NATCHEZ — The name Concord Quarters holds great promise for Debbie Cosey.

Like the definition of the word concord, Cosey sees unity and harmony in the slave quarters she and her husband Gregory have renovated on Gayosa Avenue.

“We are living in this house,” Cosey said. “We are living in Concord. We want to live in agreement.”

Concord Quarters survives as the last fully intact property on the former Concord Plantation, which when built in 1794 was the grandest building of the Natchez colonial period.

The quarters still standing was built in 1820 for the Minor family, Cosey said. Originally, two matching brick buildings faced each other in the rear courtyard of the mansion.

Cosey said the quarters exist in part to tell the lesser-known story of the black slaves who labored to produce the cotton wealth of Natchez and to operate the mansion estates of wealthy planters.

“Slavery in this country was based solely on race,” Cosey said. “It is a blight on our national integrity.

“I would hope here, at this home, that we would be able to open up some dialogue.”

At Concord, the quarters stand to shine a light on the enslaved people, Cosey said.

“We hope to tell the story of the men and women whose names are forgotten or unknown,” she said. “The names are countless, and they certainly faced harsh treatment.”

As Cosey toured Thursday for Natchez Visitor’s Center staff and others, she was asked by Natchez Pilgrimage Tours’ Lynn Beach Smith to sing the song Cosey had sung during Greg Iles’ version of the Historic Natchez Tableaux. Cosey sang a few notes of Freedom Song by Roberta Flack.

Along with a walking tour, Cosey plans to sing and perform skits for guests.

“When you sing that for the tourists, they are going to be on the ground,” Smith said to Cosey. “You are going to floor them. You can drive for 500 miles around Natchez, Mississippi, and not find a contralto voice like that.”

Smith was referring to the lowest notes for the female singing voice. Cosey said she met Smith, who sings Jazz, during that Tableaux experience.

On the tour, Cosey also plans to hit the notes on Concord Plantation. Which was built by Gov. Manuel Gayoso de Lemos.

The story of Gayoso, his three marriages and the golden age of Spanish Natchez are told. Cosey also covers details of the house changing hands over the years including in 1901 when it burned down, perhaps by arson, she said.

“Some of the beautiful marble still sits on the site,” Cosey said. “And people have tried to give me (items of Spanish origin), but I tell them this is not Concord Mansion, this is the Concord Quarters. This home is here to tell a different story.”

For the Coseys, this process began five years ago when her brother, Jimmy Walker retired from the hotel industry and came to Natchez looking for a place to live.

Cosey said she and her husband in that process found this place for sale and she fell in love. Renovation efforts at first were slow, but three years ago they picked up when the Coseys worked with the Department of Archives and History and Historic Natchez Foundation to restore the quarters.

“(My brother and I) had been in the tourism and hospitality industry our entire lives,” Cosey said. “I was working at Dunleith at the time and had my girls calling me up wanting to do weddings.

“When I saw this place, I thought, ‘We have to bless a bride.’”

When they first bought the place, it was in horrible condition, Cosey said. Cosey said for years it had been lover’s lane, “and all that entails.”

Some of the floor was dirt and the walls contained plant life. In the dirt near the staircase, in fact, one of the contracted workers found what Cosey believes to be the shoe of a slave child Cosey now plans to restore.

Today, with the exception of some painting still to complete on the historically accurate shutters upstairs, the house is restored with floors. It also still has the original staircase to Cosey’s chagrin.

“It is so ugly,” Cosey said, laughing. “I wanted to put in something special, but Mimi said no.”

Cosey was referring to Mimi Miller, the executive director of the Historic Natchez Foundation.

The house features three restored bedrooms upstairs for bed-and-breakfast guests, two with access to the gallery overlooking what would have been the back courtyard of the Concord Mansion. The gallery is supported by white columns.

In the early 20th century, an addition was built onto the downstairs portion of the quarters, which is where the Coseys live.

Cosey said like Gayoso before her, she loves to host and entertain.

“I think I saw him last night,” she said with a laugh. “This will be a wedding venue, a bed and breakfast and will be a tour home. That’s what we do here. That’s what we love to do.”