Hawthorne Place, Natchez Mississippi
Hawthorne Place is an outstanding example of a Natchez Federal-style cottage. The marked contrast between its cottage-like exterior and the grand scale of its interior spaces, coupled with the fineness of its millwork, sets it apart from other Federal-style cottages ea. Its brick-nogged frame construction is rare (only two other examples, Bedford Plantation and The Briers, are known to survive in the area), and its frame barn and carriage house are probably the oldest surviving buildings of their type in the vicinity of Natchez.
Documentary evidence supported by stylistic comparisons indicates that Hawthorne Place was constructed at some time between 1820 and 1827, most probably between 1825 and 1827, as the residence of Maria Overaker and her widowed mother, Margaret Overaker. The house was constructed on a sixty-acre tract once part of a large estate owned by George Overaker, a wealthy landholder and owner of the White Horse Tavern.
When George Overaker died in 1820, his estate was partitioned and divided among his widow and daughters, Maria and Elizabeth Tichenor (Mrs. Gabriel). A plat map of an 1820 survey of Overaker's estate shows only two buildings on the estate, Hope Farm, the residence of George Overaker, and the White Horse Tavern. Hawthorne Place does not appear on the 1820 map.
In December 1825, Maria Overaker and her sister Elizabeth Tichenor exchanged the tracts of land each had inherited from her father. The tract of land originally given to Elizabeth and later traded to Maria is the land upon which Hawthorne Place stands. In February 1827, Margaret sold Hope Farm and neither she nor Maria acquired any other property. Since the 1830 census lists Margaret Overaker as head of a household with one younger white female, she and her daughter Maria were probably residing at Hawthorne Place on the tract acquired in 1825 from Elizabeth Tichenor. Either Hawthorne Place was constructed by the Tichenors between 1820 and 1825 or, as is more likely, it was constructed between 1825, when Maria Overaker acquired the property, and 1827, when the Overakers sold Hope Farm. The 1820 and 1830 census records indicate that the Tichenors resided within the city limits of Natchez, where Gabriel Tichenor was cashier of the Bank Of Mississippi. In construction form and millwork, Hawthorne Place resembles The Briers, described as "new" in an 1825 newspaper advertisement.
In 1833, Maria Overaker sold Hawthorne Place for $10,000 to Robert Dunbar II, son of Robert Dunbar, one of the earliest prominent settlers in the Natchez area. The property apparently acquired its historic name during the Dunbar ownership, as the house is referred to by name in a Dunbar marriage notice of 1854 (Natchez Weekly Courier, May 3rd, 1854, p. 3) and in a deed of 1857.
In 1928, the McGehee family purchased Hawthorne Place, which was later partitioned to grant the house and thirteen acres to Carl A. McGehee.
Building Description
A gravel drive entered from the west side of Lower Woodville Road leads to Hawthorne Place, a story-and-a-half rectangular brick-nogged frame structure set upon a low brick foundation wall. The house is covered with clapboards except for the front wall, which is plastered and finished with a molded two-fascia base. The broken front slope of the gabled roof is pierced by two interior brick chimneys. Three gabled dormers on the front slope and a large gabled dormer on the rear slope have been added recently. The five-bay facade is fronted by a gallery extending the full width of the house and supported by paneled wooden box columns with molded capitals without bases. The columns, linked by a railing composed of rectangular-sectioned balusters with molded handrails, are echoed on the front wall by pilasters at either end. A short flight of wooden steps with railings terminating in square newels leads from the gallery to the front walk.
Access to the interior is through a center doorway and one jib window, achieved by a simple splitting of an original window panel located in the northern end bay. The windows of the house, containing six-over-six double-hung sash, are set over molded panels on the facade and closed by shutter blinds. The entrance is composed of double-leaf eight-paneled molded doors set within an elaborately molded elliptical fanlight with a keystone. Side lights are set above molded panels and flanked by symmetrically molded pilasters with molded capitals and bases.
The interior is basically a double-pile central hall plan with cabinet rooms located at either end of a rear gallery, which appears to have been enclosed ca. 1830. The elaborate entrance is matched on the interior by the rear doorway and nearly matched in the two fan-lighted doorways to the front rooms. The attached turned columns used in the design of the keystoned arch dividing the central hall are repeated in the mantel with oval paterae located in the northern front room. An unusual feature of the floor plan is the larger size of the two back rooms in relation to the more formal front rooms. The door and window surrounds of the four main rooms consist of symmetrically molded trim with corner blocks. All windows are set over molded panels, and the baseboards are molded with two fasciae. An original closet and Federal-style mantel are located in each of the large bedrooms.
The stairway, which runs back to front in a straight flight along the southerly wall of the hallway, is entered at the rear of the hall. The stair features a delicately turned newel and rectangular-sectioned balusters and terminates in a large upstairs hall with beaded base. Three bedrooms have been modernized, but their unfinished state indicates that they may have been intended originally to house servants or for storage.
Each cabinet room at the rear of the house contains a small bedroom and modern bath. A den was added recently across the three central bays of the rear. A three-bay-wide frame addition was added, apparently in the late 1830s, to the northerly wall of the house; this gabled-roof addition houses a modern kitchen and laundry. Other interesting features of the house are a stenciled floor, which has survived in a closet beneath the stairway, and original hardware from the 1820s and '30s.
Outbuildings consist of two notable frame structures, a barn and a carriage house; a frame gabled-roof structure believed to have been a washhouse; and a brick gabled-roof building probably originally used as a summer kitchen and dining room.
Looking southwest, the facade and northern addition to Hawthorne Place (1979)
Looking easterly, the hallway and entrance doorway of Hawthorne Place (1979)
Looking northwest, the facade and southern wall of Hawthorne Place (1979)
Looking easterly, the rear of Hawthorne Place, showing modern den enclosure on the rear (1979)
Looking northerly, the brick dependency which was probably the original summer kitchen and dining room (1979)
Looking northwest, an original frame outbuilding with two-bay addition located behind Hawthorne Place (1979)
