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Mississippi » Natchez District » Jefferson County » Church Hill and Vicinity » OAK GROVE

OAK GROVE

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c. 1828; c. 1840 enlarged. 13582 MS 553, 0.3 miles south of Church Hill Rd.

Oak Grove is one of the most complete and distinctive rural residences in southwestern Mississippi. The earliest section of the two-story Federal-style house dates to c. 1828 when Jane Wood married James Payne. Its exterior-end chimneys, joined by a two-story chimney pent, are an architectural link between Church Hill and Maryland, the home state of Church Hill’s earliest settlers. Around 1840, the Paynes made a five-bay Greek Revival addition fronted by a double-tiered gallery on Tuscan columns. Flanking the entrance door are unusual hall cabinets with glazed panels echoing the hollow-sided diamonds of the door’s sidelights. Surviving out-buildings include a small, three-bay hipped-roof house with a Greek Revival frontispiece. Plantation outbuildings include a barn, a small frame schoolhouse, and a two-room house with a gallery, probably intended for an overseer or schoolteacher.

South of Oak Grove on adjoining acreage is The Cedars, built 1835–1843 for Thomas and Maria Louisa Elam and enlarged in 1860 for Benjamin and Caroline Beavin. Instead of a side addition like Oak Grove, the Beavins constructed a large two-story Greek Revival house with a double-tiered front gallery in front of an earlier one-story cottage. The interior of this addition is the most impressive in scale and finish of Church Hill’s historic houses.

Writing Credits

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

What's Nearby

CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
MOUNT LOCUST
INGLESIDE

Citation

Jennifer V.O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio with Mary Warren Miller, "OAK GROVE", [Church Hill, Mississippi], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MS-02-ND64.

Print Source

Buildings of Mississippi, Jennifer V. O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio. With Mary Warren Miller. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021, 56-56.

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