"The name fatlands refers to farmland that is unusually fertile and productive. Fatlands Lake is where the MS River was before the Civil War. The River shifted away from Fatlands Plantation and the adjoining town of Rodney shortly after the Civil War. The land that this plantation was on as well as the land that the adjoining town of Rodney was on was owned by Thomas Calvit. David Hunt inherited the land sometime after Thomas Calvit's 1821 death. David's second wife, who died in childbirth shortly after her 1808 marriage to David, was Mary Calvit - Thomas Calvit's daughter. David Hunt donated some of this land for the building site of the Rodney Presbyterian Church.

From current satellite photos of this land showing the currently cleared fields, this plantation appears to have been about 600 to 700 acres. However, if the wood land of section 5 that surrounds the town of Rodney is included, the plantation's size would have been around 2,000 or even 2,500 acres. This plantation was never a residence for any of the Hunt clan before the Civil War. It would have been operated for David Hunt by a plantation manager who lived on the plantation.

From the 1860 Federal Slave Schedule, Jefferson Co. Transcribed by Tom Blake

*386 slaves - HUNT, David, Police Dist. 4, page 60B

(In 1860, Hunt owned several plantations in Jefferson County - so this 386 number of slaves would have been spread across all of these plantations.)"