Leaving Highway 61 behind, we followed the last few miles of the Natchez Trace Parkway and arrived in Natchez.
Natchez is recognized particularly for its role in the development of the Old Southwest during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was the southern terminus of the historic Natchez Trace, with the northern terminus being Nashville, Tennessee. After unloading their cargoes in Natchez or New Orleans, many pilots and crew of flatboats and keelboats traveled by the Trace overland to their homes in the Ohio River Valley . (Given the strong current of the Mississippi River, it was not until steam-powered vessels were developed in the 1820s that travel northward on the river could be accomplished by large boats.) The Natchez Trace also played an important role during the War of 1812. Today the modern Natchez Trace Parkway, which commemorates this route, still has its southern terminus in Natchez.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the city attracted wealthy Southern planters as residents, who built mansions to fit their ambitions. Their plantations were vast tracts of land in the surrounding lowlands along the river fronts of Mississippi and Louisiana, where they grew large commodity crops of cotton and sugarcane using slave labor. Natchez became the principal port from which these crops were exported, both upriver to Northern cities and downriver to New Orleans, where much of the cargo was exported to Europe. Many of the mansions built by planters before 1860 survive and form a major part of the city’s architecture and identity. Agriculture remained the primary economic base for the region until well into the twentieth century.
The town has many charming, architecturally unique homes, quaint shops and innovative restaurants; and it is pleasantly walkable. We particularly enjoyed a spectacular sunset in an area known as “Natchez Under-the-Hill,” where we had a seafood dinner at the Magnolia Grill.
Natchez Spring Pilgrimage of Antebellum Homes was held this year from March 17 – April 17, so we were able to visit two of the twenty-three antebellum Natchez mansions, all private residences, that opened their doors to visitors.
Longwood, an oriental villa, was designed by Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan for Haller and Julia Nutt, Mississippi natives and members of Natchez’s planter elite. Construction of the grand, octagonal edifice began in 1860 but was halted in 1861 by rising tensions over the Civil War. While the exterior of Sloan’s Oriental Villa was largely complete, the home’s interior was left unfinished except for the lowest level. The Nutt family lived in this finely furnished basement until the twentieth century. Colloquially known as “Nutt’s Folly,” the property was deeded to the Pilgrimage Garden Club in 1970 by the McAdams Foundation and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1971.
Rosalie is located southwest of Natchez’s downtown area, overlooking the Mississippi River at the junction of Orleans and South Broadway Streets. It is basically a cubical three-story brick building, with a truncated hip roof encircled by a low balustrade. Its front facade has a monumental four-column Tuscan portico, with entablature and a gabled pediment with a semi-oval window at its center. Broad entrances in the center bay provide access to the house on the ground floor and a balcony on the second; both have double-leaf doors, sidelight windows, and semi-oval transom windows. A five-column portico extends across the center of the rear elevation although it is covered by a flat roof without entablature.
Rosalie Mansion was built for Peter Little, a wealthy cotton broker, in 1823 on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. It is on a portion of the site where the Natchez Indians massacred the French at Fort Rosalie in 1729.
On July 13, 1863, a week after the Battle of Vicksburg, General Grant took possession of Rosalie to use as Union Army headquarters. On August 26, 1863, General Walter Gresham took command of Union Army troops at Natchez. His headquarters remained at Rosalie.
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