National Register Listing

Bedford Plantation

NE of Natchez off U.S. 61, Natchez, MS

Combining construction techniques and features more commonly associated with the Creole building tradition in Louisiana, the residence at Bedford Plantation is a well-preserved example of a vernacular architectural form indigenous to the Tower Mississippi Valley but rarely constructed in Mississippi. It is one of the few documented structures in the state employing brick-nogged, heavy-frame construction. The house, which stylistically dates from the late 1820s or early 1830s, was the seat of planter Thomas Hall's 6,318-acre Bedford Plantation, which he began assembling in 1831. The property was the site of a Civil War skirmish on October 2, 1864, involving Colonel Embury D. Osband's troops as they moved from Vicksburg to Natchez.

Thomas Hall, first mentioned in Adams County in the T830 census, was born in Mississippi and died in 1856, leaving an impressive estate of over 5,500 acres to be divided among his four heirs. The house and "dower" tract of 1,431.95 acres were left to his wife. In 1880 the acreage surrounding the house was reduced to an 81.75 acre "homestead tract" to satisfy the creditors of Hall's daughter and son-in-law, Sallie T. and Edmund Ogden (Deed Book XX:748-50). The 1880 homestead tract remains intact today under single ownership except for .73 acre on the opposite side of the public roads.

Local significance of the building:
Architecture

Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.