Rosalie Mansion

It's Saturday and it's time to show off favorites and go sightseeing!

Today as promised, I will show you more of the Rosalie Mansion in Natchez.I am also linking with Laurie of http://bargainhuntingwithlaurie.blogspot.com/

for A Few of My Favorite Things. Actually, what I am sharing with you are John's favorite Sevres egg collection. I am sure some of you have seen them before.

And here they are. I have them displayed on top of our home office wall cabinets.

Since they have pink flowers, they will also be my contribution for Beverly's Pink Saturday at
http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/

The last 2 eggs are displayed in the formal living room.

If you follow my blog, you would know that the Mississippi Southern Belles had a get together here last weekend and we toured Rosalie. You can see the belles on top of the steps.

Rosalie was built by Peter Little in 1820. He was only 17 when he moved to Natchez in 1798. His grandfather, Col. Peter Little was George Washington's physician and was also a pallbearer at his funeral. He also has a relative representing Maryland in the US Congress. It was not clear what really brought Peter to Natchez.

He often took the ferry to cross the MS River to visit his properties in Louisiana and became friends with the ferryboat owner, Jacob Lowe. Jacob died of yellow fever and when his wife contracted the disease, she made Peter promise to take care of their daughter, Eliza. Peter did more than that. He married her when she was only 14 and sent her to school in Baltimore. She came back to Natchez very sophisticated and highly educated. Peter was 25 when he married her. They never had a child. Eliza found the Natchez Children's Home so even if they had no children of their own, many of the children found a loving home at Rosalie.

Peter died 3 years after Eliza died of yellow fever. He left a will leaving everything to his wife but since his wife died before him, the state took over and auctioned everything.

In 1857, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wilson bought the house. They never had any children of their own either but adopted Fannie McMurtry when her parents died. The Wilsons were able to recover many of the original furnishings of the house and brought them back from the auctions.

Fannie married
Capt. Stephen Rumble and changed the life at Rosalie because they had 6 children. who were all born there. One of their daughters, Miss Annie, sold Rosalie to the Miss. State Society DAR to which it still belongs now, for $14,000 with a stipulation that she and her still surviving sister then, Miss Rebecca, continue to live there while they gave daily tours. Miss Annie died in 1958.

One thing that attracted me to this house are the gorgeous chandeliers. They used to be gasoliers and were eventually converted to electricity.

Here is Peter Little's portrait.

And this is Eliza.

They did not have bathrooms in the olden days so they used potty boxes. Do you see it by the window there?

Sorry for the pictures being dark. We were not allowed to use flash. I appreciated being allowed to take pictures because most of the other antebellum home tours do not allow it.

Most of the furniture in the entire house are original to the house.

These 2 adjoining rooms are the gentlemen and ladies parlors. The musical instruments except for the huge piano on the left are in the ladies' parlor. There is a smaller piano there too though. Can you spot Lady Katherine and Vickie's reflections in the mirror?

This has got to be my favorite room, which is the children's room. The portrait above the fireplace is Fannie's and Capt. Rumble's 6 children. Some of them did not make it to adulthood. The boy died falling from the stairs.

I love the doll furniture. They even have a tablescape on the table, lol.

Here is the dining room. The dinnerware is an Old Paris set, no markings underneath. The silver punch bowl on the top right of the mosaic was a gift from USS Alabama, if I remembered correctly. Mississippi belles, correct me if I am wrong please!

There were lots of dolls displayed in 2 cabinets.

Below is Fannie's bedroom. Miss Fannie is a very good artist/painter and the painting above the fireplace was her favorite painting. A lot of her paintings are displayed all throughout the walls in the house. She stopped painting after she got married.

And this is Miss Annie's bedroom. That's Miss Annie in the portrait. When she was younger, she was in love with a gentleman but her parents would not allow them to marry. He must have been a commoner. They went on their own ways, the guy moved away and got married to someone else and had a family but when his wife died, he came back to Natchez, looked for Miss Annie and they got married. She was in her 60's then.

Notice the shelf on the side of the bed? It is for kneeling to say a prayer before bedtime. I thought it was a step for climbing the bed.

After the tour, we went down through the steps in the back porch. There's D!

The bell was also from the USS Alabama (again, I think that's what it is). This is the back yard.

I hope you all enjoyed the tour of this antebellum mansion. BTW, for those who do not know what antebellum means, it means "before the civil war". So, these houses have to have been built before 1861 to qualify. Thank you so much for coming by.

Now, let's go visit Laurie and Beverly and their participants!