Longwood Mansion aka Nutt’s Folly | Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi | Built c. 1860
You could travel to the greatest cities in the U.S. and never find another mansion quite like this one in Natchez, Mississippi. The opulent vision of one wealthy planter named Haller Nutt, Longwood mansion was set to be one of the grandest homes along the Mississippi River. Plans were made for a 32,000 square-foot home that would be a jewel amongst jewels in Natchez until the Civil War broke out and work stopped abruptly one day- never to resume. Left behind was the shell of a massive mansion, large amounts of debt, and a woman and her children, forced to figure out how to survive after they lost it all.
The unfinished Longwood Mansion became known as Nutt’s Folly and the following article is dedicated to telling the story of the family, their home, and their financial ruin during the war and following the collapse of the plantation economy.
Dr. Rush Nutt and his son, Haller Nutt
Haller Nutt was born on February 17, 1816, at Laurel Hill Plantation near Rodney, Mississippi to a prominent planting family. He was one of seven children born to Eliza Ker Nutt and her husband, physician, and planter, Dr. Rush Nutt. Besides operating a large cotton plantation, Dr. Nutt was also a founder of the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Alcorn, Mississippi. Dr. Rush Nutt was also the developer of a particularly successful strain of cotton, called Petit Gulf cotton, that was rot-resistant. This development furthered the cotton industry in this region as crops were better suited for shipping to larger markets and as a result, Dr. Nutt amassed great wealth and notoriety from his development.
His children benefitted greatly from their father’s work and his son, Haller Nutt, was given the opportunity to study at the University of Virginia from 1832-1835. Following his studies in Virginia, Haller returned to Mississippi and assumed many responsibilities in the management of the family’s plantation. During this period, Haller improved the operations of cotton baling by innovating the presses. Haller also followed in his father’s footsteps in his agricultural research, which led him to develop a new hybrid strain of cotton, called Egypto-Mexican. This strain was ideal for cultivation in the Lower Mississippi Valley and led to the region dominating the global cotton market in the 19th century.
Julia Augusta Williams Nutt
Julia Augusta Williams was born on August 11, 1822, at Routhlands Plantation (now known as Dunleith) in Mississippi to Austin Williams and Carolina Matilda Routh Williams. Julia’s parents both came from long lines of wealthy families who made their fortunes through enslaved labor on their sugar plantations in Louisiana and Mississippi.
In 1840 when she was 18, Julia married Haller Nutt on Evergreen Plantation in Louisiana. Their marriage joined two of the wealthiest families in this region and Haller Nutt inherited numerous family plantations following his marriage to Julia.
The Haller Nutt Plantations
There were many wealthy planters in this region but Haller Nutt was set apart from most of them because of his massive landholdings on both sides of the Mississippi River in Louisiana and Mississippi. Many of his plantations were inherited through birth and through his marriage to Julia Williams My research so far has found that these plantations which were owned by Haller Nutt:
- Winter Quarters (Louisiana)
- Evergreen Place (Louisiana)
- Araby Plantation (Louisiana)
- Cloverdale Plantation (Mississippi)
- Laurel Hill (Mississippi)
In 1860, Haller Nutt reported that he held 800 people as slaves, across his 43,000 acres of sugar and cotton plantations and that he made a net profit of $228,000 from agricultural enterprises that year. The Hallers primarily lived in Louisiana on their vast plantation, but Haller had frequent business in town and many operations there, so they set out to build an opulent suburban mansion in Natchez that would showcase their wealth and success.
Natchez Before the Civil War
In the years leading up to the Civil War, most of the wealth in the U.S. was concentrated along the Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans. Plantation owners of this region had amassed great fortunes and by 1860, Natchez, Mississippi had more millionaires per capita than New York City. Haller Nutt could be counted amongst these millionaires with an estimated fortune that surpassed three million dollars before the outbreak of the Civil War.
1850-1860: The Beginning of Longwood Mansion
Julia Nutt had always been fond of Natchez and she was the inspiration behind her husband’s September 1850 purchase of 86 acres, two miles south of Natchez that would become the Longwood property. While they lived in the Louisiana plantation that Julia had inherited, the couple dreamt of a mansion that would symbolize the wealth that they had amassed. They envisioned a home so massive that it would rival the grandest mansions along the Mississippi River.
To that end, Haller Nutt wrote to Pennsylvania architect, Samuel Sloan in December 1859 to express an interest in building an octagonal house (a popular midcentury design) at Longwood. Sloan got to work on the design and plans for Longwood were completed in April 1860. Construction began shortly after.
The arabesque design for Longwood included 6 floors, 32 rooms, eight verandas, and a rotunda that opened to a Moorish cupola. When completed, Longwood would’ve had 115 doors, 25 fireplaces, and 24 closets. The plans laid out incorporated 32,000 square feet, making it the largest octagonal house in the United States. The exterior work on the Byzantine estate was completed before the outbreak of the war, with handmade bricks burned on this property by enslaved workers. The columns were hand-carved from cypress. Landscape gardeners came from abroad, and even today, rare imported shrubs and trees form a part of the dense growth around the unfinished gardens.
The mansion even included plans for a bathroom (without a toilet) that would have hot and cold running water as well as a detached, three-level kitchen with cisterns for hot and cold water on the upper level so water could flow down from the building in the faucets. A five-seat outhouse (very refined for the time) with a child’s sized seat as well was built outside.
The final drawings for Longwood were published in 1861 in Homestead Architecture as “Design I—Oriental Villa.” That same year the exterior was nearly completed and work on the interior began on the basement floor of the home. This floor had plans for 9 rooms- including a nursery with an adjoining apartment for a white housekeeper and governess, a card room, a billiard room, a wine cellar, and a heating plant.
Work Stops at Longwood
As work on this basement floor was completed, the war was exploding and many of the workers who were hired by Samuel Sloan of Pennsylvania fled back north to escape the war. Other workers answered the call to arms and those workers who were enslaved left. Construction halted so abruptly that workers set their tools down and never came back.
Buckets and cans once containing paint, linseed oil, and nails now sit on a work table on the second floor just as they did in 1862. Sections of scaffolding were left propped against walls as well as a temporary staircase that was used by workers to access the upper levels. Many of these items still remain in place where they were left in 1862 and can be viewed during tours of the mansion. The first through third floors were left unfinished and boarded up.
At this point, all orders for materials, marble stairway, mosaic floors, and elaborate furnishings were canceled. Many of these orders had been placed in Italy and France. Some costly pieces were en route on the high seas. A few items were returned and others are now in national museums. Haller Nutt had $100,000 invested in Longwood mansion up to this point.
Exterior work was also incomplete, leaving stucco unfinished, so the family did their best to make it ‘weather-tight.’ Work on the deep concrete foundation, the outside framework, and some of the decorative trim work was well underway when everything halted.
During the War
Haller Nutt was wealthy but had amassed an enormous amount of debt to keep his plantation operations afloat. The war would bring the South to its knees socially and economically and the millionaires of Natchez, including Haller Nutt, were forced to face the harsh reality of the fallout.
When war broke out on April 12, 1861, Haller was in a precarious financial and political situation. Throughout the war, Nutt, a Union sympathizer in the South, suffered substantial financial losses during the Civil War, from cotton destruction, real estate losses, and the expropriation of supplies by both armies. Nutt retained one of his Louisiana plantations, called Winter Quarters, which was spared by Union troops under orders of General Grant because Nutt was pro-Union. But resulting cash-flow problems ultimately led to foreclosures on the family’s Louisiana plantations and the Nutts were forced to live in their unfinished mansion at Natchez.
They moved into the basement, the only completed part of the home, where Julia and Haller lived with their 8 children while a war raged on outside. Over the following years, they lived on the basement floor of the home while the upper floors remained boarded. But in June 1864, things became more difficult for the Nutt Family when Haller fell ill with pneumonia. He died on June 15th. Widowed, Julia Nutt and her children continued living at the unfinished Longwood Plantation in the basement. They did the minimum needed to maintain the monstrous space where they had once envisioned an opulent mansion.
After the War
The massive unfinished mansion, with $100,000 invested, came to be known as Nutt’s Folly, symbolizing the financial fall of Haller Nutt and according to newspaper listings, the Longwood mansion was put up for public auction following the war.
But members of the Nutt Family took action to keep the mansion when one of the Nutt’s sons, Sargeant Prentiss Nutt, who had become a lawyer, lobbied in Washington D.C. for a bill that would partially compensate the Nutt family for their losses during the war. On behalf of his mother Julia and his father Haller’s estate, they filed claims against the federal government for $858,386.04 in damage and losses due to the war. Ultimately, were awarded a $100,000 payout.
The family got by selling milk, eggs, and vegetables from the back of a wagon. They were never able to afford to finish the home and it fell into disrepair. Julia died here in 1897 and was buried beside her husband in the Longwood family cemetery. Their grandchildren owned Longwood until 1968.
Haller and Julia Nutt, along with a few family members, are buried on the grounds in the Longwood Cemetery. You can read more about the cemetery on Find A Grave here.
Longwood Mansion Today
Ownership of Longwood remained with members of the Nutt family until 1968 when it was purchased by the Pilgrimage Garden Club of Natchez, which now operates it as a museum and offers tours. In 1969, Longwood was designated as a National Historic Landmark, and in 1977, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. You can read the full historic nomination form here for more architectural notes on Longwood Mansion.
Longwood has also been the site of some famous Hollywood productions. In 2010, it was used in the HBO series True Blood, for the external shots of the fictional Jackson, Mississippi, mansion of Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Visiting Longwood Mansion
The property is maintained and operated by the Pilgrimage Graden Club of Natchez. Now, visitors can tour the finished portion of the home complete with period furnishings, the unfinished main level, and the grounds where Julia once tended her rose gardens. Five of the original plantation outbuildings still stand: the necessary (privy), kitchen, slave quarters, stables, and carriage house.
- Located at 140 Lower Woodville Rd., Natchez, Mississippi
- Tours are offered daily from 9am to 3pm but should be confirmed first
- $20 for youth, and $25 for adults
