Diamond Plantation

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Thomas J. Sellers, Diamond Plantation

While he was still a young man working on the Mississippi River, Thomas Sellers met Samuel B. Clemens, who later became the famous writer Mark Twain. Sellers and Clemens shared a warm, long-lasting friendship. Sellers adopted the title “Colonel” from one of Twain’s fictitious characters, Colonel Mulberry. Clemens was a frequent visitor at the Sellers plantation.

Sellers Family
In 1862, Thomas J. Sellers (middle, back row) joined the Confederacy to serve with Ogden’s Calvary Regiment and returned to the German Coast after the war. The Sellers family moved to New Orleans around 1882 and returned to the west bank of the German Coast to the Lone Star Plantation in 1889. The Davis Crevasse forced another move to Alice Plantation (named after his daughter) in Ama in 1893. “Colonel” Sellers died in 1915 and was buried in the family plot at St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery in Destrehan. (Photo courtesy of St. Charles Herald)
Trépagnier Plantation
The Trépagnier Plantation, which later became Myrtleland, was built by Francois Trépagnier. Myrtleland Plantation was sold to Thomas Sellers in 1876 and the area (present-day Norco) became known as Sellers. The Bonnet Carré Crevasse of 1882 brought about the end of the flourishing plantation but the house remained intact. Sellers and neighboring upriver Roseland Plantations were consolidated to form Diamond Plantation, which was later sold to Leon Godchaux in 1897. (Sketch courtesy of William E. Riecke, Jr., 1973)

This text is copyright © material by Marilyn Richoux, Joan Becnel and Suzanne Friloux, from St. Charles Parish, Louisiana: A Pictorial History, 2010.

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