this Aunt Pope? Who went to Miss.? 5. Mary m. (her cousin) John Dargan 6. John Dargan Strother (one of three brothers) noner[?] (the youngest) [jls Reseacher's note: This list is not sourced. Only 4 children are named in the will: William, Kemp Talliferro, Catherine, and John Dargan. Richard Strother is a partner in some land purchased, which is then left to the children by the will.]

[p. 33]

After 80 many years away, my grandfather, Wm Alexander Shaffer, returned to Winnsboro (on his way to Washington to visit President Cleveland). He was accompanied by his much beloved brother-in-law, Col. John Ferguson Wood, who had married his sister, Hepsibah Elizabeth Shaffer, named for her mother, who died 1803. She was bout 2 or 3 years old, having been born in 1801.

After arriving in Winnsboro, Wm. A. Shaffer went out to see the old home place. The house had been burned & only the stone steps remained. He went to the old well & quenched his thirst, as he had done many a time when he was a boy. Then he visited the hillside where his mother & other relatives were buried & cut a cane from a tree close to the grave of his mother. When he first arrived at the old home place (the old couple living there who had heard of his visit & that he was coming to claim it) came down

[p. 34]

to the gate greatly distressed, thinking he had come to try to claim the place, which they had bought long ago, but my grandfather soon calmed them with the assurance that he had only come to visit the old home place & had all the land he wanted in La. He did not tell them but he could have told them he was the owner of one of the very finest sugar estates in La.

He, Wm. Alexander Shaffer, was born in May 1796, left Winnsboro, S.C. (after his mother died) with his father & came to Miss. & La. His sister m. 1st Thos. Archer, issue 1 son. Thomas Archer much beloved. She, H. Elizabeth Shaffer, m. 2nd Col. John F. Wood. Col. Wood & wife & young Thos. Archer were buried in Shelbyville, Ky. because she died there when she took her 2 nieces, Belle & Lizzie Shaffer, up to school. She died with pneumonia (as her mother did) [research note(jl) KY death certificate says Typhoid] & her 2nd husband was taken there & buried, also he son, Thos. Archer, had died & was buried in La. on Crescent Farm Plantation (the first one to

[p. 35]

be buried on the land set aside for the white people) & when he was moved to Ky., no one else was ever buried there..

At the time of the death in 1853 of Thomas Archer, there was no land set aside for Protestants to be buried, only one for Roman Catholics, so eventually my grandfather bought the lot in Thibodaux in the Episcopal churchyard at St. John's Church Cemetery, in Lafourche Parish, which was nearly 20 miles from Crescent Farm Plantation, being only seven miles from Magnolia Plantation, the place my grandfather bought in 1874 from the bank in N.O. & it is still in possession of the family -- the old home place where the three remaining living children make their home. A beautiful, well kept old home where most our youth was spent in happiness. Since the passing of our dear sisters & brothers, much of the life seems blurred, & without our dear beloved parents, sometimes life seems too sad.

[p. 36]

I find that a William Strother & wife, Mary ______ lived at Winnsboro, S.C., & I am sure they were the parents of John Shaffer, my great-grandfather, as my grandfather, Wm. Alexander Shaffer said he was named after his grandfather William & so he named his own sin John after his father.

[research note (jls): She is confused here. William Strother would not be the father of John Shaffer. I have not found any reference to William & wife Mary. All of the following pages are unreliable - names and people are jumbled up.]

I have some papers gathered (by a friend in Chester Co., S.C.) on her visit to Winnsboro Court House. She is Mrs. Eliza Wiley, descended thru the Dargans. She has been so lovely to look up papers of Strothers for me & I feel very much indebted to her. I will pin some of the papers here when I come across them. [Research note (jl): These papers have not been found.]

Tradition thru my grandfather said his grandfather died at Winnsboro, leaving a wife, several daughters -- one, Isabelle, for whom my Aunt Isabelle Shaffer was named -- & several sons. His widow decided to leave Winnsboro for Lancaster, Pa., Ohio, or S.C., which place I never knew, but she did leave & her son, John Shaffer, stayed in Winnsboro with his

[p. 37]

own little family. My Aunt Belle & Lizzie Shaffer thot one of their Shaffer aunts had married a Pope & come to Woodville, Miss., as an Aunt ______ Pope did come to Woodville, bringing [a] little baby girl, Hepsibah Elizabeth Shaffer (my grandfather, Wm. A. Shaffer's, sister) with her until the baby's father, John, came on later with his son, Wm. A. Shaffer.

So we always thot Aunt ______ Pope was a Shaffer, but I find Elizabeth Strother m[arried] a Pope & so many Strothers & Popes came to Miss., I am inclined to believe Aunt Pope was Catherine Strother. I have communicated with some of the descendants of the Strothers & Popes of Miss., but cannot receive any answers to any letters written to anyone at the Court House in Woodville.

[p. 37 - number repeated]

When Mrs. John Shaffer [nothing further written on this line].

When Hepsibah Elizabeth Strother [Shaffer?] died in 1803 in Winnsboro, S.C., she left a boy b. 1796 April, & a little baby girl named for her mother, Hepsibah Elizabeth Shaffer, b. 1801.

The baby was sent after awhile to Woodville, Miss., with Aunt ______ Pope, who kept her until her father, John Shaffer, came for her & bringing his young son in 1810, for he soon came to La. with his children & went to Prophet's Island, Thompson Creek, where he died with look join[lockjaw, i.e. tetanus] after a few years in La. He died around 1814-15 [jl research note: John Shaffer died January 1811] & was buried there, leaving his two young children to struggle for themselves with a family named Alexander, who were not very friend[ly] to the children, so Wm. A. Shaffer left to shift for himself. Missing his dog he went back a mile for him & in a short time went back for his little sister, who (they said) the Alexanders made to take care of the Alexanders' baby, & neither of the Shaffer children liked that. They later were with kind friends of John Shaffer

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(their father) named Mills & James[?] Lilly who were very kind to them. One of the Mills family bought the plantation just opposite Thibodaux & my grandfather became his manager & falling in love when about 30 with Emily (Milette) Bourgeois, whose sister, Anastasia Bourgeois, had married old Mr. Benjamine [sic] Cross who owned "Orange Grove" plantation back of Thibodaux on Bayou Ses.[?] When Wm. A. Shaffer married "Milette" Bourgeois in 1829 Jan., he rented the St. James plantation & there they lived until several of their children were born -- my father, John Jackson Shaffer, being one of the children.

St. James plantation was just opposite Orange Grove where her sister lived. Later, Wm. A. Shaffer bought Crescent Farm from [the] U.S. government & they lived there and reared their family & both Mr. & Mrs. Wm. Alexander Shaffer died there on Crescent Farm Plantation. The house was built around 1836?

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Tradition handed down by mouth of my grandfather, William Alexander Shaffer, says that Aunt ______? Pope who came to Woodville, Miss., from S.C.was very wealthy and brought all her slaves Down South in covered wagons, stopping on the way to rent land to make crops for the slaves & cattle or stock. (My, what an undertaking -- when today it could be done in such quick time.)

In later years, in his beautiful home on his splendid Crescent Farm plantation, Wm. A. Shaffer had the pleasure of entertaining one of the young sillies[?], who fell in love with my sister, Effie, but it soon passed as we heard he had been drowned in the Miss. River? John Shaffer died about 1814-15 of lockjaw from cutting his hand, after cutting a piece of rawhide. He owned boats (freight) than ran on the Miss. River.

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The library at Newark, New Jersey, has books (or a book) about the Shaffer home. It had the first water works in America. I believe a picture of the house & grounds is in the book & perhaps something of the Shaffer family.

Shaffer translated is "Shepherd." I wonder if they were shepherds?