# Childhood mystery re-appears with new developments



## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

I am 65. Between the time I was around 5 years old until I was probably 10, my family lived in what I remember as the most beautiful home on earth, a plantation home in Monroe, LA. that dated back to the 1800's. That home and property and a nearby school where I started to the first grade have ALWAYS seemed oddly associated with lots of fuzzy memories I've almost felt haunted by at times...bits and pieces of events I couldn't totally remember _nor ever forget._

What I'm about to share is only one such memory.

I guess being a extraordinarily impressionable child turns into a curse when, as an adult, you can't locate information to explain bits and pieces of strange memories and the people you could have asked are gone or don't remember things clearly.

Recently I was reading an article about an Indian culture, hidden from civilization for 3,000 years, so old it does not have a name, being discovered near Monroe, LA., in the 1940's and all that went into Poverty Point, this archaeological site, being developed and declared a state commemorative area. One sentence in this story hit me like a ton of bricks! Talking about excavating for artifacts, the story noted, *"There was an interesting rumor that a glass coffin had been found containing the body of a young woman."* I KNEW it was not a rumor.

I Emailed the author of the Poverty Point story to say that my father (in the mid-1950's) was working near where the coffin was unearthed, my parents went to a Monroe funeral home that night (along with hundreds of other people) to see the casket - it was not a rumor.

Very few cast iron coffins were ever produced. They were mostly popular around New Orleans, Monroe is in north Louisiana. They cost $50-$75 when most caskets cost $2-$4. From everything I've been able to find out, most (if not all) had glass inserts over the deceased person's face and upper body...and history has proven they preserved bodies miraculously well.

I researched some of this a long time ago but in digging around (no pun intended) recently I found a newspaper report about what happened, along with a few pictures and part of a name. By now the author of the article about Poverty Point and I were visiting several times a day!

The coffin that was accidently unearthed contained the body of a young woman who was so perfectly preserved that after 150 years, it looked like she was sleeping. She was small, she was wearing an ornate black dress and there was a wreath of magnolia leaves and blooms circling her face that were also still preserved. An engraved sterling silver plate attached to the coffin was damaged but her middle name and last name were readible, along with the date of her death. She was ___?____ St. Claire Wade.

The coffin was reburied the following day at a cemetery in Monroe. Needless to say, the author who wrote about Poverty Point has been as intrigued as I have been AND she has shared everything I've learned with her son who teaches at Berkley...now he, too, is involved. We're trying to find a first name or more information. We know there was a wealthy cotton farmer in that area named Wade who had four daughters but we don't have a name right now.

For over 50 years I sometimes thought about my parents mentioning this event but it didn't seem to fascinate them the way it did me...at least what little I knew fascinated me. It has been interesting putting more of the puzzle pieces together and maybe there is more yet to be learned!


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## Prairie Rose (Nov 17, 2011)

Thank you so much for sharing that story!
I found it fascinating!

I love history, so please let us know if you find out more!


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

Prairie Rose said:


> Thank you so much for sharing that story!
> I found it fascinating!
> 
> I love history, so please let us know if you find out more!


In researching this event, I stumbled across a blog I have instantly become addicted to. The writer, Elodie Pritchartt, lives in Natchez, MS., and a lot of her stories have roots in the deep south.

http://shantybellum.blogspot.com/

I'll get a link to her site - which is called Shantybellum.com Look at the entry dated February 2, 2012 regarding Prospect Hill. Things like that utterly fascinate me! Elodie also loves pets. She has 3 cats and 10 dogs...all strays people have "dumped" in her rural area. You might, if you love animals, find her story about the "Phantom".

Elodie has some photographs of a young woman named Clara Wade who lived around the time of my story but later we realized "St. Claire" was actually a family name, right now we don't know Ms. _____ St. Claire Wade's first name. I'm also trying to find out if this young woman may have died in New Orleans and then her body was transported back to north Louisiana for burial?

I do have another really poignant story to share when I get time that involves the elementary school, Georgia Tucker Elementary School in Monroe, where I started to school and a famous dog buried there - a dog that actually was known internationally. You might Google "Unalaska" and read the story.

I, too, love history - all the better if it concerns or involved my own family or someone I knew personally. I have chased down many events in the past that I've found intriguing...but I don't know if anyone else would be or not. The years we lived in the old Col. Frank P. Stubbs home in Monroe seem to hold more bits and pieces of mysterious or odd memories for me and you'd be shocked at the lengths I've gone to looking for answers! :confused0033:


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## Prairie Rose (Nov 17, 2011)

Totally fascinated...totally.

Even though I live in the far north central part of the country, I have always been interested in the South. Can't tell you why...I just am. 
As a kid, I inhaled books related to the South.

I was in South Carolina a few years ago on a trip, and I drove to Magnolia Plantation and spent an afternoon there. 
I also spent a day in Charleston (loved the outdoor market!). When I was back in my room that night watching the news, however, there had been a shooting near the market a couple of hours after I left, right near where I was. Holy crap!

Oh yes, you found an animal lover in me.  I have horses, have always had critters in my life. 

My father-in-law gifted me with an awesome piece of old paper a couple of years ago. 
Now, I live on the prairie and I love history, so this piece of paper is really special to me.

It is the original document for a 'tree claim' located just a couple of hours south of where I live. This is the land that his grandfather made a claim on when he came to the states as a young German from Russia.
I started researching it but can't get far on the internet, so will have to go to the State Historical Society and the State Library for help in getting more information. My FIL knows the general location of the place, but I want to pinpoint it exact and see if the current owners will let me visit for a look around. 
This paper has the official government stamp on it. Really cool!

My Dad came here from Denmark after WW2. He passed in 2001 and I still miss him dearly. I was daddy's girl. 
Several years ago his only living immediate family member, my Aunt, made me a tape in which she spoke of their childhood. It is a wonderful thing to have. She has also sent me some precious small heirlooms over the years, including a needlepoint that my great great grandmother made when she was 13, many old photos, and a 'hair braid'.

I often ride my horse in historical areas that have trails....you can FEEL the history around you best that way!


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## Prairie Rose (Nov 17, 2011)

I'd love to hear more about the Colonel Stubbs home!


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## Andros (Aug 26, 2009)

I DClaire said:


> I am 65. Between the time I was around 5 years old until I was probably 10, my family lived in what I remember as the most beautiful home on earth, a plantation home in Monroe, LA. that dated back to the 1800's. That home and property and a nearby school where I started to the first grade have ALWAYS seemed oddly associated with lots of fuzzy memories I've almost felt haunted by at times...bits and pieces of events I couldn't totally remember _nor ever forget._
> 
> What I'm about to share is only one such memory.
> 
> ...


I am also a history buff. Especially the Civil War era and all about the deep south.

That is some fascinating story. I have a feeling something might turn up. We have better technology today; DNA being just one drop in a huge bucket!

Thank you so much for sharing this w/us.


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

Prairie Rose said:


> I'd love to hear more about the Colonel Stubbs home!


In my memory, this house was very typical of what you think of as an old plantation home. My family rented half of the main house but there were a few other buildings still in use at the time including extensive stables and above them were at least two rented apartments. The estate originally included hundreds (if not thousands) of acres primarily devoted to cotton farming. At one time there had been hundreds of slaves and all kinds of barns, slave quarters, a place for cooking, etc.

I learned to skate and ride a bicycle in the central hall. My bedroom was so big I could ride a bicycle in it. Every room in the house had a fireplace and the ceilings and windows were extremely tall. For as spacious as the living areas were, our kitchen was about the size of a small laundry room today. Our "front yard" would have been measured in acres and across the street was a levee on the Ouachita River.

My first taste of disbelief came when I was in college, around 1965, in a town 30-40 miles from Monroe and I decided I'd make a sentimental journey back to the old _homeplace_...and to my utter dismay, there was not one board from the original house still standing. You cannot imagine my utter and profound shock! Col. Frank P. Stubbs had been, among other things, a devoted horticulturist and at one time the property was planted with every tree, shrub and flower that would grow in Louisiana. I would find out later that the only two original plantings still standing were two scraggly cedar trees. When we lived there, in the summertime, every inch of the house and the old stables was covered with purple wisteria. Everything was gone!

My mother (who never had any appreciation whatsoever for the old house) later told me she had known at the time my family moved that the house had been inherited by a dentist in Monroe who had no more use for it than Mother did - to them it was just a crumbling old relic. I didn't know until then that my mother's solid mahogany kitchen table had been bought for $20 from the dentist...nor that this same heir sold everything in the house and then sold the house itself to be demolished to build cheap apartments.

Several years ago I decided I was going to find a picture of this old home or die trying! I have chased down everything from a Stubbs family member to state archives at LSU to the Library of Congress and if there has ever been a picture I cannot imagine where it is today. The family member, a great, great, great (?) grandson, ironically an internationally renoun architectural preservationist, told me the greatest disappointment of his life had been the demolition of his ancestors' home - a place he would have given anything to restore.

I really never have stopped looking for information. Every so often I'll think of something I haven't checked out but the trail really is cold. There is a Monroe Garden District organization devoted to the grand old homes, etc., that once dotted the city and several members have helped me find people to contact but everything generally leads nowhere.

After my father died, my mother (knowing my total fascination with the old Stubbs home and that I considered the mahogany table a family keepsake) gave it to my brother, who wasn't even born until many years after we lived in Monroe. The table originally was in the hallway of the old mansion - I held onto it learning to skate. It nearly broke my heart when Mother gave the table to my brother...but then later he gave it to me and last summer I gave it to my daughter.

I guess if it weren't for that old table I might wonder if I'd really lived there or only dreamed it...but my years in that old house made a lasting impression! I could almost write a book about all the things I've learned from my research - weddings, births, deaths, even a murder after the Civil War that made newspaper headlines as far away as New York City - _and the house was demolished to build cheap apartments! _


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## Prairie Rose (Nov 17, 2011)

Aaaaahhhh!
Sacrilege!!!
I am so, so sorry the home was torn down and destroyed! Oh my gosh, that is so sad. 
My wish for you is that somehow, somewhere, you CAN find a photo of it.

I am so very glad you got the table and were able to pass it to your daughter.

In my life, I had a similar thing happen with a family heirloom that was so very precious to me. And my mother knew it. Guess who got it when my dad passed? Yep. My brother. It has since been wrecked beyond repair.

My daddy knew how much I loved it and told me many times it would be mine. However, it wasn't in writing. But my mom knew this......and didn't abide by it.

The heirloom was a grandfather clock. My dad inherited the clock when his mom passed away. It was shipped here from Denmark. 
My Dad's great grandfather hand made four of these clocks in Denmark with wood from the German Black Forest. Hand carved wood with hand carved lead weights and hand-made face. 
The clocks went to various family members, and the one in my dad's family was hidden along with other important things below a church on their during WW2. 
The one my dad had was made in 1861.

When the clock was shipped here after my grandmother passed away, it was dropped during shipping and sadly some of the wood cracked.

The clock stood in our living room as I grew up. Dad wound it every Sunday, and I loved to listen to the tick tock tick tock, and the clang on each hour. I did a pencil drawing of the clock as a teenager (thank God I did), that is very detailed and I hope captured it's elegance.

After dad passed and my mom gave it to my brother, it was tipped over many times and the body mostly fell apart. I am heartbroke. My brother still has the inner workings and the face and the parts of the case, but overall, the clock is destroyed.

Another heirloom my brother got is a beautiful old piano from my mom's dad. The piano is also pretty well destroyed. So sad. That piano had sat in the living room also as I grew up and I loved her ivory keys and clawed feet with matching bench.


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## Octavia (Aug 1, 2011)

Prarie Rose, that is so very unfortunate about these family heirlooms being destroyed. And even more unfortunate that they weren't given to you in the first place...someone who would have appreciated them and treated them with the care they deserved. Sad.

IDClaire - fascinating stories...looking forward to hearing more. I can picture you as a little girl skating in the house and riding your bike in your bedroom. Too cute!


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## webster2 (May 19, 2011)

Family heirlooms are a great thing to have. I am a minimalist. After sorting through things, I decided that I would get rid of all of our extra flatware sets, and use the real silverware that was passed to us from my husband's grandmother.

When my son was a 6th grader they had a unit studying French Canadian heritage and needed to bring 2 spoons to use to learn to play them, like a musical instrument. During the weekend before he needed them, I stressed how important it was for him not to lose them as they were heirlooms. On Monday morning, I started my spiel again, he was exasperated and said "I know they are hand me downs." One man's junk is an other man's treasure for sure.

How sad that house was destroyed and the contents scattered. We lived in Maryland, just outside of D. C. in a housing development, and in the center of the development was one of those grand plantation homes. I was fascinated by it. Coming from the north, I'd never seen any thing like it. I thought it was wonderful that it had been preserved.

IDC, you need to write a book!  It would be an interesting read.


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

Prairie Rose said:


> Aaaaahhhh!
> Sacrilege!!!
> I am so, so sorry the home was torn down and destroyed! Oh my gosh, that is so sad.
> My wish for you is that somehow, somewhere, you CAN find a photo of it.
> ...


They say misery loves company - I so deeply feel your misery, that's for sure! After my dad died and Mother decided she wanted to move, my brother and sister started openly discussing their plans to transport all the family keepsakes Mother had given them to their own homes. They had copies of a list Mother had made. At some point they'd gotten together with Mother and chosen everything they wanted...and I was never even told they were doing this. Mother claimed she just didn't think about me...as though that was supposed to bring me some kind of comfort!

For awhile it nearly killed me feeling so forsaken but ultimately I decided I really didn't care. My daughter is the only granddaughter and all Mother gave her was a relatively new set of inexpensive Christmas dishes.

Mother will come to my house and lament the fact that the few really valuable things we own were inherited from my husband's family - not my family! Go figure! The older I get, the less I care though! :anim_63: After cleaning and dusting all this junk for almost 50 years, the sentimentality I once felt wanes. If I had it all to do over again, I don't know but what I'd go a totally different route and live with as few material possessions as humanly possible!!


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## Octavia (Aug 1, 2011)

I DClaire said:


> Mother claimed she just didn't think about me...as though that was supposed to bring me some kind of comfort!


Yikes. How nice.



I DClaire said:


> If I had it all to do over again, I don't know but what I'd go a totally different route and live with as few material possessions as humanly possible!!


I could not agree more. I keep telling my husband I'd like a smaller house....a cute little brick "gingerbread" bungalow, or a nice "arts & crafts" style house. He reminds me that we'd have to get rid of half of what we own. I remind him that I don't care. And yet, we don't move. We don't even go house shopping. ???


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

Octavia said:


> I could not agree more. I keep telling my husband I'd like a smaller house....a cute little brick "gingerbread" bungalow, or a nice "arts & crafts" style house. He reminds me that we'd have to get rid of half of what we own. I remind him that I don't care. And yet, we don't move. We don't even go house shopping. ???


I have somewhat picked up on two ideas many or most men seem to share:

1. They have a total phobia against painting anything that even appears to be wood - like paneling.

2. Once settled in any comfortable place, a stick of dynamite won't generally get them to move! :anim_63:

I thought Paul and I would probably end-up in divorce court when I wanted to paint our dark, dingy panelled den and adjoining kitchen...then I did it and you'd have thought he was the poster child for painting paneling!

I could write a book (a comic book at that) about our house...and yet we have lived here for almost 40 years. Our house is, in many respects, so absurdly designed that one almost has to wonder if the architect had ever lived in a house???

My kitchen "pantry" is 16" wide, goes from floor to ceiling...and the shelves are probably 3 ft. deep. Think about it! I have to lie down in the floor and use barbeque tongs to reach almost anything on the bottom shelves and there is no safe way (other than a 6 ft. ladder) to access the top shelves.

I have a grand total of 6 ft. of counter space in the kitchen...and that is divided into three different places. 2 1/2 ft. in two places, 1 ft. next to the cooktop! The kitchen is tiny - the laundry room is so big we refer to it as the "Rear Foyer"! The "Rear Foyer" is bigger than the main foyer at the front door.

There is no place in either of our bathrooms for dirty clothes hampers. The electric heaters in the ceilings are so cold in the winter than our daughter bought a separate electric heater to use when she comes to visit!

Paul wouldn't move if someone gave him a new house! :anim_63: Unless it was on a golf course and/or had a 4-car garage!


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## Octavia (Aug 1, 2011)

I DClaire said:


> Paul wouldn't move if someone gave him a new house! :anim_63: Unless it was on a golf course and/or had a 4-car garage!


Maybe that's my problem...we live a block away from a small golf course!  (Then again, I think my husband has played that course twice in the 8 years we've lived here.)

Actually, we are very blessed - there is nothing wrong with our house other than the fact that it's bigger than we need, and our neighbors don't take care of their houses (which bugs me to no end). You could write a book about my neighbors - one right next door, and one two doors up in the opposite direction. I'll let you write it because I'm too frustrated to see the humor in it that this point!


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

Guys, it is coming such a storm tonight and I've been sitting here pursuing a clue from the coffin mystery that I'd forgotten about. The damaged silver plaque on the coffin bore the inscription "St. Clair Wade", the age as either 30 or 39, the date September 7, 1814...and a capital "H". From the beginning a local historian had suggested the deceased woman might have been one of a wealthy landowner named Benjamin Tennelle or Tennille's four daughters but that was all.

Tonight I started searching old genealogy records using the name Benjamin Tennelle. Bingo! The text is tiny but read the last few sentences.

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/a/n/Dana-Mann/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0217.html

This young woman could have been Mary St. Clair Tennelle (Morrison HUGHES) Wade, wife of Joseph Wade. I don't think she is listed anywhere I've looked as a daughter of Benjamin Tennelle or Tennille but I'll bet there is a connection.

Oh, and another weird connection! The same family (Col. Frank P. Stubbs) that owned the old house I told y'all about once owned the land where the coffin was unearthed. It was once called Magenta Plantation.

Last night I read Google listings for "Cast Iron Coffins" till I was nearly blind but that is quite an interesting subject if you like history.

Webster2 - there was another similar story from around Washington, D. C. that must have been publicized all over the U.S., a cast iron coffin unearthed with the remains of a young boy and how he was later identified.

These coffins are an interesting study in and of themselves.


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## Octavia (Aug 1, 2011)

ooooohhhhh....the plot thickens! This is so interesting!


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## SnoodMama (Jan 11, 2011)

Sorry to revive a week-old thread here, but IDC I also think you should write a book about it. Create a story in your head and travel back there in your mind. You write about it in such a awesome, spooky way.... it would be a great book!


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

SnoodMama said:


> Sorry to revive a week-old thread here, but IDC I also think you should write a book about it. Create a story in your head and travel back there in your mind. You write about it in such a awesome, spooky way.... it would be a great book!


Thanks for the words of encouragement. Actually I am writing something - an article I hope might get published in the same magazine that got me going with the cast iron coffin adventure.

I have a rough draft of the story down to knowing or believing I know the deceased woman's name BUT one discovery has led to others...now I don't know where to stop!! :confused0033:

Something curious happened Sunday night about all this. I was walking my pug when I ran into a neighbor who is a retired college teacher. I told him what I'd been researching and the minute I said Bayou de Seird in Monroe, LA., he looked like he couldn't believe what I'd said. It turned out his sister, who died something like 20 years ago, lived on Deseird St. near where the coffin was unearthed in 1955 - Dalton had all but forgotten the story and never really knew any details. It turns out the main contractor whose workmen accidently unearthed the coffin was the President of our local campus of LSU's father.

I've been away from home most of yesterday and today but as time permits I'm researching more about Almond D. Fisk who designed and patented the original cast iron coffins. His is an interesting and terribly tragic story in and of itself!!

Every day it seems like I have another question. Considering that the unearthed coffin was inside a brick crypt on what was once a sprawling corn and cotton plantation, where are all the other people who lived and died there buried? That general area today is extremely close to Northeast State University. The old plantation dated back many years before the Civil War. Where are all those graves?

It's an interesting study!! I will tell you that last night I had a horrible nightmare I'm sure was related to all the stuff I've been reading. :anim_63:


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

I've got to share another quick story. There was another story reported in the Chicago Daily Tribune on October 27, 1888 about a couple in Kansas who lost a young daughter on November 26, 1859.

Twenty-nine years later they decided to move to Montana and wanted to take their daughter with them. Her cast iron coffin was exhumed and it was reported that she looked the exact same way as the day she was buried, her cheeks were still pink.

In every case I've found, if the glass wasn't broken, the deceased person was perfectly preserved...even if they'd been buried since long before the Civil War.


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

Well...I have been published! :anim_63: I told my daughter when they make the movie I'm going to recommend her for the part of Mary St. Clair Tenneile Morrison Wade - that there won't be any lines for her to memorize!!

This has been the most fun I think I've had in 10 years or more. People have been calling and writing all morning to say they enjoyed the story. It feels so odd to think about something other than my health that it is actually hard to think about it too much.

The owner of the website, Shantybellum.com, wants me to start my own blog but I think I'm a Johnny One Note - I only know a couple of other good stories, but they are also a little weird!! :winking0001:

If anyone wants to read what I wrote, here 'tis!

http://shantybellum.blogspot.com/


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## Octavia (Aug 1, 2011)

I read it....I loved it!!!!!

Very nice work, IDC!!!!


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## I DClaire (Jul 31, 2011)

Thanks, Octavia. ALL I did yesterday was answer Email and calls regarding the story. Several of the calls were from people near where I live who as children had heard a little bit about what happened but never any details.

Some day I'm going to write a whole lot more about this subject. It seems like each individual account I find leads me to another. I've attracted the attention of a Federal judge, a doctor and the vice-president of a TV network in California who are all Civil War buffs. One had no knowledge of this event and the other two had only heard rumors.

I've always admired people who had vast experience with or knowledge of some odd subject. Maybe this will become my claim to fame! :anim_63: If I don't get my hacienda cleaned up and some food on the table my husband is probably going to file for divorce!!


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