Francis Griffin purchased land in 1831 on a high ridge bordering the Mississippi River where he established "Refuge Plantation". By 1850, Griffin had 150 slaves working on his plantation. The
Refuge Plantation House, shaded by oak trees and protected from the river by a levee system, was erected with a view of the river, and remains today one of the best examples of a mid-nineteenth-century plantation house in Washington County. ==Recent development==