Windsor Remains

Not far from Grand Gulf Mississippi with it forts and battles and history are the remains of a beautiful plantation home called Windsor. I had wanted to see it but had failed to notify Seamus for fear my suggestions would be become an agenda and we would miss the randomness of an escapade, an adventure, a meandering, relaxing journey.  I just was not sure he would get it. I was right. I know it was just that he was eager to please and picked and chose those things that he also wanted to do but it took the spontaneity that I so adore out of the event. It became a mad race to accomplish an itinerary. It was stress, I had an amazing journey even so. Trapped deep in heart I longed for those weeks on the back of that bike where we just rode and stopped and immersed ourselves into random moments of bliss. 

                                                           Windsor Plantation

We saw many things and all of them were precious moments that we just came upon. Meteorites, hand dug wells, haunted plantations…so many unexpected treasures. The drive I have made to California twice by different routes; cave drawings, caverns draped in ancient ice, extinct volcanoes all random stops on an adventure to home. Stopping and climbing down to the beach because there is a rock with a hole in it that begs to be photographed. Finding a hotel in Death Valley so we can watch a meteor shower with no city lights. Do not get me wrong, I had a lovely adventure and it was his first time pirating with me. I was not even sure where in Mississippi Windsor was, but I knew I wanted to experience it and my prayer was that we would just happen upon it and we did; because we randomly stopped at Grand Gulf where the lovely woman at the visitor center asked if we were going there. Yes, yes we are I answer as I gasp with awe and joy. She showed us on a map the way down back roads. The same back roads that took us through the Nuclear Power plant.

                                                                 Southwind Ranch

I need to tell another story about another home here for a moment, some of you may or may not have seen. On highway 181, which I like to call the back road to Mustang Island near Karnes City sitting off the highway on a slight hill is a very large home. It looks almost out of place but is grand and beautiful, surrounded by fenced in pastures, barns, and pond with assorted other out buildings. It is called Southwind Ranch. It is currently for sale. It is the result of a dream of Arturo Torres and was designed by Mike Stephens of Jackson Mississippi to be a replica of Windsor Plantation.

                                                           How Southwind looks from 181

Let’s go backward now….

Windsor sits out in the middle of practically nowhere. It is remote which adds to the haunting beauty. You sort of just come up on it and could almost miss it. As a matter of fact we did miss a few things in Mississippi. They do not easily mark their treasures. They are marked mind you, but if you are not in slow southern mode you will miss them. There is no advance notice. It is all part of what I found charming and yet frustrating about her. She has a graceful beauty but she also keeps secrets. I was intrigued by her. When I told people I was going to the exotic land of Mississippi on vacation I anticipated doubtful looks and bouts of laughter. I endured the rolling eyes and sad head shakes. But I was right, she is an exotic land.

In 1859 Smith Coffee Daniel II started building Windsor near Port Gibson on the Mississippi and it was finished in 1861. He had married Catherine Freeland in 1849 and they had three children. He moved his family into Windsor and a few short weeks later he died. He was 34. His wife decided to stay at the home and raise their children. In 1890 a house-guest who was smoking a cigarette dropped it near a pile of rubbish left by carpenters who were making repairs to the third floor, which caught on fire. The flames were quickly out of control and the entire home and everything inside was destroyed. It was not rebuilt. What remains are the original columns that supported the roof and verandas that circled the home on two floors. The columns are topped with iron capitals that were manufactured in St. Louis and brought by boat down the Mississippi to Port Bruinsburg not far from the home.

 There were 29 of these columns and only 23 remain; a few still connected by decorative balustrade.  

When the house burned, everything burned with it including the only known blueprints and journals about the house, its dimensions and its daily life. There were no drawings or photographs of the once glorious house. Then, many years after the civil war a paper was found in the possessions of an old man who had been a Union soldier during the long ago war. The house had been used by the Confederate troops because it had a very tall copula on the top and they could messages across the Mississippi to Louisiana. It was also used by the Union as a hospital. On this piece of paper was a drawing made in 1863 of Windsor in all its glory.

                                         Drawing made by Henry Ottis Dwight in 1863

 With this; measurements from what was left and the memories of Smith Coffee Daniel IV they were able to reconstruct Windsor for Mr. Torres in Karnes City Texas.

I was the first person the woman at the visitor center said, that had ever seen Southwind Ranch and knew which house in Texas she was talking about.

The columns are no longer washed in white. They are grey and the plaster is cracked, reminding me of the wrinkles we shall all someday have creating a history on our faces. In other places the plaster is missing, having fallen away, showing the bricks used in their construction. 

They are red and beautiful green moss grows across some of them telling me there is still life within the building.

 In some places weeds grow right out of the layers of moss on a shattered cornice piece or near an iron capital.

 There is just something very grand and regal about the ruins, perhaps it is that the columns still bear their ornate tops, perhaps it is the salute to the strength and resilience of the people of Mississippi.  There is just something about the place that leaves me feeling joyful and at the same time melancholy. Is it haunted?

 Yes, but not by ghosts of those who lived there; more like remnants from the celebrations and happiness that thrived there, the overwhelming loss that occurred there, the vitality of those who worked and lived there.

Windsor was amazing. It was the perfect plantation for this visit because it was also photographed by Eudora Welty 

                                           You can see the shadow of Eudora Welty in the forground

and this trip was Operation Eudora and all about Eudora Welty.