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Windsor Ruins Near Port Gibson, MS The only structures remaining of this remarkable mansion, built in 1859-61, are the 35-feet high Corinthian columns. The owner only lived there a few weeks before he died. Property covered 2,600 acres. The four-story home contained 25 rooms and 25 fireplaces, with a basement containing a schoolroom. The drawing at right was made by a union soldier while traveling through the Windsor area during the Civil War and is the only known depiction of what it actually looked like complete. Windsor burned during a house party on Feb. 17, 1890 after a guest left a lighted cigar on the upper balcony. The home has appeared in several feature films. |
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After a short drive traveling south on U.S. 61 from Vicksburg, Mississippi you reach the town that General Ulysses S. Grant described as "too beautiful to burn"...Port Gibson, Mississippi. Turn right at the Exxon station located at the corner of U.S. 61 and Rodney road (552). Continue on Rodney road toward the river (you are traveling southwest) for approximately 13 miles. Look for the sign displayed by the Mississippi department of Archives and History on your left. You will travel south on a gravel road to the ruins. There is no gate or entrance fees.
Built in 1859-61 the Windsor mansion is reported to have been constructed by builder David Shroder for Smith Coffee Daniells II for a little over $140,000. Mr. Daniells, a wealthy cotton farmer who owned over 20,000 acres of land in Louisiana and Mississippi, died shortly after the Mansion was completed. The Windsor Mansion is described as being the largest Greek Revival Antebellum home ever built in Mississippi. Although a large number of mansions did not make it through the Civil war, the Windsor mansion is believed to have survived due to the southern charm and quick wit of the mansion's mistress and it's potential to the North as a Union Hospital and observation post. Windsor is also believed to be the first Mississippi mansion Grant's men encountered on April 30, 1863 shortly after crossing the Mississippi river from the Louisiana side on their way to cut off Vicksburg from the south. The mansion burned in 1890.
Notables that stayed there include Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemons, who described it's grandeur in "Life on the Mississippi". The Ruins have also been used as background in several movies: the 1957 movie "Rain tree County" starring Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Cliff, Lee Marvin, and more recently in "Mississippi Burning", starring Alec Baldwin.
The Windsor architecture included 25 rooms, water tanks in the attic which provided water for the indoor baths and an above ground basement that was large enough for a small school, dairy and root cellar. Twenty-eight fluted columns made of brick and mortar and topped with cast-iron Corinthian Capitals gave the massive structure it's stately image. Of the original twenty-eight fluted columns twenty-three remain at full stature.
Willie Morris, author of the Ghosts of Mississippi, wrote "To me there is no more haunted, complex terrain in America than the countryside between Port Gibson, Mississippi, and the river. The land is full of ghosts".
It's a haunting place but you can judge that for yourself.
