When people think of antebellum homes in the South it is generally an image of a large Greek Revival style house that comes to mind. The term Greek Revival refers to the attempt to design a house to have the flavor of an ancient Greek temple. The style appears to have originated in England in the 1750s but Georgian (Federal Style in the U.S.) remained more popular. As the new American republic grew during the early 1800s many people viewed its origins as coming out of the ancient democratic form of government in Greece.

America’s perceived Greek democratic heritage and the resentment against England after the War of 1812 combined to cause the American public to increasingly prefer a building style reflecting the non-English roots of the new Republic. The Greek Revival style fit this bill. By the 1820s the interest in the Greek heritage of democracy began to be reflected in buildings with elements taken from ancient Greek architecture.

As Columbus was a frontier town in the 1820s, the major shift in architectural taste was slow to take hold. It was beginning to appear around 1830, and by the mid-1830s the use of the Greek Revival style was increasingly popular in Columbus. Early homes in the style ranged from Ashlawn, an early 1830s cottage on Sixth Avenue South to Franklin Square (c. 1835), whose original front faced Franklin Academy.

  The mid-1830s building boom in Columbus was ended by the panic of 1837. The building trades in Columbus were being seriously affected in 1838 by the increasing financial crisis. This is evident in present day Columbus by the lack of surviving homes built between 1838 and 1843. After the economic recovery began in the early 1840s, We see the building of high style Greek Revival homes such as Whitehall in 1843 and the Pratt Thomas home, a raised cottage in the Greek Revival style in 1847.

The building boom that came with the recovery from the 1837 panic was described in an 1847 letter by Rev. Edward Fontaine of St Paul’s Episcopal Church. “… the clouds of dust continually rising from the clattering of waggons and wheeled carriages of all kinds, much to our annoyance, and… with the banging of hammers in all directions prove that much business is doing, of different sorts.  The following large brick buildings are going up. A magnificent courthouse…A fine town hall…Major Blewit’s palace. A colossal private residence (S.D. Lee Home) … His unfinished work ‘crows over’ all over the town, and can be seen from a great distance… Adolphus Weir is finishing one of the most comfortable houses (Pratt Thomas Home) I have been in lately…There is a general re-fixing and painting all over Columbus.  Nothing is wanting … to make it one of the most splendid looking little cities in the South…”

In an 1856 article The Columbus Democrat reported: “We set down the year 1846 as the period when Columbus began to revive from the pecuniary revulsions (Panic of 1837)…It might have been a little sooner or a little later, but it was about that time.  Every improvement that has been carried on since then has been of the right sort; every building erected has been on a substantial plan, and in many instances in an elegant style…” That elegant style was the Greek Revival. The newspaper article also mentioned that the streets in the business district “…have been deeply covered with a heavy pebbly soil, and a gentle elevation from each side to the centre…”

The Greek Revival style dominated construction in Columbus from ca. 1840 to 1861. According to Ken P’Pool, who I consider a leading authority on Southern architecture, the style “flourished as grandly there (Columbus) as anywhere in the nation.” The style in Columbus as elsewhere is typified by being rigidly symmetrical, that is each side of the front of the house is usually a mirror image of the other and has a tripartite entrance with a transom and side-lights around the front door.

One of Columbus’ earliest surviving Greek Revival homes is Twelve Gables on Third Street South. While generally associated with the origins of Memorial Day, it is also an excellent example of how a typical traditional house could be converted into the Greek Revival Style simply by the addition of a Greek Revival porch and mill work. The house was constructed about 1837. I have been asked before where the name Twelve Gables came from, and it reflects the house’s 10 gabled dormers and the two end gables.

Much rarer than antebellum homes are antebellum commercial buildings. In Columbus on Second Avenue North across from the Court House are two excellent surviving examples of antebellum Greek Revival commercial buildings. There is the Harris and Harrison Law Office and next door the Harrison-Whitfield Building.

The Harris and Harrison Law office is the one story Greek Revival building across from the courthouse which Roger Larson used for the Columbus Packet office. It had been built in the early 1840s as a law office. The other building is the three-story brick office building next door. It was the Harrison-Whitfield building which was constructed in a simplified Greek Revival style about 1858. For many years it was the Woodmen of the World building with their lodge hall on the third floor.

That building is one of the largest surviving antebellum office buildings in Mississippi. The offices in the Woodmen’s Building and several others along “Lawyer’s Row” were originally sold much like condominium offices are sold today. Of the 22 homes on tour in the first Columbus Pilgrimage in 1940, 17 were either Greek Revival or had significant Greek Revival elements.

The story of the Greek Revival style as used in Columbus is too long to cover in a single column. A follow-up column will deal with the Greek Revival buildings of the mid-19th Century which were designed in a high style Greek Revival form by early Columbus architect James Lull. Thanks for help from Carolyn Kaye and Ken P’Pool.

Rufus Ward is a local historian.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

READER FAVORITES

• 

  Roses and Thorns: 6-13-26

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 2 days ago