04/13/2023
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The birth of my novels Twice a Slave and Three Winds Blowing, and the play Twice a Slave, and the Joseph Willis docudrama were the result of Dr. Sue Eakin’s advice.
She was the person that convinced me that the best way to tell the story of Joseph Willis was with novels and plays (see the attached letters). I had already written his biography.
Dr. Sue Eakin read in a newspaper that I had obtained the only copy of the minutes of Spring Hill Baptist Church. She asked me if I would help her with her research on William Prince Ford. I also lectured in her history classes, at Louisiana State University at Alexandria, on the subject.
Dr. Eakin wrote to me on March 7, 1984, "We had a wonderful experience dramatizing Northup and I think there could be a musical play on Joseph Willis. It seems to me it gets the message across far more quickly than routine written material." She added, "a fictional novel based upon Joseph Willis's life would be more interesting to the general public than a biography and would reach a greater audience." (See attached letters)
Dr. Eakin is best known for documenting, annotating, and reviving interest in Solomon Northup’s 1853 book Twelve Years a Slave. She, at the age of eighteen, rediscovered a long-forgotten copy of Solomon Northup's book, on the shelves of a bookstore, near the LSU campus, in Baton Rouge. The bookstore owner sold it to her for only 25 cents. In 2013, 12 Years a Slave won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In his acceptance speech for the honor, director Steve McQueen thanked Dr. Eakin: "I'd like to thank this amazing historian, Sue Eakin, whose life, she gave her life's work to preserving Solomon's book.”
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As a child, Randy Willis lived near Longleaf, Louisiana, and Barber Creek.
As a teenager, he would work cows with his family on the open range, owned by lumber companies. Nine generations of his family lived near Longleaf and Forest Hill, beginning with his 4th great-grandfather—Joseph Willis (1758-1854).
Randy would often ride his horse through his family’s neighboring property on Hurricane Creek’s banks between Butters Cemetery Road and Blue Lake Road near present-day Guillory Road, once William Prince Ford's Wallfield Plantation.
During that time, Randy Willis did not realize the significance of his ancestor Joseph Willis’s connection to James Bowie, William Prince Ford, and his slave Solomon Northup.
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After writing the biography of Joseph Willis, The Apostle to the Opelousas, Randy Willis got the idea for writing Twice a Slave and Three Winds Blowing. Later he wrote Louisiana Wind and Beckoning Candle, and the idea for the play Twice a Slave from his friend and fellow historian Dr. Sue Eakin.
After reading an article that revealed Randy Willis had obtained the Spring Hill Baptist Church minutes, Dr. Eakin contacted him. The minutes had much information on two of its founders: Joseph Willis and William Prince Ford.
In 1798, Joseph preached the first Gospel sermon by an Evangelical west of the Mississippi River. Forty-three years later, he would establish his last church at age 83—Spring Hill Baptist. It would change American history—as far away as Hollywood.
A descendant of Spring Hill Baptist Church’s last church clerk (in the late 1800s) refused to let anyone even read the minutes. When Randy Willis told his mother this during a casual conversation, she asked him, “What is her name?”.
When Randy responded, his mother said, “She was my best friend at Glenmora High School.” Randy and his mother soon drove to Lake Charles and acquired the minutes.
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Ford bought the slave Solomon Northup on June 23, 1841, in New Orleans. He immediately took him to his Wallfield Plantation near Forest Hill, Louisiana.
Just forty-six days later, Joseph Willis and William Prince Ford founded Spring Hill Baptist Church, August 8, 1841, near Wallfield Plantation.
The church was located between present-day Brewers Road and Jouette Road near Hurricane Creek. The church moved from one side of Hurricane Creek to the other after receiving a donation of land. The Brewer, aka Moore Cemetery, is near where the church stood.
Ford’s slaves attended the church too, which was the custom in pre-Civil War Louisiana, but not during the Reconstruction era after the war.
One of the slaves, Judy, is listed as one of the church's sixteen founding members in the church’s minutes. This fact was unprecedented in pre-Civil War Louisiana.
The minutes list many slaves by first name only.
Solomon Northup gave an account of Ford reading scripture to his slaves every Sunday in his book Twelve Years a Slave. William Prince Ford also allowed his slaves to own Bibles, which was unlawful.
Wallfield Plantation was located on Hurricane Creek, 1/4 mile east of present-day Forest Hill, Louisiana, on Guillory Road. It was on the crest of a hill, on the Texas Road that ran alongside a ridge.
William Prince Ford (1803-1866) built Wallfield Plantation in 1836. Land records show Ford purchased 558 acres in central Louisiana between 1836 and 1859.
Northup called this area, in his book Twelve Years a Slave, “The Great Piney Woods.”
Northup refers to Ford as a model master saying, “Fortunate was the slave who came to his possession. Were all men such as he, slavery would be deprived of more than half its bitterness.”
Solomon Northrup also wrote of Ford, “There never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford.”
Ford's wife during this time was Martha Tanner Ford. She was the sister of Peter Tanner. Both were founding members of Spring Hill Baptist Church. Martha Tanner Ford died in 1849.
Solomon Northup described Ford's Wallfield Plantation as "two stories high, with a piazza [porch] in front." The term piazza was not used in this area; therefore, it was probably added by Solomon Northup's ghostwriter.
Also on the grounds was a log kitchen, poultry house, corncribs, and several slave cabins. Northup mentions peach, orange, and pomegranate trees.
Northup lived at the plantation while working at Ford's lumber mill, north of Wallfield Plantation, until a 60% share in him was sold to John M. Tibeats in the winter of 1842. Ford's 40% share would later save Northup's life.
This remaining 40% was later conveyed to the cruel overseer and small plantation owner, Edwin Epps, on April 9, 1843, along with Tibeats' interest.
William Prince Ford was also the Headmaster of Spring Creek Academy (later moved and renamed Spring Hill Academy). Ford's children and Joseph Willis’s grandchildren attended school together at Spring Creek Academy.
Spring Hill Baptist Church and Spring Creek Academy were walking distance to Ford's Wallfield Plantation.
According to historian W.E. Paxton, in 1841, Joseph Willis entrusted his diary to his protégé, William Prince Ford.
Notes from the diary were arranged into a manuscript and later copied by Paxton, in 1858, for his book A History of the Baptist of Louisiana, from the Earliest Times to the Present, (1888). Paxton admits most of his facts concerning Louisiana Baptists are from Joseph Willis's diary and Louisiana Association Minutes. Randy Willis owns this diary today.
William Prince Ford was not a Baptist preacher when he purchased Solomon Northup and the slave Eliza, a.k.a. Dradey, in 1841, like many books, articles, blogs, and the movie 12 Years a Slave have portrayed.
The first part of the Spring Hill Baptist Church minutes is written in Ford's handwriting since he was the first church secretary and the first church clerk. The minutes reveal that on July 7, 1842, Ford was elected deacon. On December 11, 1842, Ford became the church treasurer.
It was not until February 10, 1844, that Ford was ordained as a Baptist preacher. A year later, on April 12, 1845, Ford was excommunicated for “communing with the Campbellite Church at Cheneyville.” But, Ford's later writings reveal that he remained close friends with his mentor, Joseph Willis.
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Twice a Slave has been adapted into a dramatic play at Louisiana College, by Dr. D. "Pete" Richardson (Associate Professor of Theater with Louisiana College).
Randy Willis
PO Box 111
Wimberley, Texas 78676
512.565.0161
http://www.threewindsblowing.com
