The Sound of Time (Magnolia Bell)

A bell was one voice among many on the landscape. In a 1937 WPA interview, Charley Williams, who was enslaved on a Louisiana cotton and tobacco plantation with more than a hundred people, recalled hearing bells and horns from distant plantations directing where people went and what work they did. Bells hung in towers and pillars that doubled as lookouts for watching the workers. Sound was also used to punish: Moses Roper described iron neck horns fitted with bells as a torture device. Magnolia's bell stayed in use into the 1930s.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. Augustine Church, Isle Brevelle — 3.5 mi
  The parish church at the heart of the Cane River Creoles of color, begun by Augustin Metoyer on his family's land and still holding Mass for the community that grew from Marie Thérèse Coincoin's children.
• Melrose Plantation — 3.8 mi
  The Cane River estate built on land granted to Louis Metoyer, son of Marie Thérèse Coincoin, with the Yucca House and African House, later an artists' retreat; guided tours Thursday to Sunday.
• Kisatchie National Forest: Longleaf Vista — 6.1 mi
  A free ridge-top overlook and 1.5-mile loop above the 8,700-acre Kisatchie Hills Wilderness on the Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway, in the forest Caroline Dormon helped win in 1930.
• Cane River Creole National Historical Park — 8.7 mi
  Oakland and Magnolia, two Cane River cotton plantations kept as they stood, told through the enslaved families who worked them, the 1864 and 1804 freedom seekers and the tenant farmers who stayed into the 1960s.

More markers nearby

• Cash or Credit — steps away
• Farming Transitions — steps away
• A Very Valuable Man — steps away
• The Quarters Community — steps away