A general store and post office stood here where Sam Bass mailed Solomon Northup's letter seeking to obtain his freedom after he had been kidnapped into slavery. Northup was a free man of color living in Saratoga, New York, and was hired to play violin in Washington, D.C. There he was drugged and sold as a slave. He spent 12 years in Avoyelles and Rapides Parishes before he was freed at the courthouse in Marksville and returned to his family.