In 1869, American actor Joseph Jefferson purchased “Orange Island,” as it was known at the time of the purchase, which sat atop a salt dome on Lake Peigneur to use as his winter home and hunting lodge. The “island,” referred to now as Jefferson Island, is not actually an island at all; instead, it is a piece of land formed that sits atop the salt dome. It is one of four salt dome islands in Acadiana, along with Avery Island, Weeks Island, and Cote Blanche.

Jefferson built what he referred to as the Rip Van Winkle House in 1870. He had played the role of Rip Van Winkle in a film adaptation of Washington Irving’s short story by the same name of "Rip Van Winkle;" because of his love for the dramatic arts, he named his beloved plantation home after it. The plantation, which Jefferson called the Bob Acres Plantation after a character from another play that he acted in, "The Revivals," was made up of approximately 3,600 acres. The jewel of the property, the Rip Van Winkle House, was built using cypress wood that was grown in New Iberia, the location of the plantation.

Although plantations of this time were often used as farms for agriculture, Jefferson was not a farmer and did not use his plantation for commerce. Instead, he would host extravagant parties at his beloved Bob Acres Plantation, that included guests such as President Grover Cleveland, who is said to have enjoyed taking naps under the enormous oak trees dotting the plantation.

Joseph Jefferson died in 1905 leaving the Bob Acres Plantation to his heirs. In 1917, the heirs to the plantation sold Jefferson Island and the plantation to John Lyle Bayless, Sr. of Anchorage, Kentucky; Paul Jones, bourbon distiller of Louisville, Kentucky; and E. A. McIlhenny of Avery Island, Louisiana. Son of John Lyle Bayless, Senior, Bayless, Junior, developed gardens around the home in 1950 in honor of Joseph Jefferson, affectionately calling them the Rip Van Winkle Gardens. Bayless sold the salt mines that ran underneath the lake and property and donated the Joseph Jefferson House and 800 acres of gardens to a foundation that would ensure that the grounds would be maintained long after he died.

On November 20, 1980, a Texaco drilling rig pierced one of the giant salt caverns and flooded the entire salt mine. This caused four years of damage to the property, creating a vortex that formed in the lake which swallowed a glass conservatory and garden that Bayless had built, Bayless’s retirement home, the Rip Van Winkle Welcome Center and 65 acres of native woodland. However, four years after this incident, Rip Van Winkle Gardens were up and running again and today are the location of many weddings, private events, tours, and an on site bed and breakfast.

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In 1833 in Vermillion Parish Louisiana, four miles outside of current day Abbeville, LA, War of 1812 veterans, Thomas Fletcher and Brandon McDermott were given 1,000 acres of conjoined land for their help in defeating the British at the Battle of New Orleans. They named this piece of land the Rose Hill Plantation, which, according to Loraine Sirmon, former owner of Queen’s Ranch – the name given to the ranch that Rose Hill Plantation would later become – was named after the Cherokee rose, a thorny rose bush that once surrounded the land. Originally a cotton mill, Rose Hill became a sugar plantation after J. Henry Putnam, a distant relative of famous Salem witch trials witness Ann Putnam, bought the plantation in 1871 with the hopes of becoming a sugar producer. Unfortunately for the Putnam family, a fire on the plantation on December 10, 1881, halted work towards Putnam’s sugar plantation dream after burning down the sugar house and entire crop of sugar. However, only six months later, in May 1882, Putnam was working towards rebuilding his plantation. On November 6, 1882, the Abbeville Meridional reported that J. Henry Putnam’s Rose Hill was working splendidly, grinding cane grown on the property, as well as purchasing cane for four dollars a ton from neighboring farmers.

In January 1883, the Abbeville Meridional reported that J. Henry Putnam’s Rose Hill Plantation had processed the largest crop ever made in Vermillion Parish. By 1893, the Daily Picayune reported that the plant had processed four million pounds of sugar from the 1892 crop and Putnam planned to produce ten million pounds of sugar per year by 1896. Unfortunately for the Rose Hill Plantation, a tariff put on imported Cuban sugar was lifted. In 1899, it was cheaper to buy imported sugar than it was to grow it and Rose Hill Planting and Refinery Co. Inc. went bankrupt. In 1901, Putnam handed over the deed to the property to the New Orleans banks, which took it over and put a railroad on the property. This railroad ran until about the early 1930s and today is not usable.

Between the city of New Orleans owning the plantation for the railroad and it eventually becoming Queen’s Ranch, little is known about the ownership of the land. After going through different ownership, Revis Sirmon and his wife, Lorraine Sirmon, purchased Rose Hill Plantation from Mack Schriever in the late 1950s and turned it into a working ranch and farm called Queen’s Ranch. Sirmon, being the jokester that he was, decided on the name “Queen’s Ranch” after his friend, Silas Cooper of Abbeville jokingly mentioned that Texas had the famous and massive King’s Ranch so Louisiana would now have its own Queen’s Ranch. Sirmon was a pilot in World War II and even installed a family museum on the property to showcase paraphernalia from the war along with antique farming equipment used to run the ranch. In the farm’s heyday, it boasted forty-two acres of property and was home to cattle, horses, ducks, quails and even some of the farm hands. In 2018 after the death of Revis Sirmon’s son, and heir to the ranch, Johnny Sirmon, the property was split amongst Revis Sirmon’s two grandsons, Patrick and Dannon Stokes, who still look after the farm today. Today, with more property later bought to add to the farm, Queen’s Ranch is an active cattle farm as well as an active crawfish farm with two hundred-thirty-seven acres making up the property. On the property, there still stands the remains of the old sugar processing plant from Rose Hill Plantation. Although it is no longer in use, lying on the banks of the Vermillion River, the ruins of the plant are beautiful, being overlooked by Louisiana moss and towering oak trees on the property.

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Robert Cade established Oasis Plantation as a sugar plantation in 1863. He purchased the land from the government and proceeded to add more acreage to the plantation by buying out individuals in the area. He moved to Louisiana from South Carolina in 1820 and established three plantations in the area from Youngsville to Lafayette, including Oasis Plantation. In the 1870s, Cade donated around fifty to sixty acres of land to build a railroad. Robert Cade’s daughter, Sara Cade married Evert Banker Smede in 1830 linking the Cade and Smede families. The Smede family created a storehouse for the sugar under the name “Smede Brothers Sugar Refinery.” This building was eventually turned into a chapel for the school that would eventually take over the plantation, Episcopal School of Acadiana.

In 1980, Mrs. Betty Smede Jardine donated sixteen acres to the new, one year old school, ESA, as a permanent location. This school has since remained on this campus. There was a long line of educators in the Smede family, as well as Episcopal ministers which is why Betty Smede Jardine decided to donate the property. Today, the Episocpal School of Acadiana has expanded its education to include an elementary campus located in Lafayette, LA.

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