Matagorda Dringling

Matagorda Commissary. Photo by Poor William

By POOR WILLIAM

Clarksdale, Mississippi

Recently, I had the privilege of taking a covey of local ladies, superbly seasoned with intellect, on a Delta Bohemian® Back Road Excursion. Identities can’t be revealed as they might eviscerate me with a literary quill, and I hate when that happens! These grand dames must and will remain anonymous!

This flaneur, idle man-about-town, can attest that the ringleader is a self-described dringler, one who enjoys wasting time. She may dringle, but she ain’ always engaged in such nefarious behavior. She was a thinkin’ and workin’ machine back in the day, and she still thinks and works, but just not for the proverbial “man!”

Said fair lady decided to treat her own fine self along with two erstwhile friends to a DB Back Road Excursion, even though she has long been a late-afternoon rider. See, even local folks with years of experience chasing sunsets can enjoy seeing parts of the county they have yet to visit. Her main request, other than a good time exploring Rumsfeld’s known unknowns, was to visit the site of the historic Matagorda Plantation.

I visited the no-longer-there plantation home north of Jonestown, MS back in the early 70’s during a birthday sleepover for a classmate with family connections to the infamous house. I vividly remember walking up the dusty, wide-as-an-axe-handle staircase to the vacant second floor. There was nothing tangible in the home except for a young boy’s fear of seeing something that wasn’t supposed to be there, possibly a specter-laden chimera. I don’t believe in haints, but I sure am afraid of ‘em! Where’s a portable bottle tree when ya need one?

Matagorda haunted me for more than just a moment after the late-afternoon visit. I had a hard time sleeping that night only a few miles away, afraid as if something from the Southern gothic home had attached it’s non-corporeal self to my childish but very real fears.

I remember visiting a long, rectangular shed on the property said to have been servant quarters. Someone pointed out what appeared to be manacles; I didn’t stick around. All that is left today of the fabled plantation home is what appears to be the old commissary.

Col. D.M. Russell founded the home after the Civil War. Russell bought 120 acres and built a two-room log cabin. He named his plantation Matagorda, after a particular type of long-stapled cotton. Both land and home were later expanded.

The storied plantation is steeped in intrigue and Delta whodunits, including the son of a famous Civil War General adopted by D.M. Russell and second wife Maggie, who married her adopted son when Col. Russell died. The new couple had two sons: John Bell Hood and Robin Hood. When John Bell Hood died, Robin was renamed John Bell Hood, after his older brother.

The outlaw Jesse James reportedly spent a night in the commissary on a trip to the Delta with the intention of robbing a prominent Friars Point citizen. James was recognized and persuaded not to carry out his plan. Starting to get how wonderfully serendipitous the Delta is?

Sparky Reardon, my high school English teacher and recently retired Dean of Students at Ole Miss, Pride of ALL the South, told Madge and me a few weeks ago over a brew (hush, he ain’ the dean anymore) at the Lamar Lounge in Oxford, MS that he penned a piece about Matagorda Plantation while writing for the Clarksdale Press Register during the summer of 1972.

I searched for it on the old microfiche at the Carnegie Public Library in Clarksdale and given the luck of Poor Williams everywhere, it was the only page not scanned from that day’s paper. Undaunted, I am still searching and researching. Stay tuned for more info on Matagorda in a few weeks, ladies and gentlemens, the plot thickens like a good file’ gumbo…pw

Matagorda Plantation home. Photo from Elizabeth Rodgers Collection