As you’ve been wandering around downtown Natchez, have you found any bright green chess pieces?  If you have, it’s your lucky day— these chess pieces are free passes to Historic Jefferson College’s “Who Killed Major Holbrook?” History Mystery program!  If you have missed the buzz on the History Mystery, let me give you a few details…but not too many, because after all, it IS a mystery.

The History Mystery is essentially what’s called an “escape room.” This is not a room built in your house to hide in during home invasions!  It’s a room where there is a mystery to solve in a fixed amount of time, using a variety of clues and objects.  Escape rooms can be found all over the country, with many different themes and difficulty levels, and are frequently used by companies to promote communication skills, encourage small-group cooperation and problem-solving as a corporate exercise.

HJC’s escape room features a story about Major John Holbrook, who was a real teacher at Jefferson College in the 1830s, served as the assistant superintendent, and introduced the first military program.  It was short-lived however, as was he—Holbrook died within a few years of arriving at the school while in his mid-30s.  He is one of the two people who are actually buried in the little HJC graveyard next to the nature trail.  We don’t know the reason for his death, but it probably wasn’t murder…or WAS it?

In our program, participants are guided to one of our historic buildings, and given a (fictitious) history scenario about Holbrook coming to Jefferson and then mysteriously dying on the banks of St. Catherine Creek.  It is up to you to search through a room, set up to look like Holbrook’s lodgings, for clues.  The clues you find will help you to put together puzzles and unlock boxes (with more clues!) until you find the answer to the mystery of “Who Killed Major Holbrook?” Our sleuths are also guided along the way by pages from Holbrook’s journal, and sometimes the entries themselves ARE the clues.

Participants try to solve the mystery within an hour’s time, but don’t worry, no one gets locked in, and your group can stay as long as they need to in order the solve the crime. There is no special knowledge needed to discover the answer, and although chess plays a part in it—thus the green chessmen—you do not need to know how to play the game. In addition, I’m there in the room the whole time, and I may give you a clue or nudge you in the right direction if I see you getting into the weeds.  And, perhaps best of all, it’s in an air-conditioned building!

We originally planned this event for a two-week period in April, but the response has been good enough that we made it into a permanent program!  Reservations can be made for a group of from 2-8, at any time, including weekends, evenings, and during the day.  It costs $10 per person, unless you’ve found one of those chessmen. To schedule your group contact me at 601-442-2901, info@historicjeffersoncollege.com, or message us on Facebook.  The History Mystery is generally recommended for adults or kids over the age of 10, although we have had some younger students who teamed up with their parents, and did a great job at solving the puzzle.

Historic Jefferson College is located off Hwy. 61, in Washington, about 5 miles north of Natchez, and is administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

Robin Person is the site director at Historic Jefferson College.