This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: DeBlieux Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/EEB.2ACE/783.1 Message Board Post: This is an interesting story of an McAlpin in Natchitoches Parish. According to Lyle Saxon in “Old Louisiana”, Lamy Chopin spent a few years in Europe in school, then returned to his fathers plantation. Robert McAlpin was the original owner of the 4800 acres plantation on the Red River which was described by Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. McAlpin’s body-servant was called “Uncle Tom.” Saxon wrote, “It was said that Harriet Beecher had visited McAlpin in 1840 or thereabouts, and had visited others in the neighborhood. At any event, a strange lady from the north had come to the Red River country and had been seen talking with the negroes in the fields, riding on the cotton wagons, watching the operations of the cottin-gin. A man in the town of Alexandria produced a picture said to be a portrait of Mrs. Stowe, and which bore the stamp of a photographer of Alexandria. A copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin autographed by the author and bearing the cryptic statement: Do you! recognize this? Was sent to Dr. S. O. Scruggs of Cloutierville. Dr. Scruggs was a neighbor of McAlpin’s…In 1892, forty years after McAlpin’s death, Judge D. B. Corley of Abilene, Texas, made a pilgrimage to the McAlpin plantation, located the cabin which had once housed the old negro called “Uncle Tom,” bo8ght the cabin from its owner, Mr. Lammy Chopin, and transported it bodily to the World’s Fair in Chicago!”…Judge Corley took a few affidavits. The first one is by Mr. Lammy Chopin, the son of J. B. Chopin, who bought the plantation at McAlpin’s succession sale. Mr. Lammy Chopon is living on the place now, but has built a new house, because a railroad has bought right-of-way through the plantation and the track passes close to the old McAlpin house. The affidavit follows: My name is L. Chopin. I am forty-two years old and was born and raised in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. In the year 1852, my father bought at public sale the Robert McAlpin plantation, situated on Red River in the southern portion of the parish, and moved upon the place shortly afterward. The occasion of the plantation being sold was on account of McAlpin’s death. He being a bachelor, the estate was wound up and the proceeds distributed among distant relatives. Outside of a few years spent in Europe at school, I have lived on this plantation all my life and until the Texas and Pacific Railroad ran through the place I lived in the old McAlpin residence. A portion now runs through it; the balance of the building is used as a section house. When my father first moved on the place, or at least a few years afterward, he had one of the two rows of China trees cut down because it made too dense a shade. After I assumed control of the place at my father’s death, I continued the work he had begun-tearing down and removing the cabins in the negro quarters-as it smacked too much of slavery. The negroes preferred living in different parts of the plantation, rather than in a group. The only cabin remaining is the cabin known as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” This I have kept intact and have religiously kept it on account of the tradition connected with it, which makes it the cabin that Uncle Tom occupied on the Legree plantation. Tradition has it that McAlpin was the Legree of Mrs. Stowe’s book. From all reports of white and black, he was a very cruel master to his slaves, and when drunk would abuse them dreadfully and is said to have caused the death of several of them. He was a very hard drinker and died from the effects of drink. He was buried on a little hill near the residence, and his grave can still be seen there, although very much dilapidated. His name is the only white man’s grave there; the place has always been and is still used as a plantation burial ground, and quite a number of negroes are buried around his grave. When quite young I knew the place as the Legree plantation and the cabin as Uncle Tom’s; and the fact is well known, not only here, but all over the country, as I have received many letters from different states, asking for pieces of boards from the cabin to be kept as relics. For years I have kept the cabin for the sake of its association with Mrs. Stowe’s book, without any thought of it ever being of any money value and without a thought of its ever being moved from the plantation, but lately I have been approached by parties from Chicago and New York who have offered to buy the cabin with the view of bringing it to the World’s Fair at Chicago. Those offers I refused, and refused at first to entertain any idea of its being moved to Chicago. But repeated representations were made to me that such a cabin, so closely connected with such a well-known book as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was in a manner public property and the opportunity should be given to everybody to see it. The document is singed by L. Chopin, and is sworn out before the district clerk on October 15, 1892.