•Part 1
It was a delightful outing, the one my better half and I took last autumn to Westfarms Nursery situated on Highway 450 between Folsom and Franklinton. Involved in an ambitious landscaping project at our little place in the mountains, my husband and I were hunting for a passel of plants to transport to Tennessee. And we located the perfect size azalea that I had in mind - the Bella Red - the Westmorelands' own line that they developed and trademarked just as they did the Lela Belle azalea which is pink. I fell head over heels for both.
As my dear friend Anne Magee Jackson declared, "They won't stop blooming." That is the azalea we should all have. And Rodney and I departed with a truck load.
For the record, Westfarms is an expansive retail nursery with an abundant variety of quality shrubs, trees, and more. But last September we acquired more than plants, we found friends in nursery owners Dale and Lynette Westmoreland who run their burgeoning enterprise with their son Matt. Their beloved late daughter Katie Westmoreland McCain had also been a large part of their nursery, where she enjoyed the plants and flowers and worked hand in hand with her family. It was my pal, and their cousin, Anne who added, "Their nursery is perfect." And new customers - Rodney and I - wholeheartedly agree. Yet, perhaps what I enjoyed most was my lovely visit with Ms. Lynette. She is most kind.
The daughter of J.H. and Sylvia Foster, Lynette thoughtfully informed that she had been reading, with genuine interest, my published pieces on The McDougall Place that ran in August of last year. Her husband Dale descends from the Yates; his mother was Lela Belle Yates (1920-1994) who married Clyde Willis Westmoreland (1918-1979). As is often the case in Washington Parish, the people and places are interconnected. But before I launch into ancestral ties, I would be remiss if I did not mention that Clyde Willis Westmoreland served his country as a Sergeant in the U. S. Army in World War II. And wife Lela Belle Yates was a Specialist First Class in the U.S. Navy.
In fact, according to Anne Magee Jackson, Lela Belle Yates was the inspiration for her cousin Doris Yates Magee (Anne's mother) who followed her into the Waves. Something both Lynette and Anne shared with me - three Yates men married three Gardner women, thus making Lela and Doris triple first cousins.
A refresher from my previous write-ups: John Mousley Yates (1844-1922), who hailed from London and settled in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, married Sarah Jane Blocker with whom he had eleven children. Among them, Charles Murray Yates married Willeta Gardner; Daniel Edwards Yates married Pauline Gardner; and Frederick Whithurst Yates married Camille Gardner. While Frederick and Camille Gardner Yates are Anne Magee Jackson's grandparents, Charles Murray and Willeta Gardner Yates are the grandparents of Dale Westmoreland. Digressing, a double first cousin myself, I can relate.
While I will refrain from perseverating on the piece on The McDougall Place, which some of my Brumfield forebears settled in the beginning, it bears mentioning that Turkey Road where my friend Anne Jackson lives is the Eastern boundary of what was known as the MacDougal/McDougall property. Highway 450 cuts in half the original land that her Grandfather Yates owned, and her mother Doris Yates Magee was born in the original three-story home on the property, as were all her siblings with the exception of their oldest sister Margie Yates Jenkins (who was born in St. Tammany Parish). So it stands to reason that I connect this particular neck of the woods with the Yates. Branching off what I know as MacDougal Road, are Brumfield Road, Yates Road, and also W Farms Nursery Road, which brings me back to the Westmorelands - Yates descendants.
What Ms. Lynette shared next fascinated me --- the Westmorelands have acquired what was the Edwards Place, what renowned historian Daunton Gibbs referred to in his article published in "The Era-Leader" in December of 1976 as "A Cornerstone of the Parish." While I may have mentioned the historic property in passing, heretofore I have not featured it. But I always meant to - there is a time and a place for everything. And it arrived when, color me lucky, I made the acquaintance of Ms. Lynette. Of course, I can't relay the significant history without the assistance of the late Daunton Gibbs whose article, which my parents kept in their files, is invaluable in this endeavor.
As we know, Washington Parish came into being on March 6, 1819, by Act of the Louisiana Legislature. And the home of Col. Daniel Edwards built in 1810 occupied a strategic spot, as the survey line was set. According to Mr. Daunton, "The order of survey was as follows: The line to begin at David Robertson's on the Tangipahoa River and run to Daniel Edward's on the Tchefuncta, then to Strawberry Bluff on the Bogue Chitto and on to the west side of the Tchefuncta, he found that the house faced east and that the line ran through the center of the house. To begin his line across the rugged Tchefuncta River swamp, the surveyor set up his instrument on the front porch in front of the center of the hallway."
Accordingly, the Col. Edwards home stood sentinel, half in Washington Parish and half in St. Tammany Parish with the establishment of the former in 1819. But the home's historic importance continued. It later became part of Tangipahoa Parish when in 1869 the part of St. Tammany and Washington Parishes situated between the Tchefuncta and Tangipahoa Rivers became part of Tangipahoa Parish. Mr. Daunton concluded that the Edwards home was the only one known to him to stand either "partly or completely in all three parishes." Its location was preeminent with the Great National Road - what was known as the Turnpike to locals - which ran from New Orleans to the Midwest in the era prior to steamboats, running just to the west of the Tchefuncta River, right in front of the Edwards home.
•Stay tuned next week for more on the Edwards place.
