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About eight miles North of Natchez on Highway 61 resides historic Jefferson College, the first educational institution of higher learning in Mississippi. Visitors can tour a restored dormitory room, student dining room, kitchen buildings, and other historic sites. The adjacent nature trail winds up and down through a wooded ravine, past St. Catherine's Creek, over bridges, past Ellicott Springs, and a historic cemetery, with plants and trees clearly identified along the way. Jefferson College, incorporated by an act of the first General Assembly of the Mississippi Territory in 1802, was named in honor of Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States and President of the American Philosophical Society. Territorial governor William C. C. Claiborne served as president of the college's first Board of Trustees. In 1830, the college purchased the Methodist church building that had housed the 1817 Mississippi statehood convention. They renovated it in 1832, and in 1839 completed construction of a new West Wing. Jefferson College is an extraordinary historic property and worth the ten minute drive from downtown to see. It is truly another "must see" to put on your itinerary.
Historic courthouse built in the Neo-Classical design, houses county records dating from 1912. Impressive war memorial on grounds.
Village settled by Scots about 1806. Varnado's Store was in operation before 1861. Site of Grierson's raid in 1863. Union Church Presbyterian Church was founded in March 1817. Current building is c. 1852. Galatia Methodist Church, c. 1859.
Designated a Mississippi Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Mississippi School of the Arts located on the historic campus.
c. 1850. Completely restored Greek Revival mansion. Many original furnishings and memorabilia.
First established in 1863, church services are conducted each Sunday morning and Wednesday evening.
Holly Hedges was one of the earliest homes built in the developing City of Natchez, circa 1796, when John Scott, a carpenter at the Spanish fort, was granted the property with the stipulation that he allow no bull fighting in the side yard. It is not clear that the house which stands upon the lot today was built by Scott in 1796 or in 1818 by Edward Turner when he acquired the property. An 1835 landscape painting of the area illustrates the house as it looks today, after its enlargement by a rear addition with two distinctive gable roofs. The house is not open for tour year round but can be viewed on a walking, driving or carriage tour from the street. It will, on occasion, be open for tour during Spring or Fall Pilgrimage.
Old commissary filled with antiques and artifacts pertaining to the culture surrounding the Mississippi Delta. Pattened the first mechanized cotton picker.
This 20-foot gray obelisk was built between 1894 and 1900 by William Hill Howcott, to honor his body servant, Willis Howcott, a faithful servant and friend who followed him into battle and was killed.
Designed by noted architect C.H. Lindsley and furnished by Marshall Field of Chicago, the Governor Hugh White mansion is "probably Mississippi's finest residential essay in the Colonial Revival Style" built in 1925.