172 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



about 2,000 arpents, under cultivation, and 350 hands in 

 the field and 750 in all, upon the place, under the manage- 

 ment of Capt. Sheafer, a very intelligent and pleasant 

 gentleman. It takes 150 horses and mules to work this 

 place, which is rather under the usual number upon other 

 plantations. The last crop, which he considers "almost a 

 failure," was 1,100 hogsheads of sugar. ^ All the land on 

 the river is measured by arpents, which contain, within 

 a small fraction of 18 per cent, less than an acre. 



I counted in one "quarter," (the name given to the ne- 

 gro houses,) upwards of 30 double cabins, all neatly 

 whitewashed frame houses, with brick chimneys, built in 

 regular order upon both sides of a wide street, and which 

 is the law, must be kept in a perfect state of cleanliness. 

 Feeding the force on this place is not quite equal to feed- 

 ing an army, but it takes nine barrels of pork every week, 

 which, at an average of $10, is $4,680, per annum, cash 

 out, for that item alone. The regular allowance of pork 

 to all field hands, is four pounds, clear of bone, per week, 

 with as much corn meal as they can eat, besides molasses, 

 sweet potatoes, vegetables, and occasional extras of fresh 

 beef and mutton. Children's rations, IV^ pounds of pork 

 per week, and full supply of other things. This place 

 being in a bend of the river, the front is comparitively 

 very narrow, (34 arpents, or about 28 to a mile,) and 

 "opens out," as the lines run back, like a fan, which is 

 the way that all the lands were originally laid off. On 

 points, on the contrary, the lines run together in the rear, 

 the fan opening the other end foremost. 



ter. Served in South Carolina legislature. Governor of South 

 Carolina, 1852-1854. On staff of General Beauregard during Civil 

 War. Elected to United States Senate from South Carolina, 1865, 

 but with other southern senators, not allowed to take his seat. 

 Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of the United States, 5:346-47. 



' According to the "Statement of sugar made in Louisiana, in 

 1844," Annual Report of the Commissioner of Patents, 1845, pp. 

 880 and 881, Colonel Preston's plantation on the right side of the 

 river, Ascension Parish, produced 358 hogsheads of sugar. His 

 plantation on the left side of the river produced 1,966 hogsheads. 



