Stop #8. (Rapides) Bennettville - bend of bayou store of Ezra Bennett, New York school teacher who migrated to area in 1820's, neighbor to Ford on adjacent plantation.

(pg. 17) WALNUT GROVE - Drive past Walnut Grove about a mile, and on your right is the site of Peter Tanner's plantation which adjoined his brother's. There is a white frame house of Peter Tanner's descendants on the right and a day lily farm of Tanner descendants.
Continue along the old bayou road as it curves past Edgefield Church No. 2 and on to another bridge over Bayou Boeuf. Cross the bayou, drive to Highway 71; turn right to Bennett's Store.

(pg. 18) While Bennett's Store as been known by this name for a century, the store originally was the property of Joseph B. Robert and this part of Bayou Boeuf was called Eldred's Bend. The 200 acres of land in the tract stretching away from the bayou from the site of the store belonged to Randall Eldred, pioneer planter from South Carolina. He was in a later wave than those who came in 1813 but married to a niece of William Prince Ford's first wife, Martha Tanner Ford, who owned land adjacent to the Eldred property. Ford's plantation was actually a small one.
Turn around at Bennett's Store and return south, driving on Highway 71 over another bridge over Bayou Boeuf. This marks the boundary line between Rapides and Avoyelles Parishes. Continue to the Epps House Museum on Highway 71, to your left, just past Johnson's Chevrolet.