Ditto Plantation

From Our Island Heritage, Vol. 2, 1977, compiled by Sophie Haley and Mickie Smith:

(Editor's Note:  Some portions have been updated with information provided by Barbara Peck Gilbert Haigh, a descendant of the Peck and Kirkland families)

Ditto was originally a part of a tract of land owned by William Mastin Smith and his wife, Patience Kirkland.  This tract of land also included Battleground and Nuttall Plantations.

The Smiths had five daughters:  Sarah, Martha, Mary, Laminda, and Luvenia.  Sarah and Mary died at young ages.  Laminda married Dr. Henry Peck and in 1830 they were settled at Battleground Plantation.  Luvenia married Zachariah H. Dorsey.  Martha was married first to William Lego Ditto in about 1819 and was given a portion of land on which she and her husband built their home.  Thus it came to be known as Ditto Plantation. After William Lego Ditto's death, circa 1827*, Martha married Ditto Lego Nuttall.  An old family graveyard located on Ditto helps to tell the story of the lives of some of these early settlers.

Editor's Note:  William Lego and Martha Smith Ditto had one son, William Lego Ditto, Jr. born on January 20, 1826.  He married Levinia Holstein on January 31, 1855.  William Lego Ditto, Jr. died on December 11, 1909.  He is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida.  Tombstone photograph is courtesy of Johnny at FindAGrave.com

Old records found in the Court House reveal that Mr. Ditto borrowed money from A. Mittenberger and Co. in April, 1871 and signed over his crops as surety for the loan.  Other records reveal that Ditto and Nuttall Plantations were sold at a sheriff's sale in 1872 to Henry and Isadore Newman.  It is assumed that the collapse of the cotton market following the War Between the States was the cause for this.  Later the Nuttall heirs tried to re-establish claim to the land but were unsuccessful.  In 1897, the Newman brothers sold the property to Oliver N. Wilds of Natchez, Mississippi.  In December of 1900, Wilds sold the property, 1,462 total acres, to a B. A. Hobgood of Clinton, Louisiana.

Herbert Hobgood, an unmarried brother to B. A. Hobgood made his home at Ditto until his death circa 1917.  B. A. Hobgood sold the place to William Scott Knotts, Sr. of Byhalia, Mississippi on November 1, 1919.

The original Ditto home burned and was rebuilt by Herbert Hobgood.  After Mr. Hobgood was gone, the house was occupied by various tenants for a time.  In the settlement of the Knotts estate, following the death of W. S. Knotts, Sr. in the forties, the Ditto home place was allotted to E. B. "Ned" Knotts.  Ned, with his wife, Donna Fitch Knotts, remodeled the house and many happy days were spent there with their four children:  Walter, Mary, Martha, and John.

In 1962, the place was sold to Mr. George Yarborough.