Rosedown Plantation National Register of Historic Places Listing

Daniel Turnbull had money. In 1834, he and his wife Martha began building Rosedown on thousands of acres of fertile West Feliciana Parish soil, fueled by the brutal, highly profitable engine of cotton production and enslaved labor. By the 1850s, more than 450 enslaved men, women, and children worked these fields and maintained the massive Greek Revival mansion. They hauled the heavy cypress timber. To keep up appearances, the Turnbulls traveled to Europe, buying up marble statues, custom-made furniture, and exotic plants to show off their massive wealth.

Martha Turnbull loved plants. But she didn't actually dig the dirt or haul the soil herself enslaved workers did all the heavy lifting to realize her grand horticultural visions. She kept meticulous diaries. These journals survived, offering a highly detailed record of Southern gardening before and after the Civil War. The gardens grew to cover 28 acres. We still see her influence today in the sprawling camellias, azaleas, and the eerie, moss-draped oak alley that leads straight to the front door.

Rosedown didn't burn. While Union troops damaged nearby properties, this estate somehow survived the war relatively intact, though the family's fortunes quickly crumbled afterward. They lived among ghosts. Then, Catherine Fondren Underwood bought the decaying estate in 1956. She poured millions into restoring the mansion and the gardens, eventually leading to its state-protected status today. It is not just a pretty house, though. The site forces visitors to confront the stark contrast between the beauty of the imported marble and the forced labor that paid for it.