Confederate President's Last Chapter

West of Ocean Springs on the Gulf Coast is Biloxi, MS.

 Here is located the last home where Confederate President Jefferson Davis lived due to the generosity of widow Sarah Dorsey who was born and reared in Natchez, Mississippi (part of the prominent Percy family in the South, a real Southern belle). After the Civil War, Sarah Dorsey invited Davis to the plantation (Beauvoir) and offered him a cottage near the main house.

After she died he moved into the big house and when Jefferson died his own wife sold the place to the Mississippi Chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in 1902. They still own and run the property.

Hurricane Katrina caused a lot of damage to the old plantation in 2005 but the house has since been restored and a "Presidential Library" (misleading to those who don't know better) is about ready to open.

Because of the unpredictable weather, one can drive near here along much undeveloped beachfront property which remains in its natural state, one of the nice outcomes of the hurricanes.

We hurried up the steps then relaxed and took photos on the porch.

These rocking chairs are common in Georgia.

Love those pocket doors. Beauvoir was built by James Brown, a cotton planter and entrepreneur in 1848.

Notice the trompe l'oeil decorating, popular at the time. To truly fool the eye, trompe l'oeil painting displays convincing perspective and depth of field. Notice the little couches in-the-round in the lobby area with lots of room to sit down with your big hoop skirt!

Real plantation blinds on the back porch!

They took our money and hurried us through the main floor of the house and locked the door behind us, so we stayed on the backporch peeking in windows.

Here is a view of the ocean from the front porch of one of the cottages where Davis stayed. These  old oak trees are strong and flexible and survive the hurricanes.