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The story of Melrose Plantation, the families connected with it, and its restoration is one that mirrors—almost to the letter—the Creole history of Louisiana.
The term Creole was originally used to identify those “born in the colony,” not in their country of ethnic origin. Later, Creole, in its broadest sense, referred to various combinations of French, Spanish, African, Indian and Caribbean peoples and cultures. Located in the Cane River National Heritage area of Louisiana, most recently Melrose Plantation served as the home and workplace of famed “primitive” artist Clementine Hunter. Melrose has been chosen as one of the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios sites by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the preservation and restoration work there is being done in conjunction with the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches.
The daughter of a former slave, Clementine (pronounced Clementeen) Hunter was a Creole mixture of Austrian, French, Irish, Indian and African American. She spoke a Creole dialect for many years until her second husband taught her English. Clementine Hunter worked at Melrose Plantation first as a field hand picking cotton, then as a cook serving the artists and writers who frequently stayed at the plantation during the first half of the twentieth century. Clementine Hunter was the first self-taught artist to receive the Rosenwald Fund Fellowship in 1945 and the first African-American artist to receive national media attention. Her paintings and murals depict life on the Cane River and many of them, including murals, can be found today in various buildings at Melrose. She is Louisiana’s most famous female artist and one of the most important folk artists of all time. Her work can be seen at the Smithsonian Institute, the New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum of American Folk Art in New York and the Oprah Winfrey Collection in Chicago, among many others.
When Clementine was 50 years old, one of the visiting artists at Melrose, left some paints for Clementine to throw out. Instead, Hunter began painting. Her first painting of a Cane River baptism was done on an old window shade and she went on to national recognition from there.
PHOTO COURTESY OF the Francois Mignon Collection, circa 1940
The present day six-acre site of Melrose includes nine buildings, 300-year-old oak trees, indigenous plantings, hundreds of Japanese magnolia, tulip trees and chartreuse pink, with cone flowers, irises and various gardens. However, at its height, the extent of the plantation was thousands of acres. Its history begins with a fascinating slave woman.
The Melrose Plantation history has three distinct chapters and is one that encompasses the rich and variegated history of colonial Louisiana and the “gens de couleur libre” or free people of color. In order to understand the importance of this piece of land, it is imperative that one understand how it all began. The community in which Melrose is found, called Isle Brevelle, was founded in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, a French Canadian who was instructed by the French to set up a colony. One of his children, born in the colonies in 1742, was Marie Therese Coincoin, a slave. When St. Denis died, she and four of her Franco-African children were sold to Claude Louis Pierre Metoyer, a Frenchman. Evidence points to the fact that these four children were fathered by Metoyer. Marie Therese eventually had of fourteen children.
Born in 1886 on a plantation called Hidden Hill (the basis for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin), Clementine Hunter died in 1988 at the age of 102 near Melrose Plantation where she’d lived for all but the first 15 years.
PHOTO COURTESY OF the Francois Mignon Collection, circa 1940
In 1780 Metoyer freed Marie Therese and, over the next four years, all her enslaved Metoyer children. He deeded her a parcel of land on the Cane River. It was the first piece of land in the Melrose Plantation property’s growth. Later, the king of Spain ceded her a larger piece of land on Old River. In 1796, her son Louis obtained a large grant, the present Melrose Plantation, which Marie Therese held for him until he was free and able to own property. Her other sons were established on their own tracts of land. Melrose historian, Francois Mignon wrote, “Among other sterling attributes, Marie Therese was endowed with unusual energy and intelligence. This resourceful woman with her sons and her slaves worked valiantly clearing the land, building roads and fences, cultivating indigo, tobacco, corn, cotton and other crops and raising cattle, to achieve a successful plantation operation.” She also worked to purchase the freedom of two of her black children and at least one of her grandchildren. Her children went on to found the community’s churches, schools, businesses and places of entertainment. Today, St. Augustine Catholic church, founded by her son Louis, is the spiritual center and heart of the community.
The second chapter of this story revolves around another remarkable woman, Cammie Garrett Henry, wife of John Hampton Henry. Melrose passed to white owners after the economic upheavals of the 1840s, and changed hands again after the civil war, coming to the Henry’s in 1884. Under “Miss Cammie’s” influence, Melrose became a colony for artists and writers. Many lived in the restored buildings over the years, among them, writers such as William Faulkner, Lyle Saxon, Sherwood Anderson, Alexander Woolcott, Harnett T. Kane, Rachel Field and many others. Here, also, lived Francois Mignon, author of Plantation Memo, who arrived for a six-week visit and stayed for 32 years. It was here that Clementine worked as a field hand, and eventually went on to become the most renowned painter in Louisiana. Melrose was obviously a place that nurtured creativity in everyone who went there.
At its height, Melrose was the largest pecan producer in the United States. Now, although there are still some native pecans on the grounds, most of the pecan trees are Stewart pecans planted in groves.
PHOTO COURTESY OF Sonny Carter, CGHRC
Miss Cammie wanted to return Melrose to its former beauty, making it a repository of arts, crafts, history and legend.
“It was a fabulous program Miss Cammie laid out for herself,” wrote Mignon, “maintaining an extensive household, replanting and extending the Melrose gardens, rescuing the colonial buildings, accumulating a library, reviving local handicrafts, taking care of elderly Creole neighbors. A journal of old days, portraits and heirlooms had to be preserved. A collection of scrapbooks had to be increased.”
Marie Therese Carmelite Anty Metoyer’s portrait, painted circa 1830. She was the wife of Auguste Metoyer and the granddaughter of Marie Therese Coincoin.
PHOTO COURTESY OF the Pat Henry Jr. Collection
Francois Mignon standing in the Big House at Melrose next to the portrait of Augustine Metoyer, the son of Marie Therese Coincoin and Pierre Claude Thomas Metoyer, painted circa 1830.
PHOTO COURTESY OF the Francois Mignon Collection
It is this energy and precise cataloging that made it possible to maintain and preserve all the buildings and grounds, returning them to their original state. In 1970, the Henry family sold Melrose Plantation to Southdown Land Company who donated the buildings and immediate land to the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches. In 1974 it was declared a National Historic Landmark. The buildings that represent the major part of the trust are each representative of a different period and building technique.
Yucca, built in 1796, was the original house built at Melrose and incorporated locally available materials. The hand-hewn sills, sleepers and uprights are of virgin cypress. The walls are constructed of mud from the river bottom mixed with Spanish moss and deer hair. Refurbished by Cammie Henry, Yucca has housed more of America’s notable authors and historians than any other single residence in the south. The African House, built around 1800, is a strange looking construction reminiscent of the straw thatched huts found in the Congo. It is, in fact, the only Congo-style structure in North America. Built in a two part construction, the lower story is of brick baked in place and the upper story is built of thick hand-hewn cypress slabs. It was used a combination storehouse and jail for slaves. Clementine Hunter painted a series of murals on the walls of the upstairs that are a flowing depiction of life and work on the banks of the Cane River. The restoration of the African House and the Yucca house was deemed a Save America’s Treasures official project in 2002.
Among the preservation tasks that Cammie Henry took on with the help of the writer Lyle Saxon, was the restoration of Yucca House (below center), the original plantation house built on the Metoyer land by Marie Therese and her sons in 1796. According to Francois Mignon, shown standing in front of Yucca House, the cypress logs were felled from the local virgin forest, hand trimmed with the broad axe and seasoned for six years. African House, built around 1800 (inset right), was for years used as a goat pen and then a lumber room and general plantation catch-all for cast-off gear and discarded household furnishings. It was given a new lease on life when the tin roof was replaced by Cammie Henry and the gardens around it were replanted. In the 1950s the upper floor was made presentable as a gallery for Clementine Hunter’s paintings. The land around the Big House (inset left) in the lean years during and after the Civil War was tilled and planted with cotton right up to the porches and walls. After the financial upheavals of the 1840s, the plantation fell out of Metoyer hands and became the property of the Hertzog family, finally coming to the Henry’s who employed Clementine Hunter as a field hand.
1st PHOTO COURTESY OF the Melrose Collection, circa 1910, other PHOTOS COURTESY OF the Francois Mignon Collection
Construction was started on the new house, or what is now called the Big House, in 1833 by Louis Metoyer and completed by his son. It is a standard Louisiana-plantation style building with the lower floor being constructed of brick and the upper story of wood. The twin hexagonal garconnieres and the kitchen wing were later added by the Henry family.
Maxine Southerland, past president of the Association for the Preservation of Historic Nachitoches and chairman of Melrose from 1978 to1990, had a great deal to do with the grounds and plantings around Melrose.
All along the base of the sweeping front porch, nandina and azaleas are planted with a low border of monkey grass. Although there were extensive flower gardens during the Hunter years which included irises, now, for the most part, the flower plantings are mainly irises. They love the moisture and are far less labor intensive. In addition, there are also ginger lilies and white nandina for color. Also on the grounds are many pecan trees.
One of the reasons Yucca house was given that name was a reference to the large number of native yucca plants on the original property. These were all cleared over the years to make room for gardens, buildings, farmland and lawns. Monkey grass is planted along the walkways as a border, and many persimmon trees. To the left of the African House is a small garden.
At the back of the house are hearty lantana plants, plus more nandina and azaleas. Monkey grass lines the brick walkways that were installed by the association. During the Henry years, Cammie planted lots of trees and shrubs all over the property. She also had three flower gardens, at least, in addition to vegetable gardens. Unfortunately, because of the issues revolving around the maintenance of the site, many things were removed for ease of care.
PHOTO COURTESY OF the Francois Mignon Collection
Over the years, either vegetables or flowers were planted there including irises, lantana and coxcombe. Monkey grass is planted in the low beds.
Cammie Henry added the light fixtures near each building in 1935. Since visiting artists and writers that might not know their way around the grounds. Those same light fixtures are still in place. Although highway 119 runs in front of the main house now, one can see the river from the second story balcony. The river, which is a short 25-feet from the road, is still lined with trees and shoreline grasses.
At present the archaeological digs around Yucca House are intended to get an overview of the plantation’s history. By sifting through objects in the soil they can determine when it was actually occupied, whether there were other people in the area at the time and what the land was used for.
PHOTO COURTESY OF the Sonny Carter, CGHRC
The third chapter in the Melrose history, and by no means the last, is the preservation work that has been done to make sure that Melrose, a precious relic of Louisiana history, remains in all its glory as a part of the living present. Cammie Henry died in l948 and the work that she began was continued by Frank Mignon, the writer who came for a short stay and stayed for 30 years. Melrose had changed radically from the time that the Henry’s took possession of the land. Before the civil war, the free people of color had their own status which, though harsh, still left them with some freedoms and protections. However, reconstruction was quite horrendous and during that time, many gens de couleur libre found their land being taken away from them in bits and pieces. Melrose, at its height under the Metoyer family, comprised 2000 acres, deboted to cotton.
Cammie Henry proceeded to plant everywhere, and under her stewardship the grounds became wild and lush. She also transported other historical buildings such as a bindery and weaving house which, though they weren’t originally part of Melrose, had great historical significance. In addition, she began to put together scrapbooks detailing the everyday facts of plantation life, both past and present. To these, she added photographs that either she took, or were taken by others. A large library was being collected as well, one that had many first hand accounts of everyday events in the area. It wasn’t until after Cammie Henry’s death that Francois Mignon decided to make it his life’s work to begin to catalog all this history into a comprehensible and organized collection. He not only guided Clementine Hunter’s career as it grew to national fame, but he began to take an interest in making sure the plantation was preserved for future generation’s of Americans to enjoy. On July 23, 2005, a 50th anniversary party will be held in honor of Clementine Hunter at Melrose Plantation to celebrate the murals she painted in African House in 1955. It’s an event not to be missed!
The lush grounds of Melrose plantation go right down to the Cane River. Shortly after the original grant, the U.S. Congress ordered the Great Raft, a 100-mile logjam north of Nachitoches, removed to make travel further north possible. By 1835, the main channel of the river began to shift, and by the 1870s the Cane River was effectively isolated and only open to riverboat traffic during the rainy season, leading to Melrose’s decline.
PHOTO COURTESY OF the Francois Mignon Collection
Clementine Hunter's Work
Since Clementine Hunter couldn’t always afford canvas, she often painted on nontraditional surfaces, including window shades, bottles, cardboard and brown paper bags. She described her painting in the introduction to The Joyous Coats—A Fable—Cane River, Louisiana, which she illustrated.
“I have never been much for navigating the highways. I spent all my free time painting. I often would get up at nights and mark off a picture and paint it.
Sometimes I would be asleep and see a picture cross my mind, then I would wake up, get out of bed and mark it off. Nobody ever taught me one thing about painting. I just worked it all out gradually by myself.”
Clementine Hunter painted what she knew and loved. Favorite subjects included cotton picking (she said she actually enjoyed picking cotton), wash day, pecan gathering, Saturday nights, church scenes and her favorite flowers, zinnias.
Her works are simple, the style being known as naïve or folk.
“As her hands grew more crippled with arthritis,” says Robert F. Ryan, MD, sharing his reminiscences of Clementine Hunter, “she refused to paint on small pieces of canvas board as it was too hard to hold them. This problem was solved when I glued a wooden tongue depressor to the pieces. She called these ‘lollipops’ and holding them by the wooden sticks, she gladly painted such small pieces.”
She was illiterate so she couldn’t sign her name to her paintings. She began to initial them by copying the initials of Cammie Henry, but she worried that it would cause confusion, so she made a backwards “C”.
Over the years the backward “C” worked its way across the “H”, until Hunter’s identifying initials became uniquely her own.
National Trust
National Trust’s Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios
The Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios is dedicated to helping American art-related historic sites to preserve, document and interpret their collections and buildings. Begun in 1999 as a pilot project funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, the founding group of 29 members was very successful, and they were officially launched in April of 2002. The unique group of sites participating in the grants illustrates the settings where some of America’s most significant artists were inspired to create sculpture, paintings, ceramics, furniture and photographs.
Appreciation
Many thanks to the following people and groups who were so helpful in putting this article together:
The Cammie G. Henry Research Center (CGHRC), Watson Memorial Library, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Sonny Carter, Tom Whitehead, Mary Lynn Warnett, Maxine Southerland, Dr. Sue Weaver, Nancy I.M. Morgan and Iris Harper.
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