Malcom McNeill's Mississippi Properties

Malcom began acquiring large parcels of land in Mississippi soon after the western part of the state became available for settlement by Europeans in 1830, creating huge cotton plantations. Details of his earliest transactions have been lost, but it appears he was working with his nephew Hector McNeill on properties in the western edge of Coahoma Co., on the Mississippi River.

How he acquired what was known as the Lake Charles Plantation, over 3,000 acres partly in Coahoma Co. and partly in Bolivar Co., is unknown other than two relatively small purchases in 1846 and 1860. He sold the plantation in 1870 but the buyer defaulted, and he again owned it at his death.

He acquired a large number of other parcels in Coahoma Co., later selling or giving some of them to relatives. He gave a parcel of about 800 acres to his nephew, Prior M. Grant, in 1851, and about 700 acres from the Lake Charles Plantation to his son Thomas Henry McNeill in 1857. He sold three other parcels totaling about 2,800 acres in the mid-1850's, and another of 590 acres on the Mississippi River in 1872.

But by the time of his death he still owned nearly 20 square miles (about 13,000 acres) in two clusters in inland Coahoma Co., in addition to the Lake Charles Plantation. He gave a square mile in each of the two clusters on 1 Oct 1873 to each of seven grandsons, Rivers, William, and Alexander McNeill, and Malcom, John, Willie, and Nicholas Boddie. The remainder of those clusters he left in his will to the children of his late son Thomas Henry McNeill. The Lake Charles Plantation, because it came back into his ownership after his will was written, went to his 17 living grandchildren under a "property not mentioned above" clause.