A couple Saturdays ago, the 12th, Slata and I got up (groggily, after a giant dinner at Schimmel’s the night before, continuing a victory celebration where apparently local Jackson restaurants and bars ran out of Dom Perignon) (my question: did they actually have a lot to begin with? Like, because, I’m out of Dom right now) so’s we could do TraceTrek ’05: Natchez Tourist!
So, of course, we had to eat at Julep first (it’s a weekend! You have to have Julep brunch, with mimosas!), and finally set off on our way down the Natchez Trace.
We quickly learned that the Trace was several things: first, beautiful. Secondly, there were often gigantic birds (hawks? Eagles? We have no idea, but they were big), and at least once we saw some buzzards that were as big as the car.
Third, the Trace is effing slow. I mean, the speed limit is 50 miles an hour. Constant speeding ticket fear—tickets on the Trace for even minor infractions are legendary—kept me in line, while Slata kept murmuring about how we were going so slow and how all of Washington D.C. is a federal park, and you don’t see people driving this slow and do we have to listen to yet more Fleetwood Mac? Because, as Professor Fury & Contessa can attest, I loves me some Stevie Nicks.
Keeping in mind that we wanted to go down the Trace for the sightseeing value, the fourth thing about that historic road is that—at least from Jaxxon to Natchez—it’s totally bogus. I mean, we’d see a “historic marker” sign, and pull off, and it would say something like, At this spot in the late eighteenth century there were many historic occurrences. You can almost feel them occurring around you—look deep into the woods, and imagine them occurring. Later, at the time of the Civil War, it is very possible that perhaps there were some type of Confederate, and possibly Union, occurrences.
The one really cool thing was Mount Locust, which was situated on one of the most beautiful pieces of land I’ve ever seen. After a short drive off the main road, we walked up the winding path to the ancient hotel and it was just amazingly serene. You couldn’t hear the road anymore, and after a while I realized that we were without the constant hum-buzz of air conditioners—well, that certainly wasn’t going on, because the old place is still without air, just the way it was. The word is serene.
After we finally crawled our way to Natchez, we went immediately to what had been the #1 pick of all the people who suggested spots to visit: Longwood.
The six-story octagonal mansion is so bizarre and outright pretty that I just kept staring at it. And after going inside ($8 a piece? Yikes!), I realized that it wasn’t just any other relic of a pre-war South: it was actually a six-story octagonal metaphor for the South—or, at least, a certain part of the South.
The family started building in 1860—probably not a good time to invest in a giant mansion—and the general concept was, we’re going to build something nobody has ever seen before. It’s going to be bigger, better, and more ostentatious than anything that’s ever existed.
The problem is, they were using skilled Yankee labor to install all the (differently-colored) marble fireplaces and craft the pagoda on the very top of the mansion and within a few months these fellows found themselves behind enemy lines. So? They left, leaving behind a wholly unfinished building, littered with their tools and the crates that the family had their valuables delivered in. While the outside of the house is completed (save the windows that were never installed), the inside shows that facade is misleading.
The only part they finished was the basement—which the family moved into. And there they lived for over a century, as the family cotton fortune literally went up in smoke and the South that was, one where there might be six-story octagonal mansions, went away.
And the basement is decorated like it’s a mansion—filled with portraits and landscapes, a grand piano, elaborately-carved furniture . . . and only now and then do you realize that you’re in a basement, pretending that nothing is different and really, this is just fine.
While walking over to the cemetary we spotted this gigantic spider-web—I mean, as big as a car! With this guy in the middle! She was at least two inches big. Yeek!
We went to several other places after Longwood, but it was by far my favorite. I stayed mostly horrified at Slata after she insisted on hopping the gate at Rosalie and poking around in the gardens.
Gorjus: Jeezle, will you stop breaking into things?? First Eudora Welty’s house, and now this!
Slata: All I did at Eudora’s house was steal some flowers and get drunk in her garden. And, I’m not giving Rosalie one damn dime of my money.
Gorjus: Uh, and why not? We just gave Longwood, like, $500. And we had to listen to that poor tourguide lady have to imagine new words for “slave” every five second because that black guy was in the group with us.
Slata: Yeah, and I don’t think that saying “manservant” is really much better. But no, the DAR runs Rosalie, and I’m not giving them any money.
Gorjus: What? Why not?
Slata: Because they’re racist.
Gorjus: What the hell? The DAR?? Sally’s a DAR!
Slata: Gasp! You need to tell her to resign!
Gorjus: I don’t think you can. I think it’s, like, birthright.
Slata: Exactly!! RACISTS.
So then we ate some hushpuppies at The Sandbar over in Vidalia and came back and went to Bowie’s Bar and got a little drunk and looked at the truly beautiful sunset over the Mississippi River:
And all the damn restaurants were closed so we ate Moon Pies and chocolate cupcakes for dinner and drove home and I’ve never been so sleepy at midnight, ever. But it was a great trip.
Sounds like fun! I haven’t been on the trace in years, though I definitely remember the ticket paranoia that it induces.
Isn’t the Longwood basement, like, 10,000 sq ft? It’s a big basement.
My favorite thing involving Natchez, goats . . . and murder.
Um, was she thinking of the Daughters of the Confederacy? I ain’t in that one. DAR = Daughters of the American Revolution. That’s different! And, probably still racist. I’ve never participated or gone to a meeting or anything; I just helped my mother prove that we were related to a dude who fought in the Revolutionary War.
I hope that’s enough guilty explaining. I mean, it’s no 4,000 years of guilt, but I hope it’ll suffice.
I was fascinated by a spider very similar to that one that took up residence outside the front door of our first house in BR. When I would walk Sadie down the street I’d try to find bugs to put in the web. I once found a huge mostly alive locust. It was completely gone the next day. Alas, after the spider got really fat she moved on.
The best part about that goat castle story is the pictures of the filthy house. I have the book and have studied those filthy house pictures extensively.
No, Slata’s reason that the DAR was racist was because they wouldn’t let Marian Anderson have a concert in a theatre they owned. A policy which they reversed in 1943. She has a long memory!
And this site has Longwood ghost stories, too!
By popular demand, I also give you the sign honoring the Former Spanish Governor of Natchez Who Is Most Likely to Be Mocked by Twelve-Year Olds:
I just played a word-association game with my big brother:
Slata: National parks
Brother: Speeding
Slata: DAR
Brother: Racists!
It must be a D.C. thing.
But I already miss the cheese grits. And the catfish. And the barbeque.
And the obvious-but-charming metaphors.
Re: DAR racism. Elanor Roosevelt intervened (she resigned from DAR and got Secretary of Interior Harold ickes to arrange a free show) and Anderson gave her concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memoial foreshadowing “I Have a Dream.” At that time supposedly the biggest crowd ever on the Mall surpassing one assumes the Hooverville squatters.
I’m sure this info was in Gorjus’ link, but I’ve always been a believer in redundacy!
There is, I swear to god, a Gayoso street in downtown Memphis.
Forgot this: Gorjus, our friend Bob went to the Longwood just a few weeks before you did. Her comment to some fellow tourists who were lamenting that the family never got to use their mansion: “Well, Hitler never got to use his yacht, either.”
I’m telling you: she’s Kate Hepburn reincarnated as a Southern writer!!
i wish i would have known about some of these places before we headed out on our honeymoon!! we did get to go to the most haunted city in all of Kansas and that was cool.
great pictures!
Ah, Gorjus…a few things.
Ok, I guess you know this, but I thought that Longwood was being built by slaves who ran off to fight in the war – or maybe it was southern men – i didn’t think it was “yankees”, alas I could be wrong, but I thought they left all their tools there b/c they just assumed that they would be coming back to finish the place. Personally, I can’t imagine living under a grave yard, which is essentially what the family did by living in the basement of an unfinished house. I can’t begin to imagine the mental illness going on in there.
Secondly – why is the DAR racist? My great grandmother was in the DAR (which i assume means I can be, too), AND she was a big time West Tennessee democrat who did all this correspondance with FDR - we still have the letters and stuff, on the electoral college – and so – was FDR racist? what is this about eleanor roosevelt? b/c i always assumed she was a pretty progressive lady (died long before i was born).
incidentally, my great grandmother – well, this one – was named Elizabeth Taylor. ha. “Ma Bess” they called her.
nevermind the racist thing. i just re-read. whatever. i had nothing to do with my being able to be in the DAR if i so desired.
One of the folks in our tour group asked specifically about why the workers left. The guide responded that they were highly skilled white Northern workmen, and that the only kind of labor you could get in the area was of the generic ditch-digging kind, so Dr. Nutt required craftsmen who could work marble and so on. So the workers high-tailed it out of there when the War started. This site specifically says that they were Pennsylvania, but I haven’t heard that anywhere else.
Remember that work on Longwood started at the beginning of the War and that President Lincoln didn’t issue the Emancipation Proclamation until almost two years into the War, on January 1st, 1863. The president specifically called upon freed slaves to join with the Union forces; again, though, that was years after construction on Longwood had halted.
Um, and the DAR = racist thing is what we call a “joke.” Heh. My argument with Slata is that you shouldn’t impugn an organization in the modern day for its formerly racist actions, and her counter-argument was I still don’t like them. Hee.
Longwood is by far the creepiest house in Natchez. If ever a place should be haunted, that’s it. I’ve been there a lot (because my mom LOVES it and dragged us there on several occasions), and I’ve gotten weird creepy goose bumps every time.
I love that the guy who built it was named Dr. Nutt. And then he went crazy. I guess nobody saw that one coming.
Oooh oooh! Did you see the ruins of Windsor?! That’s another awesomely creepy one.
Y’all, this is an example of one of my LEAST FAVORITE THINGS that happens on a blog.
It’s the “nuh-uh” syndrome. Don’t let it happen to you! Google first, speak second!
His full name was Dr. Haller Nutt—locally pronounced (in Natchez) as “howler”. That’s funny.
AUGHH.
gorjus, i was just recalling what i thought the dude had said from the time i visited there. that is all. not worth googling cause i knew i could get the answer easier from you. i don’t remember dates b/c it was a few years ago i was there, and frankly, didn’t care that much about it. that is just what i thought i remembered hearing. i even thought i remembered hearing the slaves left to go and fight for the south (which some did – in general), but, once again….i was wrong.
second, dar, of course that was a joke. i just thought it funny, as well, especially considering i could be in it, too. oh well. whatever.
Interesting.