Mississippi Articles

Vacation Ideas: The Oaks House Museum, Jackson Mississippi, USA

The Oaks House Museum is located at 823 N. Jefferson Street, Jackson, Mississippi. It is one of Jackson’s oldest homes, a Greek Revival-style cottage built about 1853 on four acres of land. The Oaks House survived the burning of Jackson in the Civil War and is now a Mississippi Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Visitors may tour the The Oaks House Museum Tuesday through Saturday during the hours of 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. It is open year-round, closed only on Sunday, Monday, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. You can also arrange special tours by appointment. Advance reservations are recommended for groups desiring to tour the Museum.

Cost of Admission

Adults are $4.50, seniors are $4.00 and children are admitted for $3.50.

The Oaks House Museum is also known as the Boyd House as it was the home of James Hervey and Eliza Ellis Boyd, their six children, numerous grandchildren totaling three generations of the Boyd family from 1853 until 1960.

The Oaks House Museum is administered by The Oaks House Museum Corporation. Their goal is to preserve the circa 1853 Oaks House, its collections, and grounds, to illustrate the Rediff_com_goes_mobile_with_MobileRediff_application-3530.html">com/articles/show/Break_up_or_commitment_-4231.html">life of a middle-class family on a mid-19th-century urban farmstead. James Hervey Boyd was mayor to Jackson for four years. The Museum focuses on the years of 1853 to 1863. It was originally a five-room cottage with a deep porch and colonnade of square wooden columns across the front of the house. The Greek Revival style was popular at the time of the home’s construction.

Mary Boyd McGill, daughter, and her husband Richard F. McGill made the first major renovation of the Boyd House in the early 1880s. There were additions made to the back of the house, a cook stove added, indoor plumbing installed and electricity.

The enclosed rear porch on the house dates back to the late 19th century.

In 1960, there was a second renovation of the Boyd House. The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Mississippi acquired the property for its state headquarters and opened it as a house museum. Today, there are additional plans for more renovations and re-creation of The Oaks for the interpretive period of 1853 to 1863.

There are two parlors on each side of a wide central hall. This design was common in the era the house was first constructed. Each parlor had a fireplace that was probably wood burning in the mid-19th century but later changed to accommodate coal.

Elements original to the circa 1853 structure include:

• Large original cypress double-hung windows allowing ample light and adequate ventilation
• The exterior shutters move on hinges to allow closing out the sun at certain times of the day
• Ceilings are just over ten feet tall to allow hot Southern air to rise above its inhabitants.
• An original two-panel cypress front door demonstrates the classic Greek Revival style
• Original heart pine floors throughout

Seven pieces of mid-19th century Boyd furniture was brought back to the home in 2006 for the first time in more than forty years. The furniture was originally purchased by a granddaughter of James Hervey Boyd and Eliza Ellis Boyd just before the Boyd House sold to The National Society of The Colonials Dames of America in the State of Mississippi. The granddaughter, Mrs. McIntyre died in 2001. Her son, James Boyd McIntyre wanted the furniture returned to The Oaks. The original Boyd furniture acquisition was a gift from the FedEx Corporation and other friends of The Oaks.

The Gardens

Typical of the 1880’s style is a front picket fence with climbing roses. Native perennials are plentiful in the planting bed. On the grass lawn, you will see island beds that are also typical of the 1880’s style. Deciduous vines curl around the graceful arches of the porch.

There are lots of examples of flora common to the 1800’s. During this era plant exploration was popular. Plants from Asia and Europe were popular in the Deep South. At the Oaks House you will see imported hydrangea, sweet olive, althea, azalea, and crepe myrtle, cherry laurel, and hackberry and magnolia grand flora.

Just behind the house is a work area consisting of a cistern, and milk house. Farther south of the work area is a swept yard in which activities may have included making soap for laundry, chopping wood for cooking and heating, slaughtering and butchering animals for meat, preparing vegetables for cooking, and burning and burying solid waste.

On the southwest corner there is a restored or reconstructed milk house or buttery. A milk house is unusual in the South. Before the days of refrigeration it was a problem to keep milk products cool. The milk house use may have been to hold spring water for cooling or ice shipped from New England.

The Boyd men and friends served the Confederacy during the Civil War. There are family tales of Union soldiers and their horses on the property, the sound of bullets around the house and a molasses barrel punctured by a bullet in the smokehouse. The house was still standing after the burning of Jackson. This was very fortunate as well as a great wonder.

Enjoy a historic Christmas at The Oaks, Saturday December 1, 2007 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. with 1850s music and a tableau presented by students of the Power Academic and Performing Arts Complex in Jackson. Admission is free. Light refreshments will be served.

Source: The Oaks House Museum Tour Guide

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