Stanton Hall is a Greek Revival mansion that was built in Natchez during 1851–1857 for Frederick Stanton, a family physician, a wealthy planter, and a cotton broker [represents other planters]. Dr. Stanton was an Irish immigrant, and he’d originally named the house Belfast, for obvious reasons. He paid a mere $83,000 [$350,000 today] to build and decorate this home. However, he was only able to live in the house for 9 months before he died of yellow fever at age 65.
yellow fever in the South
I looked up yellow fever epidemics in the mid-1800s and found the following information through AI:
“In the mid-1800s, yellow fever (often called “Yellow Jack”) was a devastating, recurring epidemic in the United States, particularly targeting port cities in the South. Major outbreaks occurred annually after 1825 in cities like New Orleans, with catastrophic, large-scale epidemics in 1853 and 1878 that caused immense loss of life and economic disruption. The disease was believed to be caused by “miasma” (foul air) or contagion, and its true transmission via Aedes aegypti mosquitoes was not understood until the turn of the 20th century.”
Here’s some more information from the National Library of Medicine about epidemics in the 1800s:
“Yellow fever epidemics struck the United States repeatedly in the 18th and 19th centuries. The disease was not indigenous; epidemics were imported by ship from the Caribbean. Prior to 1822, yellow fever attacked cities as far north as Boston, but after 1822 it was restricted to the south. Port cities were the primary targets, but the disease occasionally spread up the Mississippi River system in the 1800s. New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, and Charleston were major targets; Memphis suffered terribly in 1878. Yellow fever epidemics caused terror, economic disruption, and some 100,000-150,000 deaths. Recent white immigrants to southern port cities were the most vulnerable; local whites and blacks enjoyed considerable resistance [probably because they had already been exposed to the disease and had some immunity].”
This disease is probably what caused the early deaths of 3 of the children in the Stanton family: Thomas died in 1860 at age 25; Mary died in 1848 age age 11, and Frederick died in 1844 at age 3. I had no idea how disastrous this disease was; finally doctors discovered that mosquitoes caused it and they figured out how to treat patients when they had it. A vaccine was developed in 1937 that should be used today when traveling.
Natchez surviving the Civil War
According to AI: “Natchez survived the Civil War intact because it surrendered early to Union forces in 1862–1863, and so avoided the siege devastation that happened in Vicksburg. The city leaders [the wealthy plantation owners] surrendered to the Union in 1863 without a fight primarily because many of them were from the North, had pro-Unionist sympathies, feared destruction of their city and economic interests. The Union Army thought that the city didn’t have any strategic value, so they occupied it with minimal conflict, preserving the city’s extensive antebellum architecture and wealth.”
Information about Natchez after the war is included later in this post.
back to Stanton Hall
Stanton Hall occupies an entire 2-acre city block north of downtown Natchez, The house is a three-story brick structure, plastered and painted white. It was designed and built by Thomas Rose, a local builder and English immigrant. In 1890 it became home to the Stanton College for Young Ladies. and later it became a bed and breakfast. If you’ve seen the ABC’s mini-series North and South, you’ll recognize mansion interiors. Patrick Swayze stayed in Stanton Hall while filming. (The exteriors were filmed at the Boone Hall Plantation, near Charleston, South Carolina.
We weren’t told about the top floor of the house. Perhaps it was for slaves who worked in the house.
I’ll be showing you pictures we took as we toured the home and share what we learned. Also, much of what I’m including in the post comes from bits of information from various websites and from AI descriptions. But if you’d like to know more, I found a 14-minute video tour on YouTube that will fill in the details for you (it did for me). It’s worth watching.
The video tour begins with the words “Stanton Hall is one of the most iconic southern homes in America often called the jewel of southern Greek revival architecture.” Bet you’re now ready to tour the home.
The house is noted for its scale, outstanding marble mantles, and large pier mirrors that give the double parlors infinite appeal. Pier mirrors are tall, narrow, and often ornate mirrors designed to hang on the “pier”—the wall space between two windows—or stand on a console table. Popularized by Victorians in the 18th and 19th centuries, these mirrors were used to maximize natural light and make rooms appear larger before widespread electricity was available.
first floor
Barbara was our tour guide, and we loved being the only ones on the tour so we could ask as many questions as we wished.
Notice anything missing in the hallway? We’ll answer that question as we move through the house.
The Stantons had 6 children, but only 3 of them lived to adulthood. The following information came from Find A Grave website. Amazing what we can find online.
- Varina was 28 when her family moved into Stanton Hall; I’m not sure when she married, but her husband died just 7 years later after the family moved into the house, and Varina raised their 3 children in Nashville. She died when she was 93.
- Elizabeth (Bessie) was 13 when her family moved in; she and her husband had 7 children and they lived in Natchez. She died when she was 69.
- Newton was 8 when his family moved in; he didn’t marry or have children and lived in Natchez. He died when he was 44, and was born the year (1949) after his sister Mary died (not included in this list). [Interesting that he didn’t grow up with a father figure; wonder if that’s why he didn’t marry.]
Hulda Stanton and her children lived in the house until she was in her 80s, and named it “Belfast” in Stanton’s honor. She passed away in 1894. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to lose her husband and so many of her children and then have to maintain their home and any businesses they may have had.
I wondered what the family’s cotton business would have been like after the Civil War since it would have been left fairly intact since the city wasn’t destroyed like so many other southern cities and plantations. Here’s what AI had to say:
“After the Civil War, the Natchez cotton economy shifted from a slave-based plantation system to a struggling, reorganized structure, often relying on sharecropping [like at Windsor in the previous post], yet it managed to maintain some economic relevance through its strategic Mississippi River location. While pre-war wealth built numerous mansions, the post-war era brought significant hardship to the formerly wealthy planting elite.”
“The industry had to adapt to a new, less profitable, and more labor-intensive reality, moving away from the rapid expansion and high-intensity production that characterized the antebellum period.”
When trains and roads became the means of transportation instead of rivers, cities like Natchez became smaller and smaller. No major highway comes into Natchez since it was on the river and a highway couldn’t go through it to another destination.
In 1890 when Mrs. Stanton could no longer keep up the house, it became home to the Stanton College for Young Ladies.
Now let’s look at the house.
The 2 rooms could be separated by a pocket door or they could be a large room. In the far left corner is this small, round table that could be used for a family meal or perhaps for playing cards or other games.
The 2 rooms combined could be used for dancing, and the long hallway that we saw earlier in this post could accommodate any overflow. Interesting to think what Natchez social life looked like for the few years the family lived here before Mr. Stanton’s death and the war and then after the war.
Mr. Stanton’s office
A door to the outside is just outside the room so clients and other businessmen could come into the office without going through the house. Common practice for houses during this era.
dining room
Do you have a dining room or kitchen table that has leaves? Where do you store yours?
going upstairs
Remember the question I asked about what was missing in the hallway? It was a stairway for the 2nd floor. In this house, the stairs were between the library and dining room. Only the family and overnight company would go upstairs, so guests had no need to go upstairs.
Upstairs the long hallway separates the bedrooms. Mr. and Mrs. Stanton had their bedrooms on one side, and the children were on the other side.
The walls were originally painted white to show off the rest of the hallway.
bedrooms
A bedroom in Stanton Hall was used for the honeymoon scene in the miniseries North and South. Guess I need to watch the movie so I can find out which bedroom was used.
Originally the following room was a “fair-weather sitting room.” The beds were added during the time the house was used as a B&B.
We so enjoyed touring this home, especially since we were the only ones with Barbara, our tour guide, so we could ask questions whenever we wanted. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974; a pivotal property inside the Natchez On-Top-of-the-Hill Historic District in 1979 [more about this term in the next post]; and a Mississippi Landmark in 1995. It is now operated as a historic house museum by the Natchez Pilgrimage Garden Club that acquired it in 1940 by a group of ladies.
Stanton Hall operated as a bed and breakfast at one time, with reports of guests staying there in the late 1980s. While primarily a historic house museum, the mansion has offered overnight accommodations during certain periods, including hosting guests who visit during the Fall Pilgrimage tour.
Next we’ll spend more time in the city of Natchez before going to our next house, the unfinished octagonal mansion named Longwood.
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.