Childhood memory resurfaces - in a cast iron coffin.

I was trying to convince a friend and neighbor to start a blog when I realized I never saved a copy of the first story I ever wrote, a true account that opened so many doors, the greatest being getting to know Elodie Pritchartt who shared my story on her incredible blog, Shantybellum, and got me semi-hooked on the idea of writing.  I want to save this story.






I also want to update this somewhat.  One of my cousins who lives near Monroe told me at Thanksgiving, 2015, that another cast iron casket has recently been unearthed in the same general area as the one I wrote about.  It seems a homeowner got more than she bargained for having a swimming pool installed!!

Childhood memory resurfaces

...in a cast iron coffin

 

The story I am about to share is true, historical and some might  say rather dark.  The fact that it led me up the front steps to Shantybellum.com to ring the doorbell and ask  about pictures of magnolia trees seems a bit funny now but I’ll always consider meeting Elodie Pritchartt to be my personal  legacy from a mysterious young woman  who died almost 200 years ago.

 

I was 9 years old, living in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1955.  No one had ever heard of cell phones back then, no one carried a camera.  Something happened one day that those who knew about  firsthand probably never forgot but nobody else ever knew anything about  unless they happened to read one  account in the local newspaper.   It happened one day and was pretty much over and done with the next day...but the memory has haunted my thoughts  for over 55  years.

 

My father was working that day on the campus of what was then called Northeast Louisiana State College.  Nearby a construction crew laying a water line to a home being constructed along Bayou DeSiard, off Lakeshore Drive, accidently hit a brick tomb or crypt  and the entire enclosure collapsed, revealing a cast iron casket which had a glass viewing window, protected by a removable  cast iron plate,  over part of the top.  The body inside  the coffin was in perfect condition, so well preserved that even a wreath of magnolia blooms and leaves encircling her  upper body was still intact.

 

The coffin was taken to a Monroe funeral home the day it was unearthed where  my parents, along with hundreds of others, went  that night to view it.             

 

The young woman had been petite, she was buried in an exquisite black silk dress that was clearly visible as was a lace handkerchief and reportedly a diamond ring on one hand.  Unfortunately the glass window  was cracked when the bricks collapsed and the body began to show signs of decomposition so it  was hastily reburied in a Monroe cemetery the following morning.

 

The ornate Fisk coffin still bore traces of orange and black paint.  There was a sterling silver nameplate engraved “St. Clair Wade” that listed the woman’s age as either 30 or 39 and the date September 7, 1814.  The nameplate was also damaged but there was a capital “H” and other small, indistinguishable letters before the St. Clair but no other information.

 

A local historian named John Humble said he thought there was a good chance the woman could have been one of Benjamin Tenneile’s four daughters, a family that had once lived on the property where the coffin was found when it was part of the Magenta Plantation, previously owned by Col. Frank P. Stubbs’ family before the Civil War.

 

In searching genealogy websites for information regarding the Tenneile family, it didn’t take long before I found a biography on genealogy.com for Benjamin Tenneile, born around 1750 in Prince William County, Virginia, who died June 30, 1811, in “Bayou de Siard, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, LA.”

 

 

Naturally I would find this tiny text around 11:00 P.M. but there was no mistaking what my tired old eyes were seeing in the last paragraph.  “In 1955, while workers were laying a water line for a home being constructed on Lakeshore Drive in Monroe, a brick tomb was accidently unearthed.    On the casket was the name “St. Clair Wade”, age 30 or 39, and the date September 7, 1814.  The property had at one time belonged to the McEnery family and was called Magenta Plantation.  It was thought at the time that the young woman may have been Mary St. Clair Morrison, wife of Joseph Wade.  The connection with the Tennille or McEnery families is not known. “

 

There is an early entry in the record books of Ouachita Parish in 1809 that says “The first marriage license to be recorded in Ouachita Parish was in 1809 when John Hughes, a farmer of Bayou de Siard, was authorized by law to celebrate the privilege of marriage with Mary St. Clair Tennille.”  Continuing to search, I realized Benjamin Tennille never had a daughter named Mary - he had a daughter named Mira...the mystery woman was indeed Mary Catherine St. Clair Morrison, daughter of John McCagg and Sarah Ginn Morrison.  Mary Catherine married Joseph F. Wade but had no children. 

 

Considering how many times Benjamin Tennille used the name “St. Clair” in naming his eleven children, one has to believe there was a definite connection between the Tennille and Morrison families but there is no doubt in my mind that the young woman in the coffin was not one of Tennille’s children.   Other than the distinct possibility that the Tennilles and the Morrisons knew each other or were somehow related, these are two different families. 

 

Mira St. John Tenneile - born in 1790

Jane St. Clair Tenneile - born in 1792 - died August 24,  1882

Nancy

Margaret St. Clair Tennille

Rachel St. Julien Tennille

Hannah Simmons Tennille

Benjamine Sydney Tennille

Elizabeth Tennille

Melinda Tennille

Robert Francis Tennille

Madison Hall Tennille

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later I discovered that there were several graves from an adjoining plantation known as Limerick that described one grave marker as Jane St. Clair Tennille Hughes, her husband General John Hughes and Madison Hall Tennille.  I also know that at some point Limerick Plantation was owned by Judge John Theodore Ludeling and Magenta Plantation was owned by Frank P. Stubbs...but that would all play into another story! 

 

 

So, with that, I finally felt like I had found closure for  the bits and pieces of a strange, mysterious story a 9-year old child’s impressionable mind would hold onto indefinitely but the realization that this was  but one such story of men, women and children buried in Fisk cast iron coffins whose remains were later found to be perfectly preserved has led to a desire to learn more.

 

How did this story lead me to Elodie’s front door?  In researching the partial name “St. Clair Wade”, one historian somewhere along the way referred to “St. Clara Wade”.  Elodie had posted beautiful old pictures of a young woman in Natchez named Clara Wade.  Guess what Clara had in her front yard?  Two huge magnolia trees.  Two heads are better than one but that’s not saying much when two women who have probably watched too much Law & Order  try to figure out what “St.” could be an abbreviation for or why Clara Wade would have been in Monroe?  

 

It’s been interesting and fun putting the puzzle pieces together and I am so happy to have gotten to know Elodie.   The realization that Frank P. Stubbs had once owned Magenta Plantation as well as The Stubbs House on Riverside Dr.  in Monroe got me interested in finding out more about him...which led to the 1881 murder mystery!!