tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20825269029904532362024-03-13T21:13:38.805-07:00N.A.P.S. - Historical Research Archives, Library, and Reading RoomNatchez Area Paranormal Society: This is the official site for our archives and storage of historical research reports, articles, photographs and other interesting items we create and uncover during our investigations. The Natchez Area Paranormal Society is a Member of the Historic Natchez Foundation and the Natchez Historical Society, of Natchez, Mississippi. This site is a satellite site of N.A.P.S. Please visit our main site for information about us.mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-29944237684441586052011-09-23T23:34:00.003-07:002011-09-23T23:35:41.468-07:00Dunleith in Natchez: Historical Research<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><strong>by N.A.P.S. Lead Evidence Analyst Kimberly DeLorenze </strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HasE7_Eqnls/Tn1qQI8wFEI/AAAAAAAAAYI/TvWpNb9Uh-c/s1600/dunleith.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HasE7_Eqnls/Tn1qQI8wFEI/AAAAAAAAAYI/TvWpNb9Uh-c/s1600/dunleith.bmp" /></a></div><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When traveling through the south, one may hear of ghostly tales and haunts around every metal gate. Natchez is no exception. There is one such place in Natchez, however, that does not wish to be known for its clanks and bumps in the night, but rather for its charming beauty and exquisite cuisine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This place is </span><a href="http://www.pastigo.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=215&Itemid=57"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dunleith</span></span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Its history runs deep, but when asked, the Hostess at the check-in desk said, “there are things that happen here and some guests have made comments about seeing and hearing strange things while staying with us, but we prefer to just ignore it. They don’t bother us, we don’t bother them.” </span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In order to understand where the strange occurrences may come from, we must first look at the history surrounding the land of what is now Dunleith.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As was normal of most land in Natchez at the time of the 1700s, it had its share of owners. The Native Americans, French, Spanish and then British Settlers have all fought over rights to the land and the trade routes of the Mississippi River at some point. The land where Dunleith now stands was no different. </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The History of </span></b><a href="http://www.dunleith.com/"><b><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dunleith</span></span></b></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">In 1777, Jeremiah Routh, along with his wife and children, moved into the Natchez District, receiving a land grant of five hundred acres. After Jeremiah’s death, his son Job and new wife Anne Madeline Miller received a land grant of seventeen hundred acres. This is where he constructed Routhland. Routhland was built in the style of a baronial castle. Along with the house, the property also had slave quarters, kitchen, laundry, dairy barn, poultry house, carriage house, greenhouse and the Routh family cemetery.</span><span style="color: #76a5af;"> </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Job Routh died on the property in 1834.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The house changed hands again. It went to his youngest daughter Mary Routh and her new husband Thomas Ellis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They moved into the residence three years later and raised their five children. After Thomas died suddenly in 1839, Mary Routh, married </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_G._Dahlgren"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Charles G Dahlgren</span></span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in 1840. She was 15.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In several areas of the South, diseases such as malaria, yellow fever and cholera would spread through the communities during the summer months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natchez and nearby cities were more susceptible because of the region’s high heat and humidity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To escape the heat and risk of catching a disease, many wealthy families in the area would go further north during the summer months. Some of the common destinations were places like Hot Springs, Arkansas and Bersheeba Springs, Tennessee.</span></div><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1855, the </span><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/delorenze/My%20Documents/The%20Dahlgrens.docx"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dahlgrens</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> traveled to </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beersheba_Springs,_Tennessee"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bersheeba Springs</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"> for summer vacation. On August 18, 1855, their home was struck by lightning. They returned to find their home burned and decided to start from scratch.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In December of 1857, a new home was built on the same spot where Routhland had once stood. “It set upon 40 acres, which also includes the carriage house, dairy barn, poultry house and a three-story brick dependency. The dependency features a 19th-century toilet and bathtub, which were considered to be rare amenities for the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was built in Greek revival style, with 26 Tuscan columns surrounding the house. The brick and stucco columns support a double gallery with intricately designed wrought iron railings spanning the columns. Jeffersonian windows extend from the floor to the ceiling on the first floor, providing ventilation and easy access to the gallery from any room.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 4.95pt 0in; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 4.95pt 0in; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enclosed within the 14 ½ inch thick walls is 9,500 square feet of floor space. The floors are made of heart pine, with cypress baseboards painted to look like oak. Italian marble mantle pieces adorn each fireplace, and elegantly designed ceiling medallions enhance the chandeliers hung throughout the house.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Wallpaper located in the Dining Room was called Zubar.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The family only got to enjoy their new home for three short months before Mary Routh Dahlgren died in March of 1858. She died of a weak heart at age forty-five. She and Charles had only been married for three years. No longer wanting to live in the house without Mary and due to family turmoil between the Ellis and Dahlgren siblings, Charles sold the house to Alfred Vidal Davis for $30,000. Davis, in turn, gave the house the Scottish name of Dunleith. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alfred and his wife Sarah, originally from Concordia Parish, moved into the residence in January 4<sup>th</sup>, 1859. He and his wife were able to enjoy Dunleith for a couple of years before the Civil War. In June of 1861, Alfred and his wife, along with his organized volunteer infantry called the Natchez Rifles, left via a steamboat called Mary E Keene. Their destination was Richmond, Virginia.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in; text-align: center;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in; text-align: center;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They returned to Natchez and their home in 1863 to find the city occupied by Union troops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two years later, his wife Sarah passed away, leaving him with their two young children whose names were, Alfred Vidal Jr. and Lily. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alfred sold Dunleith in 1866 to Hiram M. Baldwin of Natchez. He lived in the house for less than a year because he died suddenly in 1868. Dunleith was now in the middle of a civil suit between Hiram’s sister and his widow. During this time, the home was taken over by John R. Stockton of Britton and Koontz Bank. He became the owner and overseer.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><a href="http://www.natchezcitycemetery.com/webpage.cfm?content=content&id=80"><span style="color: blue; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joseph Neibert Carpenter</span></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> was the next to purchase Dunleith in 1886 for the depreciated price of twenty thousand dollars. He, along with his wife, Zipporah, and their three children Leslie, Agnes and </span></span><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/delorenze/My%20Documents/Camille.docx"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Camille</span></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> moved into Dunleith and it stayed in the Carpenter family from 1886-1976.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">William F. Heins purchased the home in 1976 and operated a bed and breakfast there. In 1999, Mrs. Edward Worley and her son, Michael Worley, purchased the house.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The Worley's spent a great deal of time and energy renovating and restoring the house and turned it into the inn that exists today. Dunleith boasts 26 guest rooms and suites, all of which have private bathrooms, antiques and antebellum period replica furniture and cable TV. Some have fireplaces and 16 feature whirlpool tubs. Of special interest to history lovers are the brick steps beside the house which are left from the original Routhland home that burned. There is also a dairy barn , The Gothic Carriage House, and the Castle Restaurant, which date back to the late 1700s and Routhland's early days. You'll also find a magnolia tree that is estimated to be over 250 years old.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, the owner Mr. </span><a href="http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/2011/07/17/edward-a-worley-2/"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ed Worley </span></span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">passed away on his other property, Bowie’s Tavern. Both properties are now in the possession of Michael Worley, Ed’s son. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The beautiful home has changed hands many times over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There have been several deaths on the property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although there is no recorded haunted history, reason suggests that over the years, with the fire at Routhland, with diseases moving through the area, war and other such events, that the conditions are just as favorable for a haunting there as any of the many other known haunted locations in Natchez. There have been EVPS caught around the house and the old magnolia tree and also higher EMF readings where there was no known electrical source.</span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dunleith.... Haunted or not? My experience says yes, but you will have to visit and decide for</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;">yourself!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Bookman;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Timeline of </u></span></span></b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunleith"><b><span style="color: blue; mso-bidi-font-family: Bookman;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dunleith</span></span></b></a><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Bookman;"></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1857</b>-Routhland Two was built on the site of the original Routhland by Charles G and Mary<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Routh Dahlgren.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1858</b>-Mary Routh passes away in March of a weak heart and Charles sales house to Alfred Vidal<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Davis.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1859</b>-Alfred and his wife Sarah move into the home and rename it Dunleith.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1861</b>-Alfred and his wife leave on a steamboat bound for Richmond, Virginia.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1863</b>-Alfred and Sarah return home. Union Soldiers are occupying the city.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1865-</b>Sarah Davis passes away.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1866</b>-Alfred sales Dunleith to Hiram M Baldwin of Natchez.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1868-</b>Hiram passes away suddenly in home. Dunleith taken over by John R Stockton of Britton<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Koontz Bank.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1886</b>-Joseph Neibert Carpenter purchases Dunleith.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1925</b>-Joseph Neibert Carpenter passes away leaving all property to his wife, Zipporah. </span><span style="color: #76a5af;">Then, when Zipporah passed, it went to their son, Nathaniel Leslie.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1935</b>-Nathaniel Leslie and wife Ameila apply to have Dunleith placed on National Register of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Historic Places.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1886-1976</b>-Dunleith remains in the Carpenter Family for five generations.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1976</b>-William F Heins purchases property and operates Dunleith as a Bed and Breakfast.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1999</b>-Mr and Mrs Ed Worley, along with their son Michael, purchase Dunleith and make major<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>renonvations to the home. It continues as an Inn, along with The Castle Restaurant.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2011</b>-Mr Ed Worley’s death.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;">Bibliography</span></u></b></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Primary Sources</span></b></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Morris, Kathryn E.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Dunleith</i>. Richland, Mississippi: Hederman Brothers, 2007.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Various Web Sites:</span></u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
<a href="http://www.dunleith.com/"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.dunleith.com</span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;"><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.pastigo.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=215&ltemid=57">http://www.pastigo.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=215&ltemid=57</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan lines-together; page-break-after: avoid; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;"><br />
<a href="http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/2011/07/17/edward-a-worley-2/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/2011/07/17/edward-a-worley-2/</span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan lines-together; page-break-after: avoid; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.natchezcitycemetery.com/webpage.cfm?content=content&id=80 </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan lines-together; page-break-after: avoid; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunleith"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunleith</span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan lines-together; page-break-after: avoid; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;"><a href="http://www.dunleith.com/experience-?dunleith.html"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">www.dunleith.com/experience-?dunleith.html</span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan lines-together; page-break-after: avoid; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 4.95pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan lines-together; page-break-after: avoid; tab-stops: 0in .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in;"></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-9942221017173963342011-09-14T23:39:00.000-07:002012-10-18T03:46:29.772-07:00The History of Longwood Plantation<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 3pt 0pt 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This History was compiled by N.A.P.S. Paranormal Investigator Lauren S.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.uptake.com/blog/family_vacations/natchez-mississippi-southern-charm-at-its-finest_4093.html"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype></span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ByWidHDpLzU/Tn17EbUP-pI/AAAAAAAAAYM/H_pT800Wf7Q/s1600/longwood.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ByWidHDpLzU/Tn17EbUP-pI/AAAAAAAAAYM/H_pT800Wf7Q/s1600/longwood.bmp" /></a></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Overview</span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Longwood, aka Nutt’s Folly, is a six-story 30,000 square foot mansion was designed by Samuel Sloan of Philadelphia for wealthy planter Haller Nutt and his wife, Julia Williams Nutt, in Natchez, MS. As it was nearing completion, the Civil War began and the workmen dropped their tools and went home. Haller died in 1864 and his wife Julia continued to live in the finished first floor that today contains many original family furnishings. The upper five stories are an architectural wonder - a magnificent work in progress where time just stopped and stayed. Longwood is the largest octagonal house in America and is listed as a National Historic Landmark. Tours are available year round. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[i]</span> </span></span><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">According to the National Parks Service, the site is architecturally significant because Longwood “is the largest and most elaborate of the octagon houses built in the country, as well as being one of the finest surviving examples of an Oriental Revival style residence illustrating the exotic phase of architectural romanticism that flourished in mid-19th century America. A Moorish-style suburban villa built for Haller Nutt, a wealthy cotton planter, Longwood's interior was never completed." <span style="font-size: x-small;">[ii]</span> </span></span><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The completed house was to have had 32 rooms, 26 fireplaces, 115 doors, 96 columns, and a total of 30,000 square feet of living space, but only nine of the 32 rooms were finished.<span style="color: #76a5af; font-size: x-small;">[iii]</span></span></span><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.newsouthernview.com/pages/nsv_ie_longwood.html">Click here</a> to see Samuel Sloan’s floor plans and additional photos of the home and site.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The property is located on 87 acres of land. In addition to the main house, the property contained 5 parts: the Necessary; the Kitchen, the Slaves Quarters, the Carriage House, and the Stables. The site of geometrically-patterned gardens, which in 1860-1873 occupied 15 acres of land, is located at some distance to the southeast of the mansion and near the entrance to the estate. At a considerable distance to the southwest of the mansion is situated the cemetery of the Nutt family. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[iv]</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I4FJLHDk1e4/TnO878CA9nI/AAAAAAAAAVw/nBneP55Qm7U/s1600/longwood+cupola.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" rba="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I4FJLHDk1e4/TnO878CA9nI/AAAAAAAAAVw/nBneP55Qm7U/s1600/longwood+cupola.bmp" /></a></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Current Condition</span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The floors above the first floor are still unfinished and the home needs repairs. According to the National Historic Landmarks Program review in 2008, “Extensive maintenance is currently needed to maintain the integrity of the structure, particularly to the dome area. Extensive structural repairs have been made on one side of the octagonal sides of the house where the galleries were sinking and shifting." <span style="font-size: x-small;">[v]</span> </span></span><br />
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</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Basic Timeline</span></b><br />
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1840- Haller Nutt married Julia <span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Augusta Williams in Natchez</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1841-1863- The Nutts had 11 children, all of whom did not survive childhood.*</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1860- Construction began on Longwood. </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1861- After the exterior was complete, artisans returned to the North due to the Civil War.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1862- Slaves completed the basement (main level) and the Nutt family moved in. After this, construction on the home stopped.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1864- Haller Nutt died and his wife, Julia, and their 8 children continued to live in the first floor. </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">1897- </span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Julia Augusta Williams Nutt died at Longwood.</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1968- In August of ’68, Longwood and 94 acres of land were acquired by Mr. and Mrs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kelly McAdams of Austin, Texas.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1968- In December of ’68, they donated the estate to the McAdams Foundation of Austin, TX.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1969- Longwood was designated a National Historic Landmark.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">1970- Longwood was sold to the Pilgrimage Garden Club of Natchez, MS.</span></li>
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">* See details on the children below.</span> <br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Nutt Family History</span></b></div>
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Haller Nutt, younger son of physician and planter Dr. Rush Nutt and Eliza Ker Nutt, was born at Laurel Hill Plantation in Jefferson County, Mississippi, on February 17, 1816. Nutt was educated at the University of Virginia from 1832 to 1835. Upon returning to Mississippi, he assisted his father in plantation management.<br />
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Julia Augusta Williams, daughter of Austin and Caroline Routh Williams, was born at Routhlands in Natchez, Mississippi, on August 11, 1822. Much of her youth was spent at Ashburn, also in Natchez. Williams was eighteen at the time of her marriage to Haller Nutt in 1840. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[vi]</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Haller and Julia Nutt had eleven children: </b></span></span><br />
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<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3054"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Caroline Routh Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born ABT 1841, and died 03 JAN 1867 in 'Longwood', Natchez, Adams Co., MS. She married </span><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3055"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Charles S. Forsythe</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> ABT 1865.</span></span></li>
</ol>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3057"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Mary Ella Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born ABT 1843, and died 19 AUG 1901 in Natchez, Adams Co., MS.</span></span></li>
</ol>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="3" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3058"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Fanny Smith Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born ABT 1845, and died AUG 1848 in Araby Plantation, Tensas Par., LA.</span></span></li>
</ol>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="4" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3059"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Haller Nutt Jr.</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born ABT 1846, and died in Winter Quarters, Tensas Par., LA.</span></span></li>
</ol>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="5" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3064"><span style="color: #76a5af;">John Kerr Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born ABT 1850.</span></span></li>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="6" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3060"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Austin Williams Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born ABT 1852, and died 09 JAN 1860 in Winter Quarters, Tensas Par., LA.</span></span></li>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="7" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3061"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Sargent Prentiss Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born 1855, and died 1939.</span></span></li>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="8" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3062"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Julia Agusta Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born BEF 1858, and died 1932 in 'Longwood', Natchez, Adams Co., MS.</span></span></li>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 8;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="9" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3063"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Calvin Routh Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born ABT 1859, and died 29 APR 1909 in Memphis, Shelby Co., TN.</span></span></li>
</ol>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 9;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="10" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I182"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Lilly Frances Elizabeth Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born 04 JUN 1861, and died 12 JUL 1930. She married </span><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I181"><span style="color: #76a5af;">James Williams Ward</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> 13 JAN 1885 in Washington Co., MS, son of George Viley Ward and Maria Louisa Williams. He was born 13 SEP 1858 in Scott Co., KY, and died 23 APR 1930 in Staunton, VA.</span></span></li>
</ol>
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<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 10; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"><td style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom: #f0f0f0; border-left: #f0f0f0; border-right: #f0f0f0; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-bottom: 0.75pt; padding-left: 0.75pt; padding-right: 0.75pt; padding-top: 0.75pt; width: 453.75pt;" valign="top" width="605"><ol start="11" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I3072"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Rushworth Nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af;"> was born 1863, and died 1863. [vii] </span></span></li>
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Haller Nutt acquired several plantations through inheritance or purchase, including Araby, Evergreen, and Winter Quarters in Louisiana and Cloverdale and Laurel Hill in Mississippi. The cultivation of cotton, sugar cane, and other cash crops on these plantations brought him considerable wealth. Nutt owned nearly 43,000 acres of land and 800 slaves, and he had made a net profit of more than $228,000 from agricultural enterprises in 1860. His fortune prior to the Civil War was estimated at more than three million dollars.<br />
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When Haller and Julia Nutt were ready to build Longwood in the late 1850s, they chose Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan. The couple worked closely with Sloan to create plans for the mansion. Sloan designed a multistory octagonal villa in the Oriental Revival style, with a domed cupola, full basement, and more than thirty rooms. Construction on Longwood began in the spring of 1860, and the exterior was virtually complete at the beginning of the Civil War. However, work on the interior was soon halted as Sloan’s artisans, fearing for their safety, hastily returned to the North. The basement story was completed by slave labor and was ready for occupancy by 1862. Although Julia Nutt later received bids for the completion of the interior of Longwood in the 1890s, the upper floors were never completed. <br />
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Haller Nutt suffered large financial losses during the Civil War from the destruction of cotton and real estate and the expropriation of stores and supplies by the Union and Confederate armies. This situation caused severe cash-flow problems that ultimately led to the foreclosure on the mortgages to Nutt family plantations in Louisiana. During the war, Nutt took steps to document the value of assets lost to the Union army in the hope that reparations would someday be paid. After the war, these records were filed with the federal government to substantiate the reparations claim of the Haller Nutt estate.<br />
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The Nutt family continued living at Longwood after the death of Haller Nutt from pneumonia on June 15, 1864, but Julia Nutt was left with the responsibility of rearing and educating several minor children. The remaining plantations, Cloverdale and Lochland, were not always productive, thus creating financial difficulties for the Nutt family. Nevertheless, Julia Nutt managed to support her children and provide them with what educational and social opportunities she could afford. However, without the counsel and support of Julia Nutt’s son, Sargeant Prentiss, her task would have been nearly impossible.<br />
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Sargeant Prentiss Nutt (later Knut) was educated in Philadelphia and at the University of Virginia. After reading law in Natchez, Knut moved to Washington, D.C., to pursue a legal career. Knut persistently lobbied for the passage of a bill that would partially compensate the Nutt family for losses due to the Union army. The total of payments for reparations actually received by the Nutt family probably never amounted to more than $100,000. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[viii]</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The last decedents to live at Longwood were the five children of Lilly Nutt and her husband, James William Ward. In time, only an elderly grandson of Haller and Julia Nutt remained in the house. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[ix]</span> </span><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The five children were Julia Nutt Ward, James Haller Ward, Robert Julian Ward, Isobelle Carolyn Ward, and Merritt Williams Ward. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[x]</span> </span><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Merritt (Unknown - 14 Mar 1939), James (04 Feb 1888 - 02 Sep 1950), and Robert (29 Nov 1889 - 01 Jun 1962) are buried with their parents at Longwood. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[xi]</span> </span> <br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Reports of Hauntings</span></b></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to reports, Julia, Haller and their children still haunt Longwood. According to one source, Julia Nutt is usually seen inside on the staircase while Haller Nutt seems to prefer the garden area. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[xii]</span> </span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to Alan Brown’s book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Haunted Natchez</i>, full apparitions have been spotted in the home including a woman in a pink hoop skirt standing on the stairs. A Longwood tour guide also reported that the lights flickered on and off when she made an unintentional error in the description of the mansion. She also reported that the photos of Haller’s mother and father often shift and need to be straightened when she comes in the house in the mornings and sometimes in the mornings the little children’s furniture is scattered all over the place. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[xiii]</span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to another source, “Scores of people have witnessed strange aberrations, odors, and noises, over the years… A groundskeeper spied Dr. Nutt, in period clothing, standing under a tree. Others have noticed the sudden appearance of localized perfumed odors, presumably carried by Julia. A grandson of the current resident director once observed Dr. Nutt sitting in a chair. Another grandson saw Julia Nutt standing on the stairs. Thinking the lady was an employee dressed in period costume, the grandson thought nothing of it, until he realized that the lady he had seen looked just like the portrait of Julia Nutt. An investigation failed to reveal any employees dressed in costume…</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Louise Burns, the Resident Director at Longwood for over 20 years, experienced perhaps the most frightening encounter. Awakened in the dead of night, Mrs. Burns found her head lifted and held off the pillow [but] No one was there. Mrs. Burns tried unsuccessfully to extricate herself, and felt a moment of fear. As she related the story to this author: "I had a choice. I could allow Dr. Nutt to scare me away from Longwood, or I could let him know who was boss." Suddenly her head was released." <span style="font-size: x-small;">[xiv] </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><u>End Notes: [Many of these references are HYPERLINKS - CLICK ON to go to Site for more info.]</u></b></span><br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=173261224200477422#_ednref1"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span id="goog_1487566164"></span></span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[i] "Antebellum Mansions Open Year-Round." Natchez Pilgrimage Tours. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://www.natchezpilgrimage.com/dailytour.htm">http://www.natchezpilgrimage.com/dailytour.htm</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[ii] "Longwood." National Historic Landmarks Program. National Parks Service, 2008. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=824&ResourceType=Building">http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=824&ResourceType=Building</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[iii] The Broken Dream of Longwood. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://www.newsouthernview.com/pages/nsv_ie_longwood.html">http://www.newsouthernview.com/pages/nsv_ie_longwood.html</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[iv] Heintzelman, Patricia. "National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form." National Register of Historic Places. National Parks Service, 3 May 1975. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/69000079.pdf">http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/69000079.pdf</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[v] "Longwood." National Historic Landmarks Program. National Parks Service, 2008. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=824&ResourceType=Building">http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=824&ResourceType=Building</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[vi] "PILGRIMAGE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION COLLECTION: NUTT FAMILY PAPERS 1841-1911." Archives & Library. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://mdah.state.ms.us/manuscripts/z1817.html">http://mdah.state.ms.us/manuscripts/z1817.html</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[vii] RootsWeb. Ed. David Lawrence. Ancestry.com, 4 Apr. 2003. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=samlyons&id=I3064">http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=AHN&db=samlyons&id=I3064</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[viii] "PILGRIMAGE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION COLLECTION: NUTT FAMILY PAPERS 1841-1911." Archives & Library. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://mdah.state.ms.us/manuscripts/z1817.html">http://mdah.state.ms.us/manuscripts/z1817.html</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[ix] Brown, Alan. Haunted Natchez. Charleston, SC: Haunted America, 2010. 28. Print. </span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[x] RootsWeb. Ed. David Lawrence. Ancestry.com, 4 Apr. 2003. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I182">http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=samlyons&id=I182</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[xi] Oberscmidt, John. "Nutt Family Cemetery." Adams County, Mississippi Genealogy and History Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://adams.msghn.org/cemnutt.html">http://adams.msghn.org/cemnutt.html</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[xii] Taylor, Troy. "Ghosts of Natchez." Haunted Mississippi. N.p., 1998. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. <a href="http://www.prairieghosts.com/natchez.html">http://www.prairieghosts.com/natchez.html</a>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[xiii] Brown, Alan. Haunted Natchez. Charleston, SC: Haunted America, 2010. 29-30. Print.</span><br />
<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">[xiv] "Folk Lore and Ghost Stories of Adams County, MS." Adams County Genealogical and Historical Researc, n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2011. </span><a href="http://www.natchezbelle.org/adams-ind/folklore.htm#nutt"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.natchezbelle.org/adams-ind/folklore.htm#nutt</span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-11155132952496193222011-04-04T00:26:00.000-07:002011-04-11T02:09:14.472-07:00King's Tavern at Haunted Natchez: The Truth Revealed<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tHpWAfNaMOk/TZlyuFmpJJI/AAAAAAAAATA/vktk57JpkH0/s1600/zzznatchezroad.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tHpWAfNaMOk/TZlyuFmpJJI/AAAAAAAAATA/vktk57JpkH0/s1600/zzznatchezroad.bmp" /></a><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">King's Tavern at Haunted Natchez: The Truth Revealed</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-size: x-small;">by Mike Chapman</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">From the deep pine forests and hills of north Mississippi to the sun-washed beaches along the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi is home to many haunted sites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am privileged to have been born and raised in the state’s richest area of haunted locations in the southwest portion of the Magnolia State, in the old river town of Natchez.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people don’t know this, but Natchez is the oldest settlement on the Big Muddy, the mighty Mississippi River.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sitting high atop three-hundred foot loess bluffs overlooking the river, it is older than New Orleans, Vicksburg, Memphis and St. Louis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First explored by LaSalle around 1682, then settled permanently by the French in 1716 when they built Fort Rosalie des Natchez, the town has been under the flags of no less than five different countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natchez was the home of the Natchez Indians, with three huge villages in full glory when the French began to arrive in force. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tribe was virtually wiped out by the French after the uprising on November 28, 1729.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emerald Mound, just outside of Natchez, is the third largest Indian mound in the United States, and was built by the predecessors of the Natchez Indians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Washington, Mississippi, a small village just outside of Natchez, was Mississippi’s territorial capital and then became the capital of the state of Mississippi before it was eventually moved to Jackson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natchez is a terminus of the 444 mile-long Natchez Trace Parkway, with Nashville on the other end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Trace served as an overland route of flat-boaters returning north after floating their goods down the rivers to New Orleans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">As the town “perched on the edge of the frontier” in what was known as the Old Southwest, Natchez has a truly unique history and has seemingly always had a polyglot of citizenry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natchez has many interesting periods and subjects in its history, including Indians, French settlers, and immigrants from Germany and Ireland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natchez has been home to refugees escaping west from the Revolutionary War, flat-boaters and “Kaintucks” from the Ohio River valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve had periods of outlaws and bandits along the Trace, the king-cotton era of plantations and slaves from Africa, the Civil War and Reconstruction era – and all of that is before we even get to the twentieth century!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The twentieth century in Natchez also saw much rich history, with such events as the tragic Rhythm Club fire, the Goat Castle murder, the Old County Jail with its jazz musician hangman, and the establishment of one of the most intriguing and beautiful cemeteries in all of Mississippi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one time, Natchez boasted more millionaires than any other city in America except for New York City.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been the backdrop of many Hollywood movies, and is truly one of the most unique places in the entire South.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">Today, the spring pilgrimage in Natchez draws visitors from literally all over the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These visitors come to tour the dozens and dozens of antebellum (pre-civil war) mansions on display, replete with Spanish moss dangling from the oak trees and hostesses in full costume.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With all due respect to Vicksburg, Natchez is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> place to sip on a mint julep, munch on fresh Mississippi grown catfish and hush-puppies, and watch the barges roll by on the Mississippi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Due to its isolated location, Natchez has always been somewhat estranged and cut-off from the rest of the State.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, Natchez and its citizens have developed its own identity, traveling a path of its own, often not the path chosen by the rest of the State.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It views itself as a very different Mississippi town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Historian William C. Davis, in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Way Through the Wilderness</i> which I consider to be by far the best work on Natchez, wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“In the past four decades </i>(1760-1800, which includes the beginnings of King’s Tavern) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Natchez had been French, then British, then Spanish, and now at last American.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No wonder Natcheans felt confused and paid allegiance chiefly to themselves and their own individual interests.”</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most other Mississippians do not realize this sentiment of self-allegiance and uniqueness continues in Natchez to a fair <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>degree even today. Still, Natchez is not easily accessible and lies off the beaten path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natchez is hardly a convenient side-stop located along a major thoroughfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It remains almost always a destination unto itself. Samuel Clemens, writer of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, once said of Natchez, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The town of Natchez is beautifully situated on one of those high spots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contrast that its bright green hill forms with the dismal line of black forest that stretches on every side, the abundant growth of the pawpaw, palmetto and orange, the copious variety of sweet-scented flowers that flourish there, all make it appear like an oasis in the desert.”</i></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">So, with the kind of “ancient” history that began at Natchez long before even the white man came, one can well imagine the potential for haunted sites that must be present here – and in this regard Natchez certainly does not disappoint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ghost writer Dr. Alan Brown, of Meridian, recently published his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Haunted Natchez</i> in which he summarizes many of Natchez’ most well-known sites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this article, I’d like to focus on the site that many perceive to be the “crown-jewel” of Natchez’ haunted locations and that is King’s Tavern, the oldest structure in Natchez. When one approaches the history of King’s Tavern, whether it is reading its story online or the official historical marker on the grounds of the tavern itself, one is hard-pressed to find factual information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would even go so far as to say that it is virtually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">impossible</i> to find the true history of the tavern unless one digs into the actual archives and records located at the Natchez Historical Society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We, as the Natchez Area Paranormal Society, did just that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In October 2010, we launched a full-scale, multi-faceted investigation into King’s Tavern, which culminated in an over-night field investigation with over 10 infrared and full spectrum static cameras and all kinds of sophisticated metering equipment and audio recorders, which occurred on November 27-28.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of the historical research was done by me, and P.I.’s Chris Jackson and Summer Stone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The facts of the origins of the tavern that can be substantiated by historical record are as follows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dVtNGWvqh6o/TZqAcQlDxGI/AAAAAAAAATI/s_Z3yx22218/s1600/100132_photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" r6="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dVtNGWvqh6o/TZqAcQlDxGI/AAAAAAAAATI/s_Z3yx22218/s320/100132_photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">On July 20, 1794, a man named<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>Prosper King petitioned the Spanish governor, who ruled Natchez at the time, for permission to build a house on lot 3 of square 33 - the site where the Tavern now stands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost exactly two years later, on July 21, 1796, the petition was granted to Prosper by the territorial governor Manuel Gayoso de Lemos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, a year and a half later, on January 18, 1798, Prosper sold the property for the mere sum of $50.00 to his brother, Richard King. Whether there was a building on the site at this time is unknown, but in my opinion there was not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My opinion is based on what follows next in the historical record.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On August 5, 1799, another year and a half after Richard purchased the property; it is recorded in the Minutes of the Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace (Adams County Courthouse, Adams County Mississippi, p.78) where Richard King was licensed to operate a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">public house</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s fairly obvious to me as someone who has been in construction for most of my life and a licensed building contractor for the state of Mississippi that Richard King bought the property and began building the tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A year and a half later, when it was about completed, he applied for the license in order to open for business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tavern was never constructed or intended to be a private residence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also elementary to see this from its architecture and floor plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>converted to use from a home to a tavern, but later just the opposite occurred: it was converted from a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>tavern to become a residence, but more about that later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Richard built it from the get-go as a tavern and then applied for the license to operate it as just that: a tavern. From the beginning he saw it as a business opportunity and commercial enterprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This makes sense, as it was the literal terminus of the Natchez Trace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, in my opinion, the actual date of construction was 1798 - 1799.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The historic marker on the site, which literally states <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“standing before 1789”</i> is absolutely false.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This independent finding was confirmed recently when I met with historian Mimi Miller of the Natchez Historical Society, and she stated that the Pilgrimage Garden Club, which petitioned the State for the marker in the early 1970’s, got confused because there is an older record of another “King’s Tavern” located in the area where present day Liberty Road meets Cranfield Road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They mistakenly cited the origin of the other King’s Tavern for the one downtown. When I asked Ms. Miller what her estimation of the date of the tavern was, she stated exactly the same time as we do: 1798-1799.</span></span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">Later, in the 1820’s, the tavern <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> converted from a tavern to be a private residence when Elizabeth Postlethwaite’s husband came into ownership. On August 27, 1823, Henry Postlethwaite died of yellow fever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His widow, Elizabeth, and her eight children moved into the Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is credited with converting and enclosing the eastern porches into bedrooms, which today are still enclosed and used for seating for the restaurant when they need the extra space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Postlethwaite and Bledsoe families held the ownership of the tavern from 1823 until 1970, an incredible 147 years! During that entire time, it was used as a residence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people do not realize that the famous King’s “Tavern,” in existence now for 212 years, has been a tavern for less than 25% of the time!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, it is actually less than that, because even today it does not operate as a tavern, but merely a restaurant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one bedroom it does have, is no longer rented out due to lack of functioning central air conditioning and the reticence of the current owners to worry with the demands of a bed and breakfast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On July 27, 1860, Elizabeth passed away at the residence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a fact that should be noted by any shrewd observer, especially in light of the later claims of a female presence haunting the place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In recent years (1970-1971 to be exact), it was purchased, restored and converted back more to its original use – to be a tavern and restaurant (known as The Post House Restaurant) by the Pilgrimage Garden Club of Natchez.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, in 1987, they in turn sold the tavern to Yvonne Scott, who in 1988 opened the restaurant as King’s Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Frankly, it is during the time period of ownership by the Garden Club and Ms. Scott, that the “haunted” stories and myths began to emerge, most notably the infamous story of the ghost named Madeline.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">The emergence of the Madeline ghost has been a seminal event for King’s Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, it is one that I think has been wholly misinterpreted and misrepresented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following is a typical “report” on the history of King’s Tavern that dominates the landscape when one attempts to find information on the Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of what is in this history is incorrect, but virtually every single story we have found regarding King’s Tavern keeps repeating the same incorrect information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have included it in this report as an example of this constant misreporting of the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The source of the report is listed at the bottom of the entry, which is placed in italics:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.4pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: white;">THE KING'S TAVERN - NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI: The King's Tavern was built in the year of 1769 and is the oldest building standing in the town of Natchez. This tavern carries the look of most seventeenth century buildings; built with sun-dried bricks, beams that came from scrapped sailing ships originating from New Orleans and barge boards that came from flat river boats once they made their way down the Mississippi and were dismantled. In 1789 a man named Richard King, bought the old house and moved his family into it. He named the building, The King's Tavern, and turned it into an inn and tavern. There is a notorious side to the restaurant, though. In the 1930s, workers were expanding the fireplace and tore out the chimney wall. They found a space behind the wall that contained the skeletal remains of three bodies: two men and one woman. Laying on the floor was a jeweled dagger, which was assumed to have been used in their demise. The woman is thought to have been Madeline, Richard King's mistress. As the story goes, when his wife found out about the affair, she had Madeline killed and bricked into the fireplace in the main dining room. Who the two male skeletons are is anyone's guess... much of the supernatural mischief today is blamed on Madeline, however. Workers report hearing a baby crying in the restaurant - specifically, from rooms that were supposedly empty. The story behind the infant's cry goes back to the 1700s when the building was not only an inn, but also the post office and one of the centers of the city's commerce. A young mother was trying to comfort her fussy infant, when a man named Big Harpe - one of the notorious Harpe brothers - walked over from the bar. She thought that he was going to assist her, but instead, he grabbed the baby by its feet and slammed the infant against the wall. As the distraught mother crumpled to the floor to gather the child's lifeless body, Big Harpe strolled back to the bar and ordered another drink. </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">(Source:</span> </i></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Jimmy Smith’s Mississippi Research page- online).</span></i></span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">In fairness to Jimmy Smith, he is simply repeating what he has found elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not picking on him, as his is only one of dozens and dozens of misrepresentations of the truth. However, that’s just the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As any <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">good </i>researcher knows, one has primary source material, and one has secondary source material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the time, paranormal researchers go the easy route and grab secondary material they can find online.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone can hack what everybody else is saying with a few keystrokes and a few cut and pastes with a computer mouse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What separates true professional researchers from the amateurs, is that the true researchers go to the primary source material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The historical reporting that MSSPI and NAPS does, is to go directly to the primary source materials that are usually in archives and records often buried in a courthouse basement, on library microfiche, in scholarly & well sourced books (that are often rare and out-of-print), dusty, messy newspaper archives, and on historical foundation shelves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It isn’t easy, in fact it is very time consuming and difficult, but it separates the pros from the pretenders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True historical reporting is both a science and an art, and takes creativity, resourcefulness, detective work and dogged determination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the leader of a paranormal team I will say without reservation that MSSPI’s historical reporting is the best I have ever seen, and I point to them as a standard for my own team, NAPS, to emulate. This is the very thing I point to when I say most paranormal teams are amateurish, because your investigation is only as good as your research, and so if a team is simply going by what they find online for the truth, that says pretty much everything about that team and their findings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That may sound harsh, but it’s the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What this field needs is good, solid investigators, not another team with a ghost meter and a naïve fascination with all the ghost hunter shows on television.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is particularly offensive to me with the above story and its repetition by anyone and everyone, and that causes my injustice meter to peg out, is the fact that Richard King’s wife is being accused of a particularly diabolical murder, without one single shred of evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was a living, breathing human being, and her memory is being totally trashed and tarnished without any factual basis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I note with interest that the stories always say, “The wife of Richard King.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They never mention her name, because to do so would be to give her personhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I’ll give her some dignity, identity and personhood here: her name was Esther.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So for the sake of making a story “sexy” and making people go “ooh and aah” we trash this woman’s memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sorry, but the law enforcement officer in me says that to take a folktale story such as what is written above and cite it as history is not only poor evidence, but is careless, reckless and immoral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Esther King deserves better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if she were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your</i> ancestor?</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">From a practical standpoint and law enforcement investigation methodology, I could go on and on about the holes in the alleged story – about the amount of time it would take to brick a body in a fireplace while the body decays and other people can see and smell the evidence; the availability of brick and mortar (not like you could run to Home Depot) – in that time they had to hand-make all their material, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is obvious to me this is simply transference of a bunch of stories, one of which is, “The Black Cat,” by Edgar Alan Poe, in which a person is bricked up and entombed behind a wall, for the sake of a interesting “tall-tale.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Southerners are famous for their “stories” told on front porches, and more often than not they have little to do with the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are important articles written by noted historians that should be read and their lessons carefully notated by serious paranormal researchers about the nature and culture of folktale stories in the south, and their role in our society as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">myths</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furthermore, the story of Big Harpe killing the infant took place in Kentucky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big Harpe never stepped foot in Mississippi his entire life. So, the truth needs to be separated from the fiction – the folktales.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">The above pseudo history alludes to the popular folktale story that circulates around the Tavern, that in 1932, the remains of three skeletons (one female & two male) and a Spanish dagger were found during remodeling of the building. The bones were “reported” to have been buried in Potters Field of the Natchez City Cemetery, though typically no such “report” exists. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the situation that one finds today regarding King’s Tavern, is one in which the “haunting” of Madeline has literally become the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">identity</i> of the Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not it’s architecture, history, age or its place at the terminus of the Natchez Trace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, it is this alleged Madeline that is said to be haunting the environs that supposedly make King’s Tavern so interesting and such a “draw.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I personally think that is rather sad given the factual history of the structure and the interesting stories that actually <em>did </em>occur there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a local advertisement on television, an actress dressed as "the ghost of Madeline" lures listeners to come and eat a steak. She slowly fades in and then fades out with an eerie Halloweenish laugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon entering and being seated in the restaurant, patrons are given a laminated National Enquirer story about some hack reporter’s experiences there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in all of this context that our team, the Natchez Area Paranormal Society, began a very extensive investigation into many different aspects of the Tavern, one of which was to turn every stone and follow every possible lead to see if there is one shred of evidence to support the story of human remains being found there. After extensive searches of all kinds of records, including recruiting the help of the former Director of the Natchez City Cemetery (Don Estes) who also contacted the State Cemetery Archives,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> there is not one single shred of evidence to support that any human remains were ever uncovered there.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dagger was found, and we do know that the dagger does exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know that because of photographic evidence showing the dagger and also I was able, after a dogged search, to locate and speak to the owner. However, that is a far cry from finding the dagger buried in the chest of the mummified remains of a young female ensconced in a chimney wall – as some of the stories claim.</span></span></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xibf8np2bjI/TZqA2jAvHFI/AAAAAAAAATM/Uf14SjhtrQM/s1600/photograph1_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xibf8np2bjI/TZqA2jAvHFI/AAAAAAAAATM/Uf14SjhtrQM/s1600/photograph1_small.jpg" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VoattwMuAAM/TZqBXWctUYI/AAAAAAAAATQ/TLwcJouIeIA/s1600/photograph2_marypostlethwaitesmother_crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VoattwMuAAM/TZqBXWctUYI/AAAAAAAAATQ/TLwcJouIeIA/s320/photograph2_marypostlethwaitesmother_crop.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">If it sounds as if I am totally dismissing the claim of King’s Tavern being haunted, I am not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I personally believe – rather <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> - the Tavern has significant paranormal activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I am lending clarification to is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cause</i> of the haunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I totally reject the story of Madeline, but I do believe the Tavern is haunted by a female.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, I believe King’s Tavern is haunted by more than one former human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first mention <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on record</i> of any female ghost or spirit at the Tavern is from a Natchez Democrat article dated Saturday, February 23, 1974, in which Thomas Young (who grew up in the Tavern) states, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My mother Hilda died when I was 2 years old and my grandmother has told me many times of the misty figure of the veiled woman in a cloak, with head bowed and hands folded, which stood at the foot of her bed at night after my mother’s death.”</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With no historical evidence of there ever being a “Madeline,” it makes far more sense <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that a Postlethwaite is more likely the true identity of the spirit that haunts the Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>All of the evidence above seems to substantiate this theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recall the fact that the Postlethwaite family lived in the home for 147 years!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What would you place more stock in, a folktale story that is highly impractical and totally unsubstantiated, or historical accounts such as what Thomas Young alludes to?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also some interesting photographic evidence that also lends itself to this theory, in which a photograph was taken in the upstairs bathroom a few years ago by a patron of the Tavern, which looks very similar to Elizabeth Postlethwaite! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (Photos above.) </span>Natchez’ foremost professional photographer T.G. McCary, a multi-award winner and known nationwide, examined and studied these photographs on comparison software and concluded that in his opinion, they are the same subject.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></span></span></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zII33Hs7H_4/TZqBw7EZO-I/AAAAAAAAATU/3UeZz98O8oY/s1600/NP1003KingsTavernVivitar11272010+022-crop.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" r6="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zII33Hs7H_4/TZqBw7EZO-I/AAAAAAAAATU/3UeZz98O8oY/s320/NP1003KingsTavernVivitar11272010+022-crop.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-size: x-small;"><strong>Photo at Left:</strong> NAPS Team Leader Mike Chapman conducting an EVP session on the rear porch during our Field Investigation of King's Tavern which began on November 27, 2010. Photographer Benjie Sanders captured a psychic mist forming in the upper right hand corner. Many people claim to see a face in the mist. This mist had no natural cause.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">In 2005, Yvonne Scott sold the property to Tom Drinkwater and Shawyn Mars who are the current owners of King’s Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I stated earlier, on October 22, 2010, N.A.P.S. launched an extensive, full-blown paranormal investigation into King’s Tavern with interview & historical research phases initiated. Much of what you are reading now is a result of that investigation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On December 22<sup>nd</sup>, N.A.P.S. officially closed our first investigation into KT, with a finding of Positive: Class B (significant paranormal activity present); with reservations about some experiences claimed being possibly due to high EMF and some likely due to matrixing (pareidolia) from the high expectations created by advertising of the haunting. However, none of that is sufficient in our minds to explain all that is happening, and our own investigation revealed plenty of data and evidence on its own (including tactile, olfactory; Class A EVP; Photo and Video; as well as EMF and motion/temperature detection data – many of it cross substantiated). Furthermore, as has been presented in this article, the investigation uncovered significant errors and misinformation into the history of the Tavern, including dates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This correction of historical data may be the greatest contribution of this particular investigation. Lastly, our investigation concluded its finding, but did recommend that the Tavern be investigated further, in the future, to answer specific questions and issues that this investigation raised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I trust that this report will give you a solid background and clearer insight into the “true” King’s Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a team, NAPS looks forward to many more of our own investigations into King’s Tavern in order to fine-tune our findings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is our goal as a group to be the foremost experts of King’s Tavern, in all of its aspects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, it’s known as our hometown’s “most haunted site.”</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><u><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">Sources:</span></u><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"></span></span></strong></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Interview & Consultations with Don Estes: former Director of Natchez City Cemetery</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Interview & Consultations with Mimi Miller: Natchez Historical Society</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Interview with Tom Drinkwater: current co-owner of King’s Tavern</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Historic Natchez Foundation: Land Records, Deed & Titles</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mississippi Department of Archives & History</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A Way Through the Wilderness: The Natchez Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier, by Davis</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A History of Muhlenberg County (Kentucky), by Rothert</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock, by Rothert</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Natchez Under-the-Hill, by Moore</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Natchez: The History and Mystery of the City on the Bluff, by Whitington</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Devil’s Backbone: The Story of the Natchez Trace, by Daniels</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Natchez On the Mississippi, by Kane</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Archives: Natchez Democrat</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Judge Armstrong Library</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";">© Copyright, 2010, Natchez Area Paranormal Society. All or parts may be used with permission, we simply require that you cite your source.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-71266945243073544062011-02-25T01:25:00.000-08:002011-03-01T12:48:17.285-08:00Wiley Harpe, Samuel Mason & Aaron Burr in Natchez<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oy462VDIh3k/TWd1SI3_YQI/AAAAAAAAARQ/VLW7G3R4jzQ/s1600/znatchez.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" l6="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oy462VDIh3k/TWd1SI3_YQI/AAAAAAAAARQ/VLW7G3R4jzQ/s1600/znatchez.bmp" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: #45818e;">by Mike Chapman</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: #45818e;">It is fascinating to study the history of my hometown and birthplace, Natchez on the Mississippi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> As paranormal investigators, part of our work is understanding the context and history of the places and sites that are known or suspected to be haunted. As a result, historical research is almost a field unto itself, and functions as an interesting sideline for many of us. This post unveils just a few of the basic facts about the history of Natchez around the turn of the nineteenth century. The history of Natchez</span> is rich throughout <em>all </em>of its periods, and the period surrounding the building of King’s Tavern is certainly no exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Exploring t</span>his time is indeed fascinating, and begins with an end: the Spanish ceding their claim and rule over the Mississippi Territory, to the Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The claim to the area, which was decided in the Treaty of Madrid in 1795, didn’t take practical effect until August of 1798 when Governor Winthrop Sargent arrived to take control for the Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t known as a territory under the Spanish, but became an “organized incorporated territory of the United States" and was so from April 7, 1798 until December 10, 1817, until the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the twentieth State – the State of Mississippi. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;">Sargent arrived in Natchez on August 6, 1798, but did not take office immediately due to being very ill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He took his post on August 16.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had been appointed governor over the territory by President John Adams on <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">May 7, 1798, and he served until May 25, 1801.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stayed at Concord, which had been</span><span lang="EN"> </span>the home of the Spanish Governor Gayoso.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;">This period then, is a period of great flux with the changing of flags over Natchez from the Spanish to the American, while across the river in Louisiana, due to the Louisiana Purchase, the flag changed from that of France to America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think we today so easily forget just how frontier and “on the edge” Natchez was, and made up of all kinds of citizenry and travelers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Revolutionary War had only ended in 1783, and this raw frontier had many refugees and unsavory characters around it from that upheaval.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had French, Spanish, Americans, and Indians, as well as immigrants from Germany, Ireland and all over, plus the early slave population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enter into that mix we have some of the times’ most notorious bandits and murderers – Samuel Mason and his gang, as well as Wiley “Little” Harpe, who banded together with Mason during this time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was during all of this change and backdrop, that Mason and Harpe would meet their grisly and headless end, under the governorship of one William C.C. Claiborne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lastly, to close out this period, is the Aaron Burr controversy after his duel with Alexander Hamilton (in which he kills Hamilton), and Burr’s alleged treason.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="color: #45818e;">Timeline: Period of the turn of the 19<sup>th</sup> Century</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1798:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Spanish rule in Natchez ends; Governor Sargent arrives at assumes his post for the Americans in the newly declared “Mississippi Territory” on August 16, 1798.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was appointed on May 7, 1798 and serves until May 25, 1801.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Washington, MS, is declared as the territorial capitol.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1798:</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>King’s Tavern was built (by NAPS estimation).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1799:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>August 21, Wednesday; Micajah and Wiley Harpe viciously murder the wife and baby of Moses Stegall, as well as a surveyor staying with them – Major William Love, five miles outside of Dixon, Kentucky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They murder Major Love during the night for snoring, and kill the Stegalls the next morning and set fire to the cabin to try and cover their crime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They then flee eastward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A posse, including Moses Stegall, sets out after them. A few days later, the posse stumbles upon the Harpe party, which consisted of several women and children. In the confusion, Wiley Harpe escapes, but Micajah is shot and wounded, then beheaded alive by Moses Stegall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His head is taken back near Dixon and hung in a tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wiley flees to Natchez. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1801:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>May; Governor William C.C. Claiborne assumes command of the Mississippi Territory and serves through the year of 1803.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1801:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>September 14; first printed record of robber Samuel Mason’s activities on the Natchez Trace, recorded in The Kentucky Gazette on this date.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1802:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Springtime – Smallpox epidemic breaks out in the territory; Claiborne’s aggressive actions result in the first recorded mass vaccination in the territory and saves Natchez from the disease.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1802:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>April 27; Claiborne writes three letters to different commanders of posts scattered around the territory, promising a “generous reward” for the capture of Samuel Mason and Wiley Harpe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Controversy surrounds the actual amount of this reward, often said to be two-thousand dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More likely it was five hundred by Claiborne, and four hundred by the U.S. Government itself, for a total of nine hundred dollars.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1802:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>April; it is reported that about this time Wiley Harpe, going under the assumed name John Setton or Sutton, joins the Mason gang; which is headed by Samuel Mason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are robbing people up and down the Mississippi River and on the Natchez Trace. Harpe also uses the names John Taylor and Wells to conceal his true identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is believed by many that even Samuel Mason did not know that this man who joined his gang was Wiley Harpe.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1803:</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Napoleon Bonaparte by Treaty of Paris sells Louisiana Territory to United States.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1803:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>January; Mason gang including Samuel Mason and Wiley Harpe posing as John Setton are arrested at Little Prairie and tried in New Madrid – both in Spanish held territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The presiding magistrate finds that they have committed no crimes in Spanish held territory and orders that they be transferred to New Orleans to stand trial under the Americans for alleged crimes in American territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire party is to be transported by boat down the river to New Orleans under the charge of a Captain McCoy, and begin the trip in February.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1803:</strong> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>March 26: Mason and Wiley Harpe make a daring escape from the boat near Point Coupee, about 100 miles south of Natchez. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1803:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>June 6: mason’s gang is spotted near Coles Creek just northeast of Natchez.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1804:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>February; Wiley Harpe and an accomplice named James May murder Samuel Mason and behead him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After they seal the head in a ball of blue clay to keep it from decomposing (so it can be recognized), they set out to get the reward money that Claiborne issued.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1804:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>January; Wiley Harpe (Little Harpe) attempting to pass himself off as a John Sutton, is recognized and taken prisoner at the courthouse along with James May while trying to cash in on the reward for turning in Samuel Mason’s head, and are executed by hanging on February 8, 1804, just outside of Natchez. Wiley’s head is then cut off and stuck on a pole on the Trace, as is May’s. The actual place of execution is Gallows Field, in the community of Greenville (at the time said to be about 300 people living there), but no longer exists.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1806:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>June; Cowles Mead becomes the third acting Governor of the Mississippi Territory, appointed by President Thomas Jefferson; serves from June 1806 to January 1807.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>1807:</strong><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>February; trial of Aaron Burr in Washington, MS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was found not guilty of any crime or misdemeanor by the Grand Jury and released.</span></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-34223581673799302252011-02-16T18:36:00.000-08:002011-04-06T00:01:30.799-07:00The History of the Myrtles Plantation<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A HISTORY OF</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">THE MYRTLES <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">PLANTATION</place></city></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">This History was compiled by N.A.P.S. Paranormal Investigator Cheryl Freeman</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Bradford’s:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The Myrtles Plantation (Laurel Grove) was built in 1796 by General David Bradford.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BlnbU1q58HA/TVyHDqLj0bI/AAAAAAAAAQs/jOfcdSBM2FY/s1600/zmyrtles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><img border="0" j6="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BlnbU1q58HA/TVyHDqLj0bI/AAAAAAAAAQs/jOfcdSBM2FY/s1600/zmyrtles.jpg" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">David Bradford was born in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> to Irish immigrants and was one of five children. In 1777, he purchased a tract of land and a small stone house near <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Washington County</city>, <state w:st="on">Pennsylvania</state></place>. He became a successful attorney, businessman and Deputy Attorney General. His first attempt to marry ended only days before his wedding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the early 1780’s, he met and fell in love with Elizabeth Porter and in 1785 they married.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">As his family and business grew, Bradford needed a larger home and built an enormous mansion in the town of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Washington</place></city>, PA. The house became well known for its size and craftsmanship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><place w:st="on">Bradford</place> used the parlor of the house as an office where he met with his clients.<br />
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In October 1794, <place w:st="on">Bradford</place> was forced to flee his home leaving his family behind because of his involvement in the infamous Whiskey Rebellion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Legend has it that President George Washington placed a price on his head for his role in the Rebellion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bradford left <placename w:st="on">Washington</placename> <placetype w:st="on">County</placetype>, took his family to <city w:st="on">Pittsburgh</city> for safety and he traveled down the Ohio River to <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Mississippi</place></state>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He finally settled in Bayou Sara, which is now <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">St. Francisville</city>, <state w:st="on">LA.</state></place><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Bradford had previously traveled to the area years earlier to try to obtain a land grant from <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Spain</place></country-region>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He purchased 600 acres of land and built a large home and named it Laurel Grove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lived in the home alone until 1799 when President John Adams granted <place w:st="on">Bradford</place> a pardon for his role in the Rebellion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bradford then returned to <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Pennsylvania</place></state> to get his wife, Elizabeth, and their 5 children and they returned to Laurel Grove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1801, he returned to <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Pennsylvania</state></place> to try to sell his home there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For 2 years he tried to sell but had no buyers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He then agreed to trade his home for 230 barrels of flour that were to be delivered to Laurel Grove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because <city w:st="on">New Orleans</city> was suffering from a flour shortage, <place w:st="on">Bradford</place> thought he could sell the flour and make back lost revenue from trading his home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, the day <place w:st="on">Bradford</place> died in 1808 he still had not received the barrels of flour that were promised to him in the trade.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While living in Laurel Grove, <place w:st="on">Bradford</place> occasionally took in students who wanted to study the law. One of his law students was Clark Woodruff.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Woodruff’s:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Clark Woodruff was born in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Litchfield County</city>, <state w:st="on">Connecticut</state></place> in August 1791. Having no desire to follow his father's footsteps as a farmer, he left <state w:st="on">Connecticut</state> at the age of 19 and sought his fortune on the <place w:st="on">Mississippi River</place>, ending up in Bayou Sara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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Still seeking to make his fortune, Woodruff placed an advertisement in the new St. Francisville newspaper in the summer of 1811. He informed the public that "an academy would be opening on the first Monday in September for the reception of students." He planned to offer English, grammar, astronomy, geography, elocution, composition, penmanship and Greek and Latin languages. The academy was short-lived and in 1814 he joined Colonel Hide's cavalry regiment from the Feliciana parish to fight alongside Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. When the War of 1812 had ended, Woodruff returned to Bayou Sara with the intention of studying law.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He began his studies with Judge David Bradford and soon earned his degree. He also fell in love with and married <place w:st="on">Bradford</place>’s daughter, Sarah Matilda, on 11/17/1817.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had 3 children: Mary Octavia, James and Cornelia Gale</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After <place w:st="on">Bradford</place> died in 1808, the plantation was turned over to his wife, Elizabeth, who in turn allowed her daughter Sarah and her husband Clark to manage it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><place w:st="on">Clark</place> expanded the holdings of the plantation and planted 650 acres of indigo and cotton.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sarah died in July, 1823 from yellow fever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The disease swept over the entire region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although heartbroken, Woodruff continued to manage the plantation and care for his children with the help of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Elizabeth</place></city>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On July 15,1824 his only son, James, died of yellow fever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two short months later, in September 1824, Cornelia Gale also died of yellow fever.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Woodruff decided to buy the plantation outright from <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Elizabeth</place></city>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Woodruff and Octavia continued to live at Laurel Grove caring for <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Elizabeth</place></city> until her death in 1830.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On January 1, 1834 he sold Laurel Grove and its slaves to Ruffin Grey Stirling and his wife Mary Catherine Cobb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Woodruff’s attention changed from farming to law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He and Octavia moved out of Laurel Grove and left a caretaker to manage the plantation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They moved to <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Covington</city>, <state w:st="on">LA</state></place> where he was appointed a Judge’s position over District D.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He served this position until April 1835.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He also was elected as President of Public Works for the city. During this time, Octavia was sent to a finishing school in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">New Haven</city>, <state w:st="on">Connecticut</state></place> but she returned home to live with her father in 1836. Two years later, she married Colonel Lorenzo Augustus Besancon and moved to his plantation, Oaklawn, five miles north of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New Orleans</place></city>.<br />
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In 1840, <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Louisiana</place></state> governor, Isaac Johnson, appointed Woodruff to the newly created office of Auditor of Public Works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He served one term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 60 years of age, he retired and moved to Oaklawn to live with Octavia and her husband. He devoted the remainder of his life to the study of chemistry and physics and died on November 25, 1851. He was buried in a cemetery in <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New Orleans</place></city>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The <place w:st="on">Stirling</place>’s:</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The <place w:st="on">Stirling</place>'s were a wealthy family having 9 children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They owned several plantations on both sides of the <place w:st="on">Mississippi River</place>. On January 1, Ruffin Grey Stirling and his wife, Mary Catherine Cobb, took over the house, land, buildings and all of the slaves that had been bought from Elizabeth Bradford.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The <place w:st="on">Stirling</place>'s were of high status in the community and they needed a house that would fit their social status. So, after purchasing Laurel Grove, they restored and added onto the home doubling its size.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new renovation included a broad central hallway, an entire addition to the southern section of the home, formal dining room, a game room and repositioned the original walls of the home to create 4 large rooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These rooms were used as ladies and gentlemen’s parlors. The remodeling also included raising the ceilings in the home by one foot. On the outside of the house, <place w:st="on">Stirling</place> added a 107-foot long front gallery that was supported by cast-iron support posts and railings. The original roof of the house was extended to include the new addition. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all the renovations were complete, furnishings from <place w:st="on">Europe</place> were imported.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The name was then changed from Laurel Grove to The Myrtles Plantation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Four years later, on July 17, 1854, Mr. Stirling died of consumption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Myrtles Plantation and all his other plantations were left to his wife Mary Cobb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the plantations were sugar plantations. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The family faced many tragedies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the nine children, only four of them lived to be old enough to marry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Starlings’ oldest son, Lewis, died the same year as Mr. Stirling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Civil War caused many hardships for the family as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The family’s belongings were looted and destroyed by Federal soldiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wealth they had accumulated was worthless in Confederate currency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary had invested heavily in sugar plantations only to have them ravaged by the war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On December 5, 1865, Mary Cobb hired William Drew Winter to help manage the plantation as her </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrtles_Plantation##"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">lawyer</span></span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and agent. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Winter’s:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">William Winter had been born to Captain Samuel Winter and Sarah Bowman on October 28, 1820 in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Bath</city>, <state w:st="on">Maine</state></place>. Little is known about his life or how he managed to meet Sarah Stirling, daughter of Mary Cobb. They were married on June 3, 1852 at the Myrtles and together, they had six children: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary, Sarah, Kate, Ruffin, William and Francis. Kate died from typhoid at the age of three. The Winter's first lived at Gantmore Plantation, near <city w:st="on">Clinton</city>, <state w:st="on">Louisiana</state> and then bought a plantation on the west side of the <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Mississippi</state></place> known as Arbroath. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">When Mary Cobb hired Winter to help manage the Myrtles, along with the responsibility of the Myrtles were also Ingleside, <placename w:st="on">Crescent</placename> <placetype w:st="on">Park</placetype> and <place w:st="on">Botany Bay</place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, Mary</span> gave the Myrtles to Sarah and William.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">But times got tough and Winter was unable to hold onto the Myrtles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By December 1867, he was completely bankrupt and the Myrtles was sold by the U.S. Marshal to the New York Warehouse & Security Company on April 15, 1868. Two years later, on April 23, the property was sold back to Sarah as the heir of her father, Ruffin G. Stirling. It is unknown just what occurred to cause this reversal of fortune but it seemed as though things were improving for the family once again.<br />
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But a short time later, tragedy struck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to the January 1871 issue of the Point Coupee Democrat newspaper, Winter was teaching a Sunday School lesson in the gentlemen's parlor when he heard someone approach the house on horseback. The stranger (a suspected E. S. Webber) called out to him relaying he had business to discuss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Winter went onto the side gallery of the house he was shot. He collapsed on the porch and within minutes died. Those inside hurried outside to find Winter. Winter died on January 26, 1871 and was buried the following day at Grace Church. The newspaper reported that Webber was to stand trial for Winter's murder but no outcome of the case was ever recorded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
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Sarah was so devastated that she never married again. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She continued living in the home with her mother and siblings until her death in April 1878 at the age of 44.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mary kept the Myrtles Plantation until her death in August 1880.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is buried next to her husband in a family plot at Grace Church in St. Francisville.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Plantation</city></place> was then passed to Mary’s son, Stephen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stephen owned the home until March 1886 when he sold it to Oran D. Brooks because t<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">he plantation was very much in debt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #76a5af; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Oran Brooks:</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Oran</place></city> owned the home until 1889.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The home changed hands a few more times and in 1891 Harrison Milton Williams, his wife, Fannie Haralson, and his son bought the home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Harrison Milton Williams:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Williams planted cotton and gained a reputation as a hard-working and industrious man. He and his family, which grew to include his wife and seven children, kept the Myrtles going during the hard times of the post-war South. But tragedy was soon to strike the Myrtles again. <br />
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During a storm, the Williams' oldest son, Harry, was trying to gather stray cattle and fell into the <place w:st="on">Mississippi River</place> and drowned. Shattered with grief, Harrison and Fannie turned over management of the property to their son Surgent Minor Williams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surgent married a local girl,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jessie Folkes, and provided a home at the Myrtles for his sister and Aunt Katie. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Katie was a true Southern character – eccentric, gruff yet kind - she kept life interesting at the house for years.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Marjorie Munson:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">By the 1950's, the property surrounding the house had been divided among the Williams heirs and the house itself was sold to Marjorie Munson, an <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Oklahoma</place></state> widow, wealthy by chicken farming. It was then that strange occurrences started being noticed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dease/Ward:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The property was transferred a few more times and in the 1970’s, Arlin Dease and Mr. & Mrs. Robert Ward purchased the property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They did not own the home for very long.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Myers:</span></b></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">James and Frances Myers were the next owners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believing the home was haunted, <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">it began to be featured in books and magazines about haunted houses. <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Frances</country-region></place>, publishing as Francis Kermeen, wrote a book about the Myrtles and it’s supposed haunting. </span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Moss’:</span></span></b><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The home currently is owned by John & Teeta Moss and is now a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_%26_breakfast" title="Bed & breakfast"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">bed & breakfast</span></span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">. Historical and mystery tours are also offered. The plantation house was listed on the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Historic_Places" title="National Register of Historic Places"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">National Register of Historic Places</span></span></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> in 1978. </span></span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-57620973920254495412011-02-16T18:32:00.000-08:002011-04-06T00:00:55.906-07:00The Legends of the Myrtles Plantation<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">LEGENDS OF </span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">THE MYRTLE’S <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">PLANTATION</place></city></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Research compiled by NAPS Investigator Cheryl Freeman</span></div><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Widely regarded as one of “<country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>'s most haunted homes,"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Myrtle’s is supposedly the home of at least 12 ghosts with 10 murders occurring in the home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the facts are far different from the legends and stories surrounding the site. Historical records only indicate the murder of William Winter.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Legend of Chloe:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Chloe, the most well known ghost, was Clark Woodruff’s slave mistress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was also a household servant who had to give in to Woodruff’s sexual advances in order to stay in the home and not have to work the fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Woodruff grew tired of Chloe and chose another mistress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chloe, fearing she would be sent back to the fields, started eavesdropping on private family conversations and she got caught.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To teach her a lesson, her ear was cut off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To hide her shame, she wore a green turban on her head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She decided to poison the family and then nurses them back to health as a way to get back onto Woodruff’s good graces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yGHLbtOQakM/TVyH5kwp0eI/AAAAAAAAAQw/6rW8bXjHXa4/s1600/zchloe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><img border="0" j6="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yGHLbtOQakM/TVyH5kwp0eI/AAAAAAAAAQw/6rW8bXjHXa4/s1600/zchloe.jpg" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><em><span style="color: #76a5af;"><strong>Photo at Left:</strong> The infamous photo supposedly of Chloe, seen standing between the two buildings just to the right of the column.</span></em></span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Chloe added the extract of a handful of crushed Oleander to the children’s birthday cake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only 2 of the children and Sarah ate the cake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once sick, Chloe tended to the needs of the family but within hours they died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knowing what Chloe had done, and fearing they would be punished, the other slaves hung Chloe from a tree and then threw her body into the <place w:st="on">Mississippi River</place>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The poisoning took place in the children’s dining room and so after the death of the 3 family members, it was never used again. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The historical record does not support this legend. There is no record of the Woodruffs owning a slave named Chloe or Cleo. The legends usually claim that Sara and her two daughters were poisoned, but Mary Octavia lived well into adulthood. Finally, Sara, James, and Cornelia Woodruff were not killed by poisoning, but died of yellow fever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regardless of the factual accuracy of the Chloe legend, some believe a woman wearing a green turban haunts the plantation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>T</span>he ghost of Chloe has been reported at the Myrtles and was even accidentally photographed by a past owner. The plantation still sells picture postcards today with the cloudy image of what is purported to be Chloe standing between two of the buildings (see photo above). The former slave is thought to be the most frequently encountered ghost at the Myrtles. She has often been seen wandering the place at night. Sometimes the cries of little children accompany her appearances and at other times, those who are sleeping are startled awake by her face, peering at them from the side of the bed.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Other Legends:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></span><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It has been alleged that as many as six other people had been killed in the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lewis Stirling, the oldest son of Ruffin Grey Stirling, was claimed to have been stabbed to death in the house over a gambling debt. However, burial records in St. Francisville state that he died in October 1854 at the age of 23 from yellow fever. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">According to legend, three Union soldiers were killed in the house after they broke in and attempted to loot the place. They were allegedly shot to death in the gentlemen's parlor, leaving bloodstains on the floor that refused to be wiped away. One account has it that after the Myrtles was opened as an inn, a maid was mopping the floor and came to a spot that, no matter how hard she scrubbed, the spot would not disappear. Supposedly, the spot was the same size as a human body and was said to have been where one of the Union soldiers fell. The strange phenomenon was said to have lasted for a month and has not occurred since. No soldiers were ever killed in the house. There are no records or evidence to say that there were and in fact, surviving family members denied the story was true. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another murder allegedly occurred in 1927, when a caretaker at the house was killed during a robbery. No record exists of the crime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story may have spawned from the actual occurrence of the death of the brother of Fannie Williams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was killed while being robbed but this did not occur in the main house, as the story states.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The only verifiable murder to occur at the Myrtles was that of William Drew Winter and it differs wildly from the legends that have been told. In the legend, Winter was shot and then staggered back into the house, passed through the gentlemen's parlor and the ladies parlor and onto the staircase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He then managed to climb just high enough to die in his beloved's arms on exactly the 17th step. It has since been claimed that ghostly footsteps have been heard coming into the house, walking to the stairs and then climbing to the 17th step where they, of course, come to an end. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Winter was indeed murdered on the front porch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was shot, fell down and died immediately. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Haunted Mirror Legend:</span></b></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Another "haunted highlight" of the Myrtles is a large mirror that is said to hold the spirits Sara Woodruff and two of her children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to custom, mirrors were covered after a death, but legend says that after the poisoning of the Woodruffs, this particular mirror was overlooked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The uncovered mirror reportedly trapped the spirits of Sara and her children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Those who photograph the mirror will often find that the developed picture holds the images of handprints of several seemingly inside of the glass. When these spectral images first appeared, the mirror was thoroughly cleaned but the prints remained. Perplexed, the owners then tried replacing the glass, thinking that perhaps they were flaws in the mirror itself. Strangely though, the handprints returned!<br />
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Those who studied the mirror have suggested that perhaps the handprints (or images like them) are in the wood behind the mirror and not in the glass at all. In this way, lights (like a camera flash) pass through the glass and pick up the marks on the wood. This would cause the "handprints" to appear in every mirror that hangs in this location, no matter what glass is used. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Indian Burial Ground Legend:</strong></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Legend also has it that the house built on Tunica Indian burial mounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General Bradford was supposedly the first to see a ghost – a naked Indian girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-45811764438079945642011-02-16T18:14:00.000-08:002011-04-06T00:01:12.100-07:00Myrtles Plantation Ownership Timeline<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Myrtle’s Plantation</span></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ownership Timeline</span></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Compiled by NAPS Investigator Cheryl Freeman</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BSrKBvM84_4/TZmK7JdUfpI/AAAAAAAAATE/FWIOSRgImC0/s1600/zmyrtles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><img border="0" r6="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BSrKBvM84_4/TZmK7JdUfpI/AAAAAAAAATE/FWIOSRgImC0/s1600/zmyrtles.jpg" /></span></a><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1796 – House was built by General David Bradford and wife Elizabeth</span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1808 – Elizabeth Bradford took ownership when husband, General David Bradford died</span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1808 – 1823 – <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Elizabeth</place></city> allowed daughter, Sarah and her husband Clark Woodruff to manage the </span></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Plantation</place></city></span></span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">1824 – Woodruff buys the Myrtles from <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Elizabeth</place></city></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">1834 – Woodruff sells home to Ruffin Grey Stirling and wife<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1854 – Ruffin <place w:st="on">Stirling</place> died, leaving home to wife Mary Cobb</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1865 – Mary Cobb hires William Winter to manage home</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1865-1868 – during this time Mary Cobb gives home to daughter Sarah Stirling and husband William </span></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Winter</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1868 – Winter is bankrupt and has to sell home - sold to New York Warehouse & Security Company</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1870 – Winter buys the home back from New York Warehouse & Security Company</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1871 – Winter murdered at home, leaving home to wife, Sarah</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1878 – Sarah dies leaving home to mother, Mary Cobb</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1880 – Mary Cobb dies leaving home to son, Stephen </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1886 – Stephen sells home to Oran Brooks</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1889 – <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Oran</place></city> sells home, home changes hands several times over next few years</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1891 – Harrison Williams purchases home</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1950’s – home sold to Marjorie Munson</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">1970’s – home sold to </span>Arlin Dease and Mr. & Mrs. Robert Ward</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Over the next 30 years home belonged to:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">James and Frances Myers</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">John & Teeta Moss</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
</span></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-16856086014271031192011-01-01T12:03:00.001-08:002011-09-23T23:45:32.386-07:00Harpes: The Execution of Micajah (Big) Harpe<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SYzfxhiIYBU/Tn18hmT53AI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/4HkMB3VGvcc/s1600/natchez+trace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SYzfxhiIYBU/Tn18hmT53AI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/4HkMB3VGvcc/s1600/natchez+trace.jpg" /></a><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We now know the exact location and dates of the murder of Major William Love for snoring, then the subsequent murder of the Stegall baby and Mrs. Stegall the next morning. This all happened at the Stegall cabin about 5 miles east of Dixon, Kentucky, on August 20, 1799. Using calendar programs on the Internet I found out that this was on a Tuesday night. The next morning, Wednesday, the Harpes slit the baby's throat and killed Mrs. Stegall. I am getting more and more information that they passed themselves off as brothers but that they were actually cousins - don't know for sure yet. I still have not been able to find out Mrs. Stegall's first name. </span></div><span style="color: #76a5af;"><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After beheading Big Harpe and putting his head in a saddlebag, Moses Stegall took the head back and placed it in a tree about 3 miles north of Dixon. The place is still called "Harpes Head." I have found and ordered a copy of this history book (not a folktale book at all) that recounts much information on this, and records the eyewitness account of an old woman who said that she was a child that lived near the scene when Big Harpe was killed by the posse. She remembers looking down at the headless body of Micaja Harpe. This information is further backed up by the official Encyclopedia of Kentucky History. I am adding the former book to my (quickly growing) historical collection. I also downloaded a map of the State of Kentucky that shows the counties. Hopkins County, where the murders occurred that led to Big Harpes demise, is in western Kentucky (the cabin near Dixon). They fled trying to escape east into present day Muhlenberg County (the County just east of Hopkins County), and that is where Micajah was caught and beheaded.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In an earlier post (below) I stated that Little Harp (Wiley) was executed in Greenville, Mississippi at a place called Gallows Field. I assumed that the Greenville was modern-day Greenville, but I have found out that this is not so. The Greenville that is where Wiley was hung and beheaded was a town in Jefferson County, half-way between Natchez and Port Gibson! It is close to Rodney, and I am trying to find out exactly where this Gallows Field is so I can go there. This puts much more credence into Wiley (Little Harp) being a regular around Natchez, and that for sure he was probably in and around King's tavern quite a bit. So, we now have solid historical evidence that is multiple source cited that puts Little Harpe - Wiley (and not Big Harpe - Micaja, or Micajah as his name is sometimes spelled) in and around Natchez as a regular. Jeepers, I think I'm becoming a Harpe expert. I also found an old book (and ordered it) that has a very old sketch of the Gallow's Field, drawn around 1917 by J. Bernhard Alberts, before the community of Greenville died out to being just woods and fields in Jefferson County. Wouldn't you love to take a metal detector out there?!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am trying to find a date of Wiley Harpe's execution, so we could pin down the time of his being in Natchez to a "time window." We know it was after August of 1799 because that is when Big Harpe was killed and Wiley fled to Natchez. That fits with the time-line of King's Tavern being constructed and operating as a Tavern at that time (Summer's finding that Richard King applied for a license to operate a tavern in 1798). So, let's continue with constructing the elements of the time-line and adding pieces to the puzzle. We also have the alleged 1930 discovery of bodies in the fireplace. Someone needs to start researching the Bledsoe angle - why the house is also called the Bledsoe House. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Update: Wiley "Little" Harpe was executed on Wednesday, February 8, 1804 by hanging, then his head was placed on a pole on the Trace. This occurred at Gallow's Field, Greenville, Mississippi, about 24 miles north of Natchez.</span>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-74806126923527975482010-12-28T02:14:00.000-08:002011-12-13T11:10:38.963-08:00King's Tavern Timeline<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__rHBF2avF5E/TRm4W3zqQWI/AAAAAAAAANA/1XVI1EFzaE0/s1600/KingsTavern11202010+001medium.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" n4="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__rHBF2avF5E/TRm4W3zqQWI/AAAAAAAAANA/1XVI1EFzaE0/s320/KingsTavern11202010+001medium.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">KING’S TAVERN TIMELINE</span></span></b><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1794</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">July 20:</b> Prosper King on July 20<sup>th</sup> petitions to the Spanish governor for permission to build a house on lot 3 of square 33 - the site where the Tavern now stands.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1796<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>July 21: </span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Petition granted to Prosper King by Gayoso on July 21<sup>st</sup> of this year.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1798</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">January 18:</b> Prosper King sells the property for $50.00 to his brother, Richard King on January 18<sup>th</sup>. Whether there was a building on the site at this time is unknown.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1799</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">August 5:</b> The earliest association of a King with a tavern is found on August 5, 1799 in the Minutes of the Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace (Adams County Courthouse, Adams County Mississippi, p.78) where Richard King was licensed to operate a public house.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1799</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">August 21:</b> Micajah Harpe (Big Harpe) murders Major William Love for snoring in his sleep, as well as Mrs. Stegall and her child by tomahawking them to death, on Wednesday, August 21, 1799.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This occurs about 5 miles north of Dixon, Kentucky in Hopkins County.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few days later, he is hunted down and beheaded by Moses Stegall, the husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Little Harp (Wiley) flees to Natchez and joins Sam Mason and his gang robbing and murdering people along the Natchez Trace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story about Big Harpe killing an infant at King’s Tavern is totally unfounded, and evidence is very strong that Micajah never stepped foot in Mississippi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, it is very likely that Wiley (Little Harpe) was in the Tavern often.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1804</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">February 8:</b> Wiley Harpe (Little Harpe) is captured and executed by hanging on February 8, 1804, just outside of Natchez.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His head is then cut off and stuck on a pole on the Trace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The actual place of execution is Gallows Field, in the community of Greenville (at the time said to be about 300 people living there), but no longer exists.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1817</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Richard King dies. His son Samuel inherits the Tavern, which he sells this same year to Charles B. Green, the son-in-law of Juan Girault. Green runs into financial difficulty and is forced to mortgage the Tavern to the First Bank of Mississippi. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">See next entry for more details.</i></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1817</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An 1817 map of the division of Richard King's estate depicts 2 buildings on lot 3, square 33, the larger of which sits directly on the present site of King's Tavern. That one of the two buildings was operated as a public house is supported by Richard King's inventory which lists 4 waiters and one set of dining tables (Probate Box 22) and the subsequent purchase of the property by Charles B. Green, who was also a tavern keeper (1807 city tavern license, Mayor's Court Minute Book 1085-1808, Natchez City Records, Mississippi Dept of Archives and History). Green then mortgaged the property to the Bank of Mississippi and lost it a short time later to the bank which was owned by Henry Postlethwaite and Dr. Stephen Duncan.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1823<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">August 27:</b> Henry Postlethwaite dies of yellow fever on August 27<sup>th</sup> of this year, his widow (Elizabeth Morgan Postlethwaite) and her 8 children move into the Tavern.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1827</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">February 2:</b> King’s Tavern property deeded to Stephan Duncan by the Bank of Mississippi to help settle Henry Postlethwaite’s affairs which were tied up in the bank’s assets on February 2, 1827. Mr. Duncan then conveyed the property to Emily Postlethwaite and her sister Mary Ann Bledsoe in 1861.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1860<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>July 27: </span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Elizabeth Morgan Postlethwaite passes away on July 27<sup>th</sup> at the residence.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1861</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Property deeded to Emily Postlethwaite and her sister Mary Ann Bledsoe as part of their inheritance. </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1874</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>George Wiley dies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wiley, who came to Natchez in 1788 and died in 1874, wrote "Probably the oldest house now existing in Natchez is the one occupied by Mrs. Postlethwaite on Jefferson Street between Union and Rankin. It was at one time kept as a tavern by a man named King..."(Claiborne: Mississippi as a Province, Territory and State, page 529).</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1932<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Remains of 3 skeletons (1 female & 2 male) & a Spanish dagger <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">supposedly</i> found during remodeling of the building. The bones were reported to been buried in Potters Field of the Natchez City Cemetery. We do know that the dagger does exist, because of photographic evidence & that we have located the owner of it. As for the bones, we still have found no proof they were ever found, but we are still researching their existence at this time. </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1959<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>December 3: </span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mrs. Annabel Young Maxie, a descendant of the Postlethwaite family, inherits the Tavern (see article entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Garden Club To Restore Historic ‘Kings Tavern,’”</i> dated 12/3/1970 in The Natchez Democrat. She states in this article <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“I am pleased the Pilgrimage Garden Club plans to restore King’s Tavern to the 1823 period when the first of my family’s six-generation occupancy commenced. It was in that year, 1823, that the house was deeded to Mrs. Henry (Elizabeth) Postlethwaite, my great, great, great grandmother, a widow with eight children by Doctor Stephen Duncan, then president of the Bank of Mississippi. Mrs. Postlethwaite died at the family residence, (King’s Tavern) on Friday, July 27, 1860.”</i></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1966<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>October 18: </span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Natchez Democrat article states that a “Mrs. Jean Modessit, owner of King’s Tavern, historic old home on Jefferson street here, yesterday reported that someone has stolen a very valuable antique Dagger from the living room of the home. Mrs. Modessitt stated that she knows who took the dagger and is withholding reporting the theft to the police in the hope that it will be returned during the next few days.”<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1970<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>December 2: </span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mrs. Annabel Young Maxie, a descendant of the Postlethwaite family, sells King’s Tavern to the Pilgrimage Garden Club on the 2<sup>nd</sup> of December of this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1971<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Garden Club starts restoration of King’s Tavern.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1973</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">September 14</b>: In an article in the Natchez Democrat entitled, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King’s Tavern Restoration Complex</i>, Henry W. Krotzer Jr, architect with Koch and Wilson of New Orleans describes<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>his firm’s work and the progress at King’s Tavern at a Pilgrimage Garden Club luncheon <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“on Thursday.”</i> He advised the Club that, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“It has been a most complicated project.”</i> Determinations from his firm’s study are:</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">1) The original building had no original paint – it was unpainted, which was unusual for Natchez.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">2) Archeologists found some brick gutters under some cellar windows, indicating the original ground level of the yard (which was not indicated in this article).</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">3) Gallery (porches) were enclosed around 1830. The biggest decision was to NOT restore the Tavern to open porches as it was originally, but to retain the enclosed Galleries.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">4) According to Krotzer, the second biggest decision concerned the chimney. After a portion of the building had been taken apart for renovations, hints pointing to a chimney in the cellar did appear. Nothing sensational has come to light to affect the progress of the work<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. “Unfortunately the brick floor was not saved. It broke and crumbled as it was removed.”</i></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1974<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Opens for pilgrimage tours & restaurant for a short time.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1974<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>February 23</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">; in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Natchez Democrat</i> article of this date entitled, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thomas Young recalls King’s Tavern</i>, written by Thomas E. Young, he states: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“My mother Hilda died when I was two years old and my grandmother has told me many times of the misty figure of a veiled woman in a cloak with head bowed and hands folded which stood at the foot of her bed at night after my mother’s death.”</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the first <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">written and recorded</i> mention of any ghost at King’s Tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His mother was Hilda Register Young. Young also states in the article, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“at no time in my memory or to my knowledge from conversations, was there a brick floor in any part of the cellar.”</i> Also, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the fire-place in the ‘big cellar’ was being closed up and some work being done on the chimney when the old Spanish dagger was found embedded in the mortar.”</i></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1975<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>November 16:</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A Century Turns Back For King’s Tavern, is the title of an article in the Natchez Democrat on this date. In the article, the Tavern is now being called The Bledsoe House, and describes how the Tavern has been turned back into a working Tavern. The kitchen was built on the side connecting the Tavern to the annex located on the corner of Jefferson and Rankin Streets. So, the kitchen was added between 1973 and 1975.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1977<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>March 13</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: Democrat article with photo of Annabel Maxie holding the dagger that was allegedly found in 1932.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1977<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>November 15: </span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In a special executive board meeting on this date, the Pilgrimage Garden Club closes the Tavern, apparently due to financial problems. Source is Democrat article of 1/25/1978.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1978<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>January 25</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: Garden Club leases the Tavern to Mrs. Bobby Porter and Mrs. Florence Turpin. It is a 5 year lease, with an option for an additional 5 years. In an article on this date entitled, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“King’s Tavern to Reopen: Individuals Lease Historic Building,</i>” Florence Turpin and Bobbye (spelling as article spells her name) are named as partners. The plans are to open the Tavern in February under the name The Post House Restaurant. They also have leased the building on the corner, known as the annex, and will decorate it from a gift shop to operate as a lounge. The article also mentions <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“at least two ghosts, Madeline and the Indian Chief, are said to roam the building…”</i> Also, the article states, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The reference to buildings in the deed indicates that the tavern antedates the King ownership. At the time of the deed to King, the Tavern was situated on the Natchez Trace and provided a resting place for the early settlers of the Mississippi Territory.”</i></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1987<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Garden Club sells property to Mrs. Yvonne Scott.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1988<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Reopens as King’s Tavern.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2005</span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mrs. Yvonne Scott sells property to Tom Drinkwater and Shawyn Mars who are the current owners of King’s Tavern.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2010<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">October 22<sup>nd</sup>, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">N.A.P.S. </b>launches an extensive, full-blown paranormal investigation into King’s Tavern – the crown jewel of Natchez’ haunted sites – with interview & historical research phases initiated. </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2010<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">December<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>28<sup>nd</sup>, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">N.A.P.S. </b>officially closes its first investigation into KT, with a finding of Positive: Class B (significant paranormal activity present); with reservations about some experiences claimed being possibly due to high EMF and some likely due to matrixing from the high expectations created by advertising of the haunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, none of that is sufficient in our minds to explain all that is happening, and our own investigation revealed plenty of data and evidence on its own (including tactile, olfactory; Class A EVP; Photo and Video; as well as EMF and motion/temperature detection data – many of it cross substantiated).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furthermore, the investigation uncovered significant errors and misinformation into the history of the Tavern, including dates, and this correction of historical data may be the greatest contribution of this particular investigation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lastly, the investigation concludes its finding, but does recommend that the Tavern be investigated further, in the future, to answer specific questions and issues that this investigation raised – see Case File “Recommended Follow-Up Investigations.”</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #76a5af; font-family: Arial;"></span></span></div><u><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><strong>Sources:</strong></span></span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Natchez Historic Foundation: Land Records, Deed & Titles</span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Mississippi Department of Archives & History</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cindy Gardner, Director of Collections, Museum Division</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif";"><span style="color: #76a5af;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>David Abbott, Archaeologist</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">A Way Through the Wilderness: The Natchez Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier, by Davis</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">A History of Muhlenberg County (Kentucky), by Rothert</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock, by Rothert</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Natchez Under-the-Hill, by Moore</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Natchez: The History and Mystery of the City on the Bluff, by Whitington</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The Devil’s Backbone: The Story of the Natchez Trace, by Daniels</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Natchez On the Mississippi, by Kane</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">Archives: Natchez Democrat</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">The Judge Armstrong Library</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #76a5af;">©<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Copyright 2010, Natchez Area Paranormal Society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2082526902990453236.post-54365038838023265202010-12-11T04:02:00.000-08:002011-04-06T00:02:51.030-07:00Harpes & King's Tavern: Micajah (Big) Harpe Was Never There<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__rHBF2avF5E/TR9cFScUWgI/AAAAAAAAANo/1GflBhGNBzM/s1600/untitled.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" n4="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__rHBF2avF5E/TR9cFScUWgI/AAAAAAAAANo/1GflBhGNBzM/s1600/untitled.bmp" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e;">by Michael Chapman<br />
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<em><strong>Photo at Left:</strong> The old Natchez Trace</em></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">When N.A.P.S. conducted its full investigation into King's Tavern in the fall of 2010, we started by researching the history of the Tavern. In compiling the history that is regularly given for the Tavern as well as the stories behind it, we uncovered much that is simply not true. This did not surprise us. As is often the case, southern "history" contains much that is myth and folklore, and the history that is so often given for the Tavern is certainly no exception. One of the stories surrounding King's Tavern and the haunting of it, centers around the Harpe "brothers." In fact, during my research of the Harpes, I uncovered that it is not known for certain whether the Harpes were actually brothers. There are some historians in Kentucky, where the Harpes originated, that state that Micajah (Big Harpe) and Wiley (Little Harpe) were possibly cousins.<br />
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With regards to the haunting of King's Tavern, it is often stated as fact that Big Harpe slaughtered an infant there. This is given as the explanation of a phenomena whereby some have reported to have heard the crying of a baby. During my research of this psuedo-history, I came across website after website where this story is repeated. One example, given below, is from the website "ghostinmysuitcase.com." It is typical of the incorrect reporting of Micajah Harpe, and reads as follows: <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Workers report hearing a baby crying in the restaurant - specifically, from rooms that were supposedly empty. The story behind the infant's cry goes back to the 1700s when the building was not only an inn, but also the post office and one of the centers of the city's commerce. A young mother was trying to comfort her fussy infant, when a man named Big Harpe - one of the notorious Harpe brothers - walked over from the bar. She thought that he was going to assist her, but instead, he grabbed the baby by its feet and slammed the infant against the wall. As the distraught mother crumpled to the floor to gather the child's lifeless body, Big Harpe strolled back to the bar and ordered another drink. </em></span></span></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #45818e;">A factual look into the recorded history of Micajah Harpe reveals that while he certainly did kill children and in one instance a baby, the infant was most likely that of his own brother Wiley, a nine-month old daughter born to Wiley and Sally Roberts. Furthermore, this happened far, far away from Natchez and King's Tavern, and actually occurred near Russellville, Kentucky. I explain the details of that story elsewhere, but I want to take a minute to speak about why such stories and folktales abound, where the truth is abandoned and lies are so easily spoken. In a cogent essay regarding the curious phenomena of folklore so often being accepted as truth, Henry Glassie states:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>FOLKLORE and history make a pair, a contrastive pair. In the common language, folklore and history align in opposition to provide one of the antinomies we use to bring a little order into the mess. History is true. Folklore, an elder historian once told me with a smile, is "a pack of damned lies.' Folklore is a polite synonym for malarkey as in the phrase, "that's just a lot of folklore." Folklore is made of lies but not important ones. History is important; momentous events are "historic," while folklore is marginal, fetching but trivial. History is also gone. "One more out," the announcer intones in the bottom of the ninth, "and this game is history." By contrast, folklore is false, insignificant, and oddly vital. Folk history is an oxymoron: a false truth. Legend, the genre through which folk history claims life, was once defined as a falsehood believed to be true.' </em></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is much in southern culture that is folklore, and it is as pervasive as the Spanish moss that dangles from our live oaks. However, when one is doing historical research, it becomes quite a chore to separate historical fact from folklore and myth. I am personally amazed at how much we southerners accept our folklore as fact, without doubt...without question. It cuts against the grain, like trying to swim upstream against the flow of the mighty Mississippi itself, to try and convince some southerners that their long held belief and precious story is simply not true. As I stated earlier, the story of Big Harpe killing the baby has long been associated with the Natchez Trace and with King's Tavern. Another story that is sometimes given regarding the Tavern and Big Harpe is that he killed a man for snoring. That story is also true, but also happened in Kentucky, near Dixon.<br />
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Using Kentucky's historical resources from four counties there that I identified as relevant to the Harpe boys (Muhlenberg, Henderson, Lincoln and Hopkins Counties), I was successful in discovering the amazing documentation of the very end of Micajah (Big) Harpe's life, as well as information on Wiley (Little) Harpe. I discovered that Micajah did most all of his killing in that State - Kentucky - and likely never even set foot in the territory (now State) of Mississippi. The Harpes are believed to be from Virginia or North Carolina, from the region near the border of Kentucky. The stories have simply been "transported" to the Tavern, because it makes for a much more interesting story for the locals. The fact is, we know intimate details about Big Harpe's killing of a man for snoring, as well as the story of the infant, and can find them in recorded history far to the north - indeed in western Kentucky in Muhlenberg County. These factual accounts are not disputed and are very well documented.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;">It may be disappointing to some to read the truth - that Micajah's murders and infamous exploits occurred far from Natchez and King's Tavern. However, it should be noted that his brother (or cousin), Wiley "Little" Harpe, <em>did</em> flee to Natchez via the Natchez Trace after Micajah's death and very likely <em>was</em> in the Tavern often. There is a solid historical record of that. However, it would be a mistake to then conclude that it was he (Wiley) that did the murdering at the Tavern. Any historian will tell you that the stories surrounding Micajah, the slaughter of the infant, and the murder of the man for snoring did indeed happen, just not at the Tavern. There is no evidence, not one shred of historical record, that any murder or violence happened at the Tavern itself. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Verdana;">King's Tavern is an interesting place, and it has much interesting history, just not what is regularly presented as fact. Any "haunted crying" that is reported to occur there is likely to be matrixing (thinking it is happening when it actually is not). Auto suggestion is very powerful when expectations are combined with belief in folklore. Natural explanations are also a distinct possibility, such as the whirring motors of a blender from the restaurant's kitchen or bar, and the crying or meowing of a feline. </span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;"><u>Sources:</u></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"></span><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">Mississippi Department of Archives & History</span> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">A History of Muhlenberg County (Kentucky), by Otto A. Rothert</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">The Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock, by Otto A. Rothert</span></span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">A Way Through the Wilderness: The Natchez Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier, by Davis</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">Natchez Under-the-Hill, by Moore</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">Natchez: The History and Mystery of the City on the Bluff, by Whitington</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">The Devil’s Backbone: The Story of the Natchez Trace, by Daniels</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">Natchez On the Mississippi, by Kane</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">Archives: Natchez Democrat</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial;">The Judge Armstrong Library</span></span></span></div><span style="color: #45818e; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #45818e; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">© <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Copyright 2010, Natchez Area Paranormal Society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All or parts may be used with permission, just cite your source.</span></div>mikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17155107516108382701noreply@blogger.com0