Nottoway Plantation
Louisiana, USA
Nottoway Plantation, also known as Nottoway Plantation House is located in White Castle, Louisiana, United States. The house is a Greek Revival and Italianate-styled mansion built by John Hampden Randolph in 1859, and is the largest extant antebellum plantation house in the South with 53,000 square feet (4,900 m²) of floor space.
John Hampden Randolph was born in Virginia in 1813, a member of the prominent Randolph family. He migrated with his family to Mississippi when his father, Peter Randolph, Jr., was appointed a federal judge in Woodville, Mississippi by President James Monroe in 1819. Randolph married Emily Jane Liddell in 1837 and went on to have eleven children. John Randolph devoted most of his time to his cotton plantation, but believing sugar production would be more lucrative he decided to move his family to southern Louisiana in 1842 where he purchased a 1,650 acres (6.7 km²) cotton plantation that he named Forest Home. Converting the plantation to sugar production two years later and constructing Iberville Parish's first steam powered sugar mill was able to triple his earning over his cotton production. Within ten years he had increased his holdings to 7,116 acres (28.80 km²) and owned 176 slaves making Randolph one of the largest slaveholders in the South. In 1855 he purchased an additional 400 acres (1.6 km²) of highland, and 620 acres (2.5 km²) of swamp of Mississippi River-front land where he sought to build a more prestigious home that he named "Nottoway," after Nottoway County in Virginia where he was born.
John Hampden Randolph was born in Virginia in 1813, a member of the prominent Randolph family. He migrated with his family to Mississippi when his father, Peter Randolph, Jr., was appointed a federal judge in Woodville, Mississippi by President James Monroe in 1819. Randolph married Emily Jane Liddell in 1837 and went on to have eleven children. John Randolph devoted most of his time to his cotton plantation, but believing sugar production would be more lucrative he decided to move his family to southern Louisiana in 1842 where he purchased a 1,650 acres (6.7 km²) cotton plantation that he named Forest Home. Converting the plantation to sugar production two years later and constructing Iberville Parish's first steam powered sugar mill was able to triple his earning over his cotton production. Within ten years he had increased his holdings to 7,116 acres (28.80 km²) and owned 176 slaves making Randolph one of the largest slaveholders in the South. In 1855 he purchased an additional 400 acres (1.6 km²) of highland, and 620 acres (2.5 km²) of swamp of Mississippi River-front land where he sought to build a more prestigious home that he named "Nottoway," after Nottoway County in Virginia where he was born.
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