Tag: Jackson

Categories
Artifacts Museums & Historic Sites

Spotlight on Governor’s Mansion Collection

Today marks the last post in the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion series, written by guest blogger Mary Lohrenz, curator of the mansion. For further reading about the mansion, please see the list at the bottom of this post. We hope you enjoyed it!

During the 1972-75 restoration of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion, only furniture with a documented association with past nineteenth-century governors was retained for display.  Edward Vason Jones, architect, interior designer, and consultant to the White House, was hired to select and acquire appropriate furniture and decorative arts objects for the mansion. Jones acquired furniture and furnishings in the Empire style as well as pieces in the French Restauration, Rococo Revival, and Renaissance Revival styles. From 1980 to 1983, noted historical consultant William Seale provided guidance on acquisitions.

Take a look at the “Period Furnishings” section on the governor’s mansion Web site to view an online gallery for four styles of furnishings featured in the mansion: Empire, French Restauration, Rococo Revival and Renaissance Revival.

Pedastal table. Accession Number: 73.47 (Governor's Mansion collection)
Pedestal table in Rose Parlor. Accession Number: 73.47 (Governor's Mansion Collection)

Detail, pedastal table. Accession Number: 73.47 (Governor's Mansion Collection)
Detail, pedestal table. Accession Number: 73.47 (Governor’s Mansion Collection)

An elegant pedestal table such as this one would have been the focal point of a nineteenth-century parlor. This c.1825-35 table may have been made in Philadelphia and was purchased in 1973 for the mansion. The Empire style table is mahogany and mahogany veneer with an intarsia (inlaid mosaic) marble top.

Read more about the mansion’s history and view frequently asked questions on the mansion website.

Free tours of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion are given Tuesdays through Fridays, 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. on the half-hour.  Reservations are required for groups of ten or more.  Because the mansion may be closed for official state functions, you should call 601-359-6421 to confirm tour availability.

Learn More!

Cain, Helen and Anne D. Czarniecki. An Illustrated Guide to the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984.

Darras, Melba. A Taste of History. D’Iberville: Pathfinder Publications, Stanley/Clark Publishers, 1999.

The Governor’s Mansion: A Pictorial History. Jackson: Mississippi Executive Mansion Commission, Inc., 1975.

Lohrenz, Mary. Mississippi Governor’s Mansion Docent Manual. January 2011.

Mississippi Governor’s Mansion website. www.mdah.ms.gov/museum/mansion.html

Mississippi History Now website. http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/ (An online publication of the Mississippi Historical Society. See the “Governors of Mississippi” article by David G. Sansing.)

Peatross, C. Ford and Robert O. Mellown. William Nichols, Architect. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Art Gallery, 1979.

Sansing, David G. and Carroll Waller. A History of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1977.

Skates, John Ray. Mississippi’s Old Capitol: Biography of a Building. Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1990.

Smith, Timothy B. Mississippi in the Civil War: The Home Front. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi for the Mississippi Historical Society and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2010.

Winter, Elise. Dinner at the Mansion. Oxford: Yoknapatawpha Press, 1982 and reprinted 2010.

Categories
Maps

Le Fleur’s Bluff and Jackson

Van Dorn's plan of Jackson
Original Plan of Jackson. Call Number: MA/2003.0101(b) MDAH Collection

Before statehood in 1817, Mississippi’s capital had at various times been at Natchez, Washington, and Columbia. A commission was appointed by the legislature in Februrary 1821 to find a more central location for the seat of state government. On November 20, 1821 the Mississippi legislature heard their report: the site the commissioners chose was called Le Fleur’s Bluff, on the Pearl River. It was named after Louis Le Fleur, a trader in the area, who was also the father of Greenwood Leflore. The legislature named the new town Jackson, after General Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), the hero of the War of 1812.

Pictured above is the original plan of Jackson, drawn by Peter Van Dorn in 1822. Van Dorn based his plan on the ideas of Thomas Jefferson, leaving alternate blocks on the grid as undeveloped woodland, so that all developed blocks faced woods on each side. These lots were later sold to finance the construction of the Old Capitol in the 1830s.

Source: John Ray Skates, Mississippi’s Old Capitol: Biography of a Building (Jackson: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1990), 8-17.

Categories
Museums & Historic Sites Photographs Portraits

Governor’s Mansion during the Civil War

Today we continue the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion series, written by guest blogger Mary Lohrenz, curator of the mansion.   
Governor John J. Pettus. Call Number: PI/1989.0008 (MDAH Collection)
Governor John J. Pettus. Call Number: PI/1989.0008 (MDAH Collection)
Governor Benjamin G. Humphreys. Call Number: PI/1989.0008 (MDAH Collection)
Governor Benjamin G. Humphreys. Call Number: PI/1989.0008 (MDAH Collection)

On January 9, 1861, Mississippi seceded from the Union and was soon involved in fighting for its life against forces of the United States.  On May 6, 1863, as Union troops advanced towards the capital of Jackson, state government bureaus and offices were forced to evacuate the city and Governor John Jones Pettus had to flee his residence in the Governor’s Mansion.  Jackson fell to Union troops on May 14, 1863, who then left the city to take part in their campaign against Vicksburg.  On May 29, 1863, Dr. R. N. Anderson addressed Governor Pettus that he was using the Mansion to care for wounded and ill Confederate soldiers.  In early June 1863, Governor Pettus returned to Jackson, but after the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, he left the city before it was reoccupied by Northern soldiers. On the evening of July 18, 1863, General William T. Sherman and other Union officers dined in the Governor’s Mansion and toasted the joint successes of the U.S. Army and Navy.

During the remainder of the Civil War, restless state government offices remained on the move and exiled from their capital city, Jackson.  First settling briefly in Meridian, the capital moved to Columbus and Macon.  Furniture from the Governor’s Mansion was sent to the temporary capital of Macon for safekeeping.  In the wake of the tragic war, in October 1865, Governor Benjamin G. Humphreys authorized a person to retrieve the Mansion furniture from Macon.  It, however, had been either stolen or destroyed and could not be located.

Sofa belonging to Gov. Humphreys. Accession Number: 93.1.1 (Governor's Mansion Collection)
Sofa belonging to Gov. Humphreys. Accession Number: 93.1.1 (Mississippi Governor's Mansion Collection)

Today, Mansion visitors can view the c. 1850 sofa (on exhibit in the Gold Bedroom) which belonged to Governor Benjamin G. Humphreys and was probably used in the Governor’s Mansion during his 1865 – 1868 term as governor.  This Rococo Revival style sofa was the private property of Governor Humphreys and was donated to the Governor’s Mansion by his descendents in 1993.

Read more about the Mansion’s history and view frequently asked questions about the mansion. 

Free tours of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion are given Tuesdays through Fridays, 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. on the half-hour.  Reservations are required for groups of ten or more.  Because the mansion may be closed for official state functions, you should call 601-359-6421 to confirm tour availability.

Sources:

Cain, Helen and Anne D. Czarniecki.  An Illustrated Guide to the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion.  Jackson:  University Press of Mississippi, 1984.

Howell, H. Grady, Jr.  Chimneyville:  “likenesses”of early days in Jackson, Mississippi.  Madison, Mississippi:  Chickasaw Bayou Press, 2007.

Lohrenz, Mary.  Mississippi Governor’s Mansion Docent Manual.  January 2011.

Sansing, David G. and Carroll Waller.  A History of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion.  Jackson:  University Press of Mississippi, 1977.

Skates, John Ray.  Mississippi’s Old Capitol: Biography of a Building.  Jackson:  Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1990.

Smith, Timothy B.  Mississippi in the Civil War:  The Home Front.  Jackson:  University Press of Mississippi for the Mississippi Historical Society and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 2010.

Categories
Paper Archives Photographs

Origins of the Teddy Bear

Theodore Roosevelt
Call Number: Z/1813 James Ventress Papers (MDAH Collection)

On November 14, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was hunting in the Mississippi Delta, and because he wasn’t having much success, his companions captured a small bear and brought it to him to shoot. Roosevelt refused and once the newspapers (and toymakers) got a hold of the story, the “Teddy Bear” was born, to the delight of children everywhere.

Here, Roosevelt is pictured second from left on one of his trips to Mississippi at the Galloway House in Jackson. The photograph is from the James Alexander Ventress papers, one of the many manuscript holdings in the MDAH collection.

Source: John K. Bettersworth, Mississippi Yesterday and Today (Austin, Texas: The Steck Company, Publishers, 1964), 276.

Categories
Museums & Historic Sites

More Architecture of the Governor’s Mansion

Today we continue the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion series, written by guest blogger Mary Lohrenz, curator of the mansion. This post continues her discussion of the Greek Revival style of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion.

Let’s go inside to discover more Greek Revival elements. You can also view the floorplans of the Governor’s Mansion.

Foyer, Governor's Mansion, 2000
Octagonal foyer, Mississippi Governor's Mansion, 2000
Foyer column detail, Mississippi Governor's Mansion, 2010
Foyer column detail, Mississippi Governor's Mansion, 2010

The mansion’s octagonal foyer has columns that are a different interpretation of the Corinthian order than those on the front portico.

The Corinthian foyer columns are set in antis, meaning round columns placed between square columns or piers.  Mansion architect William Nichols also used Doric columns set in antis for the side entrances of the 1839 Mississippi Capitol. 

Architrave over Front Rose Parlor door to foyer, Governor's Mansion, 2009
Architrave over Front Rose Parlor door to foyer, Governor's Mansion, 2009
Architrave, Black Rose Parlor looking into Front Rose Parlor, Governor's Mansion, 2009
Architrave over pocket doors, Back Rose Parlor looking into Front Rose Parlor, Mississippi Governor's Mansion, 2009
Architrave, LaFever engravings, 1839
Architrave, Lafever engravings, 1839

There are ornately-carved architraves (ornamental moldings) with the Greek honeysuckle design above the pocket doors located between the Front and Back Rose Parlors and between the State Dining Room and the Gold Parlor and above the front door and selected first floor room doors. William Nichols patterned these after engravings published in Minard Lafever’s The Beauties of Modern Architecture (3rd edition, 1839).   

Mantel, Green Bedroom, Governor's Mansion, 2009
Mantel, Green Bedroom, Mississippi Governor's Mansion, 2009
"Chimney Pieces," La Fever engravings, 1839
"Chimney Pieces," Lafever engravings, 1839

William Nichols also used Lafever’s publication as the pattern for the Greek Revival rosette design of the original wooden mantel in the mansion’s Green Bedroom.

Read more about the mansion’s history and view frequently asked questions. 

Free tours of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion are given Tuesdays through Fridays, 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. on the half-hour.  Reservations are required for groups of ten or more.  Because the mansion may be closed for official state functions, you should call 601-359-6421 to confirm tour availability.

Sources:

Helen Cain and Anne D. Czarniecki,  An Illustrated Guide to the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion (Jackson:  University Press of Mississippi, 1984).

Mary Lohrenz, Mississippi Governor’s Mansion Docent Manual (January 2011).

C. Ford Peatross and Robert O. Mellown,  William Nichols, Architect  (Tuscaloosa:  University of Alabama Art Gallery, 1979).