Natchez Trails

Joseph Neibert built Choctaw in 1836 as his mansion townhouse. Neibert was a cotton planter. In the 1830s he and his partner Peter Gemmel, operated the city's most successful building firm, which employed both white and enslaved craftsmen. In 1844, the house sold to Alvarez Fisk, a supported of education and member of the Mississippi Colonization Society. This group tried to create settlements for freed slaves in West Africa. In 1855, Choctaw became home to George Malin Davis, a wealthy planter and lawyer. His outspoken support of Mississippi's secession from the Union led to Choctaw's occupation by U.S. forces during the Civil War.Cherokee, like Choctaw, is a grand house that was the home of a cotton planter. Natchez planter and cotton broker Frederick Stanton owned Cherokee from 1846 until he moved into newly completed Stanton Hall in 1858. The 1920s image above shows the house in run-down condition. Cherokee, like many Natchez houses dating to the 1830s and 40s, was finished in stucco, which was scored and painted to look like sandstone on the facade. This decorative paint treatment has been restored.Mansions like Choctaw and Cherokee were townhouse mansions of cotton planters, who preferred the ease and social life in Natchez and its suburbs to life on an isolated cotton plantation.
Life for enslaved people who worked in the cotton fields was much harder than for slaves who worked in houses or businesses. Travel writer Joseph Holt Ingraham wrote in 1835 that "field hands" were "secluded in the solitude on an extensive plantation, which is their world, beyond whose horizon they know nothing...and without seeing a white person except their master or overseer, with whom they seldom hold any conversation.Several additions and remodeling created the rambling shape of White Wings (behind you), pictured with azaleas in full bloom. The original portion dates to the 1830s. The 1849 Stockton House next door has a similar ornate porch.

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Show me all markers in:  Natchez, MS  |  Adams County  |  39120  |  Mississippi  |  United States of America

Intersection of High and North Pearl streets
Intersection of North Canal and Jefferson streets
Andrew Marschalk
Snakes
Old Natchez Hotel
Natchez Bluffs and River Views
Bluff Park and North Broadway Street
"The Natchez Burning"
Jefferson Street Methodist Church
Site of Bank of Mississippi

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