USA > Mississippi > Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II > Part 23
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The Convent and Academy of St. Francis Xavier, opened in 1860, was converted into an hospital for soldiers in 1861, and the teachers became hospital nurses there and in the prin- cipal military hospitals throughout the state. In 1863 the Federals took possession of the buildings, but they were restored to the sisters after peace was insured.
A movement was inaugurated at Vicksburg in May, 1889, to hold a reunion of Federal and Confederate veterans in May, 1890. Prominent men of the state were asked to serve upon
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the executive committee, such as Governor Lowry, Gen. Stephen D. Lee, Col. Charles E. Hooker, Gen. E. C. Walthall, Gen. J. Z. George, Ex-Gov. John M. Stone, Hon. T. M. Miller, Private John Allen, John R. Cameron, Gen. W. T. Martin, Gen. S. W. Ferguson, Col. Stockdale, and also distinguished ex-Federal soldiers, then citizens of the state. Their action insured success, and the Northern Decoration day of 1890 was solemnly celebrated at Vicksburg, the Blue and Gray uniting in extolling the valor of their soldiers.
The history of the part taken by the people of Warren county and Vicksburg in the Mexican and Civil wars is portrayed in the general history of the state, and there also is related much of their social, religious and commercial progress. In the brief sketch of Warren county, the character of the country, the names of its pioneers, and other facts of local interest are given, so that it is unnecessary to refer to such names and events in the sketch of the city.
The building of the county courthouse in 1858, twenty-two years after the people declared Vicksburg to be the seat of justice, and thirty-seven years after the town was sur- veyed, may be considered the beginning of her commercial progress. That courthouse was erected in 1858 and completed in 1861, after plans by William Weldon. It is a two-story brick (in stucco) building, which cost over $100,000. It holds the position of an ancient citadel, and like such old buildings is classic in style, the Ionic columns giving it a beauty which the colonial cupola cannot destroy. The site is terraced, and bounded by heavy stone walls. Within, the prevailing ideas of antebellum days in the South are exemplified; for the high ceilings and large rooms tell of the disposition of the people to seek light, air and space-a disposition now made subservient to economy.
The Federal building is a Florentine-Romanesque study, authorized by the last con- gress. The Convent and Academy of St. Francis Xavier is a great square palladinm house, with a Gothic frontal or central pavilion, and is considered one of the finest educational buildings in the whole South. The Main Street public school building is a semi-Gothic house, with central tower and lantern. As a house where light and ventilation are the first objects it is a success, but from an architectural point of view the style should never show itself in the United States. There is something definite in the form of St. Aloysius' Com- mercial college. It is an adaptation of the Florentine school, and retains many of those features which the master, Palladio, proclaimed to be necessary. The quoin stones in the piers of the corner pavilions or projections, the pilaster strip, the Italian voussoirs and key- stones are all definite, and the construction substantial.
The residences are rather in the Queen Anne style than in the classic, and in this respect Vicksburg differs materially from the sister city of Natchez.
There are eight white churches here. The Catholic church of St. Paul's has a very rich interior. There are three priests, of whom Father Petre is the chief, while among the congregation many of the best families of the city are always to be seen. The Catholic population of Vicksburg is over four thousand. The two Episcopalian churches, Holy Trin- ity and Christ's, are fine specimens of ecclesiastical architecture, the tall spire of the former being greatly admired. The Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists have also convenient places of worship, while the Hebrew fraternity possesses a well-appointed synagogue. The colored people pay their devotions in six churches of different denominations. St. Paul's church is a large, gothic structure, with central tower, surmounted by a small spire, spring- ing from within an arcade or parapet. The tower corners and buttresses are capped and each carries a pinnacle. Some years before the war a chime of ten bells was placed in the bell-tower and the interior decorated. The building suffered, of course, during the bom- bardment in 1863, but all damages were repaired and the decorations of the interior
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improved. The Baptist church presents a style of semi-gothic architecture which obtained about the middle of the first half of the century, when the sects increased in wealth and influence, as they did in numbers. A central tower with brooch, Gothic only in the forma- tion of doors and windows, leaves it an independent architectural conception of 1879. The Church of the Holy Trinity is a Norman Gothic house, with tower, including finial or cross, two hundred and eleven feet in hight. Pilaster strip and corbel tables are extensively used, giving it a Tudor appearance. Christ church was erected in 1841-2, after the Elizabethan idea of the Gothic style. It is the same in style as those buildings erected in the United Kingdom and the British colonies in the eighteenth and in the first half of this century by the British government. The Methodist church, built in 1850, is a very independent con- ception of Architect Thomas Hackett. It is a combination of the Roman, Gothic and colonial-a strange combination, of course, but evidently in accord with the ideas of those who worshiped in it forty years ago. The Presbyterian building is Gothic of the Tudor school, as has all the unfinished character of that school, the buttress merging into a pilaster and vice versa. The synagogue is altogether too uncertain in its architectural features to be credited to any known style.
The Cotton exchange, organized in 1874, was incorporated in 1886. The Exchange building was purchased from the Mississippi Valley bank representatives in 1886 for $20,000. This is an Italian house with a well-proportioned Corinthian colonnade or portico, entablature, parapet, carrying statuary. The receipts of cotton are estimated at from sixty thousand to eighty five thousand bales annually, including the greater part of the long stapled cotton produced in the tributary territory.
The first term of the United States court opened in July, 1887. The city is largely indebted for this to the Hon. T. C. Catchings, who represented the district in congress. It not only effects a great saving in the expense and inconvenience hitherto involved in the journey to Jackson, but will bring more people and more money to Vicksburg. On a hill close to the town the water-works contractors erected in 1887 a standpipe one hundred and forty feet high, twenty feet in diameter, with a capacity of three hundred and twenty-five thousand gallons. Just outside the city thirty or forty four-inch drove wells were sunk to a depth of three hundred feet. Eighty hydrants were supplied to the city, each capable of throwing a stream fifty feet high. Twelve miles of piping were laid in the streets that year, the main pipes being sixteen inches in diameter. Besides the immense boon to the general public, the improvement in sanitary arrangements, and the advantages that accrue to the manufacturers, it is estimated that the water-works effect a reduction of nearly one- half in the rates of insurance. The capacity of the pumping machinery is stated to be four million gallons.
The Hill City Electric Light company erected a plant in 1889, at a cost of $28,000, for lighting the city and private buildings, and added to the arc an incandescent system, at a cost of over $20,000 additional. The Thomson-Houston system is used, and furnishes . excellent illumination for public and private purposes. Fifteen miles of wire were laid at once, and one hundred and five arc lights introduced; but one thousand incandescent lights were subsequently added and the foundations of electrical light established.
The Vicksburg Hotel company selected plans presented by Sully, Toledano & Patton, which called for a five story commercial building, with romanesque ornament, an octagonal tower one hundred and thirty feet high, at the northeast corner, and the hight for the building proper of one hundred feet. The estimated cost of the building alone is $70,000, and of the building and site, $110,000. No commercial building in the state compares
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with it either in beauty or appropriateness of design, and its erection marks a new era in Vicksburg's architecture. All the requirements of light and ventilation are perfectly met. The first floor contains the main rotunda, 41x64 feet, six stores fronting on Clay street, and the bar and billiardroom in the rear, fronting on an alley twenty-five feet wide; also the office, baggageroom and laundry. On the right side of the main entrance are the elevator and grand stairway. The office or rotunda is lighted from a dome two stories high. On the second floor the entrance is into a large hall or receptionroom looking into the office below. Immediately in the rear of the dome on this floor, the dining hall, 39x82 feet, is located, as well as the ladies' ordinary, children's diningroom, kitchen and servants' rooms. The third, fourth and fifth floors are devoted entirely to the one hundred bedrooms, many of them en suite.
Many other new buildings have been erected on historical sites, and throughout the city the hum of the builders is heard. Old dwellings and stores have been remodeled within the last few years, and in all things the inactivity of the old town of a few years ago is compen- sated for by the activity of the people of the present city, who are determined to raise Vicksburg to that position which its location and the resources of the adjacent country fit it to occupy.
Bovina and New Town are other towns in Warren county.
Meridian, the county seat of Lauderdale county, is situated at the junction of the Vicks- burg & Meridian, East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia, Alabama, Great Southern & New Orleans and Northeastern railroads with the Mobile & Ohio railroad, one hundred and thirty- five miles north of Mobile, one hundred and forty miles east of Vicksburg and one hundred and ninety-six miles northeast of New Orleans, near the eastern border of the state. Besides the railroads above mentioned, there are three other roads certain of early completion in the next two years. These are the Warrior Coal Fields railroad, the Pensacola & Memphis rail- road and the Brookhaven & Meridian railroad. Without these railroads Meridian is already, next to Atlanta, the greatest railroad center in the South. With these railroads, that are certain to be built, it will be the equal of Atlanta in railroad facilities, for these three lines, added to the present, will afford immediate connection in ten different directions.
The city of Meridian is a wonder! Of commercial expansion and business activity; of business pluck, as well as of increase of population, she is a great and growing wonder! Scarce a quarter of a century back an even one hundred people were the population of her limits. To-day about eleven thousand have their daily existence within her confines, while twice that number are interested in the rise and progress of this busy inland mart.
The past few years have witnessed wonderful progress in city-building in this magic city of the South. With no spasmodic boom, but as a result of self-confidence, the growth and development of Meridian have really been astonishing, and, if it had no prospect of fur- ther railroad facilities, her people might say to the world, without incurring the charge of vanity, nor seeming to be vainglorious: "Come to us, ye who are manufacturers and work- ers in every known art, and make your home with us, for we are great and growing and growing greater!" No place in the South is more favorably situated for cloth factories, furniture factories, wagon factories, implement factories and factories of every kind, than this bustling, driving, wideawake city of Meridian.
As a manufacturing center the city is now taking prominent place. Already she has recorded some fine triumphs in this direction, among which are the following: The Sash
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and Blind factory, the Southern Standard Press company, the Meridian Oil Mills and Manu facturing company, the Progress Machine works, the Stanford & Son's Boiler and Sheet Iron works, the Williams & Briggs Machine shops, the New Orleans & Northeastern shops, Covert's Meridian Furniture factory, the East Mississippi Cotton mills, Love & Co. and Stevenson's gristmills, Hoffor's Phoenix Iron works, the Meridian Carriage and Pump Man- ufacturing company, Robinson & Co.'s Terra Cotta and Brick works, the Woodward Liver Renovator company, the Meridian Phosphate company, the Meridian Planing mills, the ()'Neill Marble works, the Meridian Ice factory, the Meridian Fertilizer company and the Meridian Cigar factory.
The educational interests of Meridian are extensive, and in their appointments quite as complete as may be found elsewhere, thus reflecting great credit upon this wideawake Southern city. The Meridian Female college (Baptist), the east Mississippi Female college (Methodist), the St. Aloysius Female academy (Catholic), are all notable institutions of learn- ing, well attended and capably conducted.
The pride of Meridian is her excellent public schools. Although they were organized but five years ago, they are rapidly being recognized as among the best city schools in the state. During the last session more than fourteen hundred children matriculated. The citizens of Meridian have been aroused to the necessity of supporting these schools liberally ; rapid progress is being made. The colored school has six hundred and fifty pupils enrolled, and it is prosperous. For the whites there are four large buildings, located in the different wards of the city. They have been, for four years, under the excellent superintendency of Prof. A. A. Kincannon, a native Mississippian, and one of the best known educators in the South. There is, in connection with the schools, an industrial department, where stenogra- phy, telegraphy, typewriting and architectural and mechanical drawing are taught. The main or industrial building is a magnificent structure, and was erected at a cost of $40,000.
Meridian has three strong banking institutions. The Citizens' Savings bank has a cap- ital of $27,000. George W. Meyer is its president; J. S. Solomon, vice president; W. A. Brown, cashier. Its correspondents are the Chase National bank, New York, and the Union National bank, of New Orleans. The First National bank has a capital of $130,000, and large surplus and undivided profits. Its correspondents are the United States and National Park banks, New York, and the Union National bank, New Orleans. Charles A. Lyerly is its president, W. W. George, its vice president, C. W. Robinson, its cashier, H. L. Bard- well its assistant cashier. The Meridian National bank has a capital of $100,000, a surplus of $50,000, and undivided profits amounting to $25,000 more. Its officers are T. Wistar Brown, president; G. Q. Hall, vice president; J. H. Wright, cashier; E. B. McRaven, assist- ant cashier. Correspondents, Seaboard National bank, New York; State National bank, New Orleans.
Building and loan associations have had much to do with the extension of Meridian's visible limits. The eighth annual statement of the Mechanics' Aid, Building and Loan as- sociation was issued September 2, 1890. It showed that the total earnings of six series was $54,628.30; the total resources of all series were $304,973.55; the total expenses for rent, licenses, etc., were $2,601.50, remarking: "In the matter of expenses we compare favorably with the most economically conducted associations in the land; less than five per cent. of the net savings including salaries, rent, stationery, etc." This association has the following officers: George S. Covert, president; H. F. Broach, vice president; L. A. Duncan, secre- tary; E. E. Spinks, treasurer, Miller & Baskin, attorneys. Directors: George. S. Covert, H. F. Broach, J. C. Lloyd, A. B. Wagner, W. S. Lott, C. W. Robinson, H. M. Threefoot.
The Goodspand Publishing CO. CHI.
INSANE ASYLUM, JACKSON.
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The second annual statement of the Savings, Building and Loan association, rendered January 6, 1891, was as follows:
"The first series of the association closes its second year, and the second series its first, with the December report. In the former the net earnings have been fully twenty per cent., and the latter something more, at an expense of less than five per cent. on profits.
"There is a growing disposition to hold the old and borrow in the latest series, which may cause a call for shares in the first series, to be retired at surrender value. This will not retard the liquidation materially beyond the five years estimated.
"Statement: Seventeen hundred shares, first series, assessed dues, $20,400; three hundred and thirty-four shares in loans, assessed interest, $3,582; shares in loans, assessed premiums, $3,362.55; fines collected, $33.40; unpaid last year, brought forward, $202.65; two hundred and fifteen shares retired during year, dues collected, $1,390; sixty-five shares loans raised during year, returned, $7,800; total enrolled, $36,770.60; uncollected, as per December, 1890, report, $591.35; net collections, 1890, $361, 79.25. Gross earnings of year, $7,093.60; expenses, $478.45; net earnings, $6,615.15; resources, in loans, $40,080; invest- ments, $8,350; unpaid balance, $910.90; total, $49,340.9). Value of shares, twenty-four months, paid, $29; surrender value, $28.65; eighteen hundred shares in force, second series, dues assessed, $21,600; two hundred and three shares in loans, interest assessed, $1,223; shares in premiums, $1,550.15; fines collected during year, $4.85; total enrolled, $24,378; uncollected, December report, 1890, $378; net collections, 1890, $24,000. Gross earnings for year, $2, 778; expenses, $448.45; net earnings, $2,329.55; resources, in loans, $24,360; less advanced loans, $721.95; total, $23,638.05. Value of shares, twelve months, paid, $13.50; surrender value, $13.20.
"Shares are estimated to reach par value in a little over five years, say $120. Loans are made on the basis of running five years, monthly payments being heavier than on the $200 share plans, but premiums are not deducted, being payable in equitable installments, without interest. The third series opened with this month." The officers are: H. F. Broach, president; J. H. Wright, vice president; L. A. Duncan, secretary; Charles S. Covert, treasurer; Miller & Baskin, attorneys; directors: H. F. Broach, J. C. Lloyd, W. S. Lott, J. H. Wright, A. B. Wagner, S. B. Holt, T. B. Lamb.
The Meridian cotton exchange and board of trade was organized in 1873. Its officers are president, vice president, secretary and treasurer, and its affairs are in charge of a com- petent board of directors. There are the following standing committees: Inspection and classification, finance, quotations, manufactures and mechanical industries, information and statistics, membership and transportation.
The Meridian street railroad company was chartered in April, 1883.
The city fire department consists of Mechanics' steam fire company No. 1, organized in June, 1882; Clinch steam fire company No. 3, organized in June, 1886; Excelsior No. 4 hose-truck company, and Phoenix No. 2 (colored) hose-truck and hand-engine company.
Religious denominations are represented here by the following church organizations: St. Patrick's Roman Catholic, Methodist, West End Methodist, First Baptist, Calvary Bap- tist, Presbyterian, Cumberland Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, Beth Israel (Jewish), and the following colored churches: Baptist, Pilgrim's Progress Bethel, Methodist Episcopal Academy, African Methodist Episcopal, First Congregational and Mount Zion.
The list of local associations and societies is as follows: The Standard club, Young Men's Christian association, Meridian Temperance Reform club, Montefiore Social club, St. Joseph's Branch No. 105 C. K. of A., Lauderdale lodge No. 308 A. F. & A. M., King Solomon's lodge J
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No. 333 A. F. & A. M., Meridian lodge No. 80 I. O. O. F., Mount Barton lodge No. 13 K. of P., Mississippi lodge No. 525 K. of H., Palmetto lodge No. 320 K. & L. of H., East Mississippi council No. 1100 A. L. of H., Order of Railway Conductors, Stephenson division No. 230 B. of L. E., Knights of the Golden Rule, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Knights of Labor, Asaph lodge No. 286 I. O. B. B., Meridian lodge No. 109 I. O. F. S. of I.
The Meridian Land and Industrial company is one of the potent factors in the improve- ment and upbuilding of Meridian. It was organized November 1, 1888, with the following officers: J. C. Loyd, president; A. J. Weems, vice president; C. W. Robinson, secretary and treasurer. The company owns twenty hundred lots in all parts of the city and ten hundred acres of land adjacent to the city. Lots are being improved and sold on long time with a small cash payment. There is now a paid-in capital of $250,000, and since date of organi- zation the company have sold over $160,000 worth of property, and by giving exceedingly liberal terms it has materially assisted in the upbuilding of the city.
The horoscope of Meridian appears to have been cast amid the signs of war and the rumors of war.
This city was settled by John T. Ball, and was formerly known as Ball's Log Store. It was rechristened by Mr. Ball, Meridian, and a postoffice was obtained under that name in 1854. The Mobile & Ohio railroad company, when it reached this point with the first track, in 1855, called it Sowashee station. The first railroad train arrived at this point, then the McLemore Oldfield, October, 1855. Mr. Ball erected a plain plank stationhouse, at his personal expense, aided by such individual subscription of material as could be obtained, the Mobile & Ohio railroad naming the station Sowashee, and agreeing as a special favor to grant depot privileges, provided the house according to their specifications should be furnished free, but for nearly two years afterward the place was treated as a mere flag station, and denied ordinary flag-station accommodations, while the expense of keeping up the station was borne locally. By these means the starting of a town here was prevented, the Mobile & Ohio railroad at the same time giving assistance and influence to start towns on their line on either side of and adjoining this place.
May 1, 1861, at a public barbecue at Meridian, the Meridian Invincibles were mustered into the Southern service, sixty-three strong, the Pettus guards being present. May 28, the Meridian Invincibles, eighty in number, started from Meridian northward over the Mobile & Ohio railroad at 4 P. M., three other volunteer companies starting with them. The next day the first train over the Southern, now Memphis & Vicksburg railroad, arrived at Merid- ian at 6:45 P. M., drawn by a handsome little engine, the Mazeppa. The train brought as pas- sengers the volunteer company "Vicksburg Southrons," one hundred and eleven strong, and other passengers. June 3, the first train left Meridian for Vicksburg at 8:45 A. M. It is easy to imagine the flutter occasioned among the inhabitants whose places of abode lay near the line of the iron highway that placed them in direct and speedy connection with Mobile and the world beyond, through the fleet of vessels that lined the bustling wharves of the Gulf city-it is easy to imagine; but the power to depict the picture as it was, and to tell of the scenes and discussions that followed the arrival of the first train, rests only with those who were in Meridian on that day. It is not so far in the past, either, that there should not now be living those who witnessed this important event.
Hon. W. C. Smedes, the president and father of the Southern railroad, when he reached here with his track adopted the name given by Mr. Ball, and accepted by the citizens, and suggested its adoption by the Mobile & Ohio Railroad company, and from that, date it has borne the name-Meridian.
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It was not until the breaking out of the war that opportunities were afforded to buy property here, and during the war the uncertainty was so great as to the safety of property that nothing but inferior houses was put up, and in 1864 General Sherman reached the place and burned all of the town he could find; so that the close of the war found scarcely a vestige of what was once the town, and the people were too poor to do much in the way of improvement for a long time.
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