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FRENCH CAMP HISTORIC VILLAGE

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1981 established. Milepost 180.7, Natchez Trace Pkwy.

At the southwest corner of this re-created historical village is the Huffman Log Cabin Gift Shop and Craft Room (c. 1840; pictured), a double-pen, log dogtrot with dovetail joinery that was moved here in 1975 from a location two miles south. Behind the shop, the Council House Café is a new construction made from old logs, and a sorghum mill and cane-grinding wheel are situated nearby. From the café a boardwalk meanders north across the partially wooded site to the Colonel James Drane House (c. 1846), moved here in 1981. Drane, one of Choctaw County’s earliest settlers, served as president pro tempore of the state senate from 1857 to 1865. His two-story I-house has a dogtrot, a full-width one-story front porch, and large endwall brick chimneys (reconstructed). It has wide flushboards beneath its front porch and elaborate Federal-style interior millwork as well as interior paint colors that were restored based on remnants of historic pigments. North of this house stands the clapboard, board-and-batten, and flushboard-sheathed former French Camp post office, which was in use from 1848 to 1964. Nearby are small log structures, and farther east a barn displays saddle-notch log construction without chinking. Beyond it, the Margaret Adams Kimball Historical Museum (c. 1855), relocated in 1999 from Montgomery County, is built of hewn timbers with square notching. A bed-and-breakfast facility created by combining three log buildings is faced by two relocated single-pen structures.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Jennifer V.O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio with Mary Warren Miller
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Citation

Jennifer V.O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio with Mary Warren Miller, "FRENCH CAMP HISTORIC VILLAGE", [French Camp, Mississippi], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MS-02-CH7.

Print Source

Buildings of Mississippi, Jennifer V. O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio. With Mary Warren Miller. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021, 195-196.

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