We're glad we took our time getting down the length of Mississippi. Old cemeteries, plantation houses, historical markers everywhere. Not being a student of the War Between the States, except for knowing that I have ancestors who fought in the war, I never realized that Mississippi was the site of many battles, because of its location on the river.
Today we turned onto a road simply because of its name: Lake Washington. I grew up above the large Lake Washington in Washington state, and had a view of it for much of my life. So we just had to turn and see what this lake Washington looked like, and got our second pleasant surprise of the day: antebellum homes.
We stopped dead in the road when we spotted this huge brick house, then pulled into the overgrown driveway and we walked up for a closer look. It had a brass plaque with the original plantation name and a bit of history; the house was built in 1856, just a few years before the war began.
The house has fallen into ruin, but there are signs of work being done here. Maybe just to shore it up and keep it from getting worse, or is it the start of a true restoration? Either way, the house has a huge head start on the owner… Will he ever catch up?
This really was a fabulous house, in spite of the condition. I wish we could have seen inside. Most of the glass was gone from the sunroom, and we could see glimpses of the room behind the 9-foot tall french doors that opened out onto the brick floor. There were still drapes hanging in the windows. The brickwork was beautiful, so was the wrought iron filigree detailing.
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