Francis Griffin purchased land in 1831 on a high ridge bordering the Mississippi River where he established "Refuge Plantation".[4] By 1850, Griffin had 150 slaves working on his plantation.[5] 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.[4]
Refuge had a post office. The population in 1900 was 30.[2]
Old Refuge Cemetery, now extinct, was located north of the settlement.[6]