The members of the Auburn Antebellum Home will be hosting our ninth annual Christmas open house from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 13 with free tours, 1812-era baked goods by Terri DeShong from Pennsylvania and music by Burnley Cook. I am sure that many Natchez residents have not been in Auburn for many years, if ever. Now would be a great time during the holiday season to visit and enjoy Auburn. Come join us on Dec. 13 and bring your camera because photography is welcome. We were hoping to have the restoration on the detached kitchen completed for the Christmas open house, but weather and product shipment didn’t cooperate. You will still be able to see the exterior renovations. When all is complete and we get the approval from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, we will be having a public open house which will coincide with the 300th birthday of Natchez.

Auburn was built by Levi Weeks for Attorney Lyman Harding, who had moved to Natchez from Boston. The house was completed in 1812. It was the first mansion to be built in Natchez. Weeks wrote to his friend that ”this is the first house of the territory on which was attempted any of the orders of architecture.”

Attorney Harding died in 1820. The second owner of the house was Dr. Stephen A. Duncan, who had moved to Natchez from Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Catherine, moved into Auburn around 1821 and lived there until 1863 when they left Auburn by a Union gunboat which conveyed them north and eventually to New York City. Dr. Duncan died in New York in 1867.

Stephen Duncan Jr. elected to stay at Auburn and lived off an on there until his death in 1910. His heirs decided to donate Auburn, all of the furnishings, and 210 acres to the City of Natchez with the stipulation that the land would be made into a public park in memory of the Duncans, thus we have Duncan Park. The second stipulation was that the house and land remain together. Because of this requirement, the city decided to sell all the furnishings thinking that the house would be easier to take care of if it were empty.

The city made an apartment upstairs for the caretaker of the park and his family, but downstairs remained virtually empty and became a playhouse for children of the city. In 1972, the Town and Country Garden Club (later to named the Auburn Garden Club) set up a lease with the city to open the house for tours on a daily basis and operated a bed and breakfast around 20 years to earn money to furnish Auburn with period furniture. Over the years, a few of the Duncan original pieces of furniture and fixtures have been returned to Auburn. We would be interested in acquiring more.

In 2009, the members of the Auburn Garden Club, petitioned the city and the state for a name change and new bylaws. The Auburn Antebellum Home is the new name with a focus on Auburn preservation. We are a small group of male and female volunteers who still lease the house from the city and manage it. If anyone wishes to join our group, please contact Auburn at 601-442-5981 and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Our current project is to restore the detached kitchen with servants’ quarters on the second floor. This building (ca. 1830) has been identified by MDAH as one of only 4 such structures still standing in Mississippi. There is much black history connected with this building and we wish to tell the story, especially of George Davis, a house servant who stayed at Auburn after he was freed. Auburn Antebellum Home is a 501c3 for federal income tax purposes and donations four our restoration purposes will be appreciated. A receipt will be provided upon request. Auburn doesn’t receive any tax money so we operate on only tourist dollars and donations.

Our next project will be to repair the main house and the severe water damage. We hope that will begin in 2016 with the uses of a grant from MDAH.

Hope to see everyone at the open house because this is not only the city’s house but all of citizens’ house.

 

J. Clark Feiser is the president of Auburn Antebellum Home.