The Last Hurrah
Glimpsed through trees draped with spectral moss, Longwood looms like an exotic mirage. As audacious as it is unexpected, this is the doomed fantasy of scientist/planter Dr. Haller Nutt who dared ignore the gathering clouds of civil war and began construction of this extraordinary house in that fateful year, 1860. (Little wonder that his neighbors nicknamed the mansion “Nutt’s Folly.”) Wildly wealthy from Mississippi and Louisiana plantations, Dr. Nutt decided to build a new home near Natchez for his wife Julia and their eight children. With Greek Revival architecture fallen from fashion, he found inspiration in a design book by celebrated Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan. What captured Nutt’s fancy was a pattern called “Oriental Villa,” a three-story...
Read MoreSister Act
Windy Hill Manor was never one of Natchez’s biggest or grandest homes, but it harbored a celebrated fugitive and scored high in the eccentricity sweepstakes. Dubbed Halfway Hill when it was built southeast of town in 1788 by Colonel Benijah Osmun, it sat atop a gentle rise at the end of a lush cedar allée. Its relative remoteness held great appeal for Osmun’s old friend Aaron Burr who found temporary sanctuary in 1806 after being charged with treason. In 1817, the house was sold to Gerard Brandon, and afterwards to General Robert Stanton who planted his vast acreage with cotton, added rooms for his growing family and renamed the place Windy Hill. Stanton also gave the nondescript façade a columned gallery and installed a floating spiral staircase in the entry...
Read MoreVoyage Into History
In celebration of Black History Month, I salute Robert Smalls (1839-1915), a man of uncommon courage who, with one bold move, altered his destiny and changed American history. Born a slave in Beaufort, SC, Smalls was greatly favored by his white owner, John McKee, who may also have been his father. Concerned that the carefree youth was being shielded from the realities of the slave world, his mother Lydia, a house servant, made certain he saw field hands toiling in the cotton fields. Smalls was so horrified and outraged that his mother averted trouble by convincing McKee to send the twelve-year-old to work in Charleston. Hired as a lamplighter in the bustling port city, Smalls was fascinated by the waterfront and quickly developed a love for the sea. As an...
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