Magnolia Hall Built In 1858

Magnolia Hall Built In 1858

Natchez, Mississippi

This was the first house that we visited last Saturday during the Natchez Pilgrimage Plantation event. The house which is now owned by the Natchez Garden Club was almost totally destroyed on the inside in later years when it became a boarding house and later an episcopal school. The Natchez Garden Club raised the funds to return the interior to its days of glory. The home has many antiques but few were those of the original homeowners, the Thomas Hendersons. This plantation home was the last of the great mansions built in Natchez before the civil war began in 1861.

Notice the tour guide in antebellum dress. The three Natchez garden clubs do this during the weeks of the Spring Plantation Pilgrimage. Now notice the blocks by the entrance. These are not true blocks of marble but stucco applied over plaster to resemble marble.

In this picture notice the brown blocks around the windows. Again stucco combined with horsehair was applied to resemble blocks. The fashionable houses in New York city at the time were brownstones and the rich Natchez folks were following this New York style in building their homes.

The Ionic columns are massive and again were created of bricks covered with stucco.

This home over the years has lost most of its plantation land and now sits on a city corner lot. Across the way is another residential home.

I enjoyed seeing spring flowers in bloom at all these mansions. Here you can see some irises in bloom.