Date: 1851.

Biography:

Greenwood Leflore

Greenwood Leflore was born at LeFleurs Bluff, Hinds County, Mississippi, on June 3, 1800. He was the fourth child of Louis and Rebecca Cravat LeFleur. His mother was a niece of Choctaw chief Pushmataha. Leflore lived at LeFleurs Bluff until the age of twelve, when his father opened a tavern in what is now French Camp, Choctaw County, Mississippi. Around that time, Leflore left home to attend school in Nashville, Tennessee, where he resided with the John Donly family.

On December 4, 1819, Leflore married Rosa S. Donly, daughter of John Donly. The couple moved to Mississippi soon after their marriage. They resided in what is now Carroll County and had at least two children, Elizabeth Donly and John Donly. Rosa S. Donly Leflore died on October 3, 1829, and was interred in the Leflore family cemetery. Leflore was elected as chief of a portion of the Choctaw Nation in 1826. He was elected as chief of the entire Choctaw Nation in March of 1830. Leflore entered into land negotiations with the United States government beginning on September 15, 1830. He and other representatives of the Choctaw Nation and the United States government signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on September 30, 1830. That same year, Leflore married his second wife, Elizabeth Cody, who was a niece of Cherokee chief John Ross. However, she died soon after the marriage. Leflore married his third wife, Priscilla J. Donly, on June 9, 1834. She was the younger sister of his first wife, Rosa Donly Leflore. The Leflores only child, Rebecca Cravat, was born on May 4, 1837.

Leflore was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives from newly formed Carroll County in 1835. He was elected to the Mississippi Senate from Carroll County in 1840. A wealthy planter, Leflore owned approximately fifteen thousand acres of land and four hundred slaves. Construction was completed on Malmaison, his Carroll County plantation home in 1854. The architect, James Clark Harris, later married Rebecca Cravat Leflore. Greenwood Leflore died at Malmaison on August 31, 1865, and was interred in the Leflore family cemetery.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of a January 24, 1851, promissory note signed by Greenwood Leflore of Carroll County, Mississippi. The fifteen-dollar note was made payable to Lewis Aldridge, president of the board of trustees of the Yalobusha Baptist Association, for the purpose of building a female seminary, possibly the Yalobusha Female Institute in Grenada, Yalobusha (now Grenada) County, Mississippi.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Promissory Note. 1851. 1 folder.