Longwood

Yesterday my wife and I headed down the Natchez Trace to visit (unsurprisingly) Natchez.

This historic road began as an Indian trail and eventually became an important highway running from Natchez to Nashville. People who made their fortunes running logs down the river used the trail to head back north, since it's somewhat more difficult to float up the Mississippi. Since this road was often traveled by men flush with cash, thieves quickly sprang up to attack unsuspecting victims. Fortunately- for the travelers, at least- most of the thieves were eventually caught and killed in one way or another.

Nowadays, the Trace is a beautifully manicured Parkway maintained by the National Park Service. It is a favorite of bicyclists, since the speed limit is 50 m.p.h. and traffic is generally light. Another interesting feature of the Trace is that it always has right-of-way, which means that if one had a large enough gas tank, you could drive from Nashville to Natchez without stopping once. No traffic lights, no yield signs, no stop signs. Either everything succumbs to the Trace's authority, or the Trace elegantly goes over or under the imposing obstacle.

After a wonderful two hour drive, my wife and I stopped to tour Longwood, a famous antebellum home. As you might can tell from the picture, the home is octagonal. It has six floors total, and would have contained 30,000 square feet of living space.

I say "would have" because the man who built the house, a certain Dr. Nutt, had the misfortune of beginning construction just a year before the Civil War began. Since the artisans and tradesmen came primarily from the North, they hurriedly finished the basement before the War began. It was assumed by those on both sides that the War would be over soon, and the men could just return and finish the job. In the meantime, Dr. Nutt and his family could live in the basement. As a result, the top five floors were left in mid-construction. Unplastered brick walls and exposed lumber contrast sharply with the elegance below.

Before you begin to feel too bad, keep in mind that this is no ordinary basement. Alone, it encompassed 10,000 square feet. Each room contained a marble fireplace and hardwood floors. Also, there is a couch (or its historical equivalent) in the parlor given to Dr. Nutt as a present from Rutherford B. Hayes.

To make a long story short, Dr. Nutt went bankrupt during the Civil War, all of his other houses burned down, and he died in 1864 of pneumonia. After a number of years, the house was bought by a conservation society and placed on the National Historic Register, which means it can never be finished. The top five floors will always contain only naked timbers and a glimmer of the grandeur that might have existed. It is a silent witness to the power of war.