Free African American Robert Smith operated the city’s most successful antebellum dray and carriage business. An 1858 for-sale advertisement described his house as a “good two-story dwelling house, very recently built, extensive stables and carriage houses, kitchens, outbuildings, etc.” After Smith’s death in 1858, his widow, Ann, sold the house and business to Joseph and Fanny Bontura and moved with her children to Chile. The Bonturas added a two-story wing with galleries to the rear and used the house as an inn. The simple Greek Revival brick town house has a side-hall plan, common in Natchez but regionally rare. The picturesque double-tiered cast-iron gallery is a late-nineteenth-century addition. A round-arched arcade defines the rear carriage building, and a rare two-story brick privy with separate compartments for men and women is attached to the east wall of the rear wing.