Windsor Ruins are in
Claiborne County, Mississippi, United States, about southwest of
Port Gibson near
Alcorn State University. The ruins consist of 23 standing
Corinthian columns
The Corinthian order (Greek: Κορινθιακός ρυθμός, Latin: ''Ordo Corinthius'') is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order ...
of the largest
antebellum
Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to:
United States history
* Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States
** Antebellum Georgia
** Antebellum South Carolina
** Antebellum Virginia
* Antebellum ...
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...
mansion ever built in the state.
The mansion stood from 1861 to 1890, when it was destroyed by fire. The site with the columns was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1971 and was designated a
Mississippi Landmark in 1985.
[
]
History
Background
Windsor mansion was located on a plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
that covered . The mansion was constructed by enslaved African Americans between 1859 and 1861 for Smith Coffee Daniell II. He was born in Mississippi and had acquired great wealth by age 30 as a cotton planter. In 1849, Smith Daniell married his cousin Catherine Freeland (1830–1903).[ The couple had six children, with three surviving to adulthood.
]
Construction
Windsor mansion was built facing the Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
, which formed the major transportation route. It was located about east of the river. The architect David Shroder supervised a crew of skilled artisans—carpenters, plasterers, masons, and painters—from Mississippi, northeastern states, and Europe to do finishing work on the mansion.[
The footprint for Windsor mansion was set by 29 columns which supported a projected roof line that protected wide ]veranda
A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure.
Although the form ''vera ...
s on the second and third floors.[ The 29 columns were constructed of bricks that were covered with stucco. Each column was more than in diameter at the base and stood tall. The columns were constructed atop tall, paneled brick ]plinth
A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In ...
s that were almost square. Bricks were made in an onsite kiln
A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...
. The fluted columns were crowned with ornate, iron Corinthian capitals
The Corinthian order (Greek: Κορινθιακός ρυθμός, Latin: ''Ordo Corinthius'') is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order w ...
. The columns were joined at the height of the third floor by ornamental iron balustrades.[
Column capitals, balustrades, and four cast iron stairways were manufactured in ]St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
and shipped down the Mississippi River to the Port of Bruinsburg, about west of Windsor mansion.[
]
Description
Windsor mansion was constructed as a three-story block, consisting of a ground floor basement, with living quarters on the second and third floors.[ The main block was on each side. A three-story ell projected from the east side of the main block. The ell measured by . Archeological examination suggests that outer walls were constructed of wood covered in stucco. When completed, the mansion contained three hallways and 23 to 25 rooms, each with its own fireplace. A featured innovation for that time period was the inclusion of two interior bathrooms supplied with rainwater from a tank in the attic.
In 1861, cost of construction was about US$175,000 (equal to $ today).][
The ground floor basement contained a school room, doctor's office, dairy, commissary, and storage rooms.][ The second floor had a hallway flanked by the master bedroom, a bathroom, two parlors, a study and a library. In the ell off the second floor was the dining room. Connected to the dining room by a ]dumbwaiter
A dumbwaiter is a small freight elevator or lift intended to carry food. Dumbwaiters found within modern structures, including both commercial, public and private buildings, are often connected between multiple floors. When installed in restau ...
was the kitchen, located on the ground floor. The third floor contained an additional bath and eight more bedrooms. Eight chimneys extended from the slate-covered roof, and a domed cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.
The word derives, via Italian, fro ...
with glass walls was constructed above the attic, over the main block of the mansion.[
On April 12, 1861, Smith Daniell died at age 34, just weeks after construction of the mansion was completed.][
]
Civil War era
Once the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
began in 1861, Confederate
Confederacy or confederate may refer to:
States or communities
* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
forces used the Windsor mansion cupola as an observation platform and signal station.[ In the spring of 1863, as part of his ]Vicksburg campaign
The Vicksburg campaign was a series of maneuvers and battles in the Western Theater of the American Civil War directed against Vicksburg, Mississippi, a fortress city that dominated the last Confederate-controlled section of the Mississippi Ri ...
, Union General Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...
and 17,000 Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
troops landed at the port of Bruinsburg and took control of Windsor mansion. Following the Battle of Port Gibson
The Battle of Port Gibson was fought near Port Gibson, Mississippi, on May 1, 1863, between Union and Confederate forces during the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. The Union Army was led by Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and was v ...
, the mansion was used by Union troops as a hospital and as an observation station. The Daniell family was allowed to live on the third floor of the mansion during the Union occupation.[
]
Windsor mansion survived the war and continued to be used by the Daniell family as a home and for social gatherings in the area. During Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
, the family derived income by leasing part of their vast land holdings.[
For more than 100 years, the outward appearance of Windsor mansion was a matter of conjecture. But in the early 1990s, an 1863 sketch of Windsor mansion was discovered in the papers of a former Union officer, Henry Otis Dwight, of the ]20th Ohio Infantry
The 20th Ohio Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Service Three-months regiment
The 20th Ohio Infantry Regiment was organized at Columbus, Ohio April through May 1861 in response to Preside ...
. Historians believe that Henry Dwight made the sketch while his unit was encamped on the grounds of the mansion.[
]
Fire
On February 17, 1890, a fire started on the third floor when a guest dropped ashes from a cigarette or cigar into construction debris left by carpenters who were making repairs. Windsor mansion was destroyed leaving only the columns, balustrades, cast iron stairways, and pieces of bone china
Bone china is a type of ceramic that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolin. It has been defined as "ware with a translucent body" containing a minimum of 30% of phosphate derived from animal bone and calculated calcium phospha ...
.[
]
Historic site
When Catherine Daniell died in 1903, her daughter, Priscilla Daniell, inherited the mansion property.[ Priscilla married Joseph Magruder, and the mansion site remained in the Magruder family until 1974, when they donated , containing the mansion ruins, to the state of Mississippi. The historic site contains 23 standing columns and 5 partial columns; it is administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Through the years, three of the cast iron stairways, that survived the 1890 fire, disappeared from the site.][ The fourth stairway was moved to Alcorn State University and serves as the entrance to ]Oakland Memorial Chapel
Oakland Memorial Chapel is a historic church and academic building on the campus of Alcorn State University in rural southwestern Claiborne County, Mississippi. Built in 1838 as part of Oakland College, it is one of the oldest surviving build ...
.
North of Windsor Ruins is a cemetery where members of the Daniell and Freeland families have been buried since the early 19th century. The earliest grave is that of Frisby Freeland (1747 – 1819), an American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
soldier.
In popular culture
Windsor's ruins have been shown in two motion pictures—'' Raintree County'' (1957) and ''Ghosts of Mississippi
''Ghosts of Mississippi'' is a 1996 American biographical courtroom drama film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, and James Woods. The plot is based on the true story of the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, the ...
'' (1996).[
]
References
External links
Video of the Windsor Ruins
from 2016
{{National Register of Historic Places
Ruins in the United States
Burned houses in the United States
Mississippi Landmarks
Demolished buildings and structures in Mississippi
Protected areas of Claiborne County, Mississippi
National Register of Historic Places in Claiborne County, Mississippi
Houses in Claiborne County, Mississippi
Greek Revival architecture in Mississippi
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Mississippi
Plantation houses in Mississippi