Mississippi’s oldest African American Catholic congregation held its first services in the basement of St. Mary Cathedral (ND26) and became a mission of the Josephites of Baltimore. Organized in 1890, Holy Family Parish built its Gothic Revival church in 1894. Intended to serve as a church and school, the building has first-story classrooms and the sanctuary above. The builder was William Ketteringham of Natchez. The church retains its original pews, gas light reflectors, c. 1900 electric lighting, and organ. The church complex includes a Colonial Revival Parish Hall (1907).
The church has played an important role in the life of African Americans in Natchez. In the 1960s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had offices across the street, and meetings were often held in the church’s parish hall. Pastor Father William Morrissey was a leading figure in the civil rights movement and the first white officer in the Mississippi Chapter of the NAACP.
St. Catherine Street was the main road leading north from Natchez and became home to affluent African Americans after the Civil War. The one-and-a-half-story Queen Anne house (c. 1890) of John Banks, the city’s first black physician, at 9 St. Catherine was remodeled in 1910 in a Colonial Revival style. Attorney George Boles’s house (c. 1890; 13 St. Catherine) has Stick Style details. At number 15, the parsonage (c. 1890) of Zion Chapel AME Church (ND40) has a center-hall and a full-width gallery. At the eastern end of St. Catherine Street stood the Forks of the Road Slave Market, the second largest slave market in the Deep South from c. 1830 to 1861, now marked by interpretive signage.