162 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



The next place below Mr. Camp's, that I visited, be- 

 longs to the Messrs. Tilotson.^ From the river to their 

 sugar house, a distance of two miles and a quarter, they 

 have laid down a cedar railway, at a cost of $2,500, for 

 the purpose of conveying their sugar and molasses for 

 shipment. But whether it will prove profitable is a 

 mooted point.^ Others have tried the like, and have given 

 it up as a bad job. These gentlemen having been brought 

 up in a hay country at the north, think that they cannot 

 do without dry fodder here. So, every winter, they put 

 in some 30 acres of oats, harrowing the ground smooth 

 at the time of sowing, and after the oats are harvested, 

 they obtain a spontaneous crop of crab-grass hay, which 

 is very good, if mowed early, being the only kind of grass 

 that they can cultivate with advantage. 



After leaving Messrs. Tilotsons, December 19th, I 

 passed several very fine places, among which were those 

 of William Miner,^ John Miner,^ Henry Dogal,'^ (one of 

 the oldest, largest, and most successful sugar planters in 



^ Messrs. S. & R. Tillotson, sugar planters of New River, Ascen- 

 sion Parish, Louisiana. In a letter of January 3, 1850, Mr. S. 

 Tillotson mentions the adoption of new machinery which permitted 

 the making of the entire crop into white sugar, direct from the 

 cane juice. Cultivator, n.s. 7:119 (March, 1850). 



' This railroad is described in a letter of December 30, 1849, to 

 the Cultivator. At that time the Tillotsons estimated that the 

 stock paid fifty per cent per annum, and that the road would last 

 twenty years. The letter concluded : "Let us have a railroad all the 

 way from New-York to New-Orleans — then v/here could the Union 

 be divided? Ibid., n.s. 7:148 (April, 1850). 



^ William John Minor, of Southdown, Houma, Louisiana, born 

 in 1808; died in 1869. His half-sister, Martha Minor, married 

 William Kenner, a close relative of Duncan and George Kenner. 

 Arthur and Kernion, Old Families of Louisiava, 363. 



■* John Minor, son of William John and Rebecca Gustine Minor. 

 Ibid. 



° A Henry Doyle is listed in the "Statement of sugar made in 

 Louisiana, in 1844," Appendix 13, Annual Report of the Commis- 

 sioner of Patents, 1845, p. 880, as owner of a plantation between 

 John Minor and T. P. Minor, Ascension Parish. The plantation 

 sugar output is listed as 1.539 hogsheads, as against 812 hogsheads 

 for William J. Minor, and 350 hogsheads for the Tillotsons. 



