Beauvoir Jefferson Davis Shrine

BEAUVOIR

Jefferson Davis Shrine

Beauvoir, freely translated “beautiful view,” is located on U. S. Highway 90 about halfway between Gulfport and Biloxi on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It was originally part of a tract of land that James Brown, a prosperous planter of Madison County, Mississippi bought September 2, 1848, by Contract and Agreement from John Henderson of Pass Christian, with the right to build a family residence on it before the title was cleared. Acting upon this legal agreement, Brown paid Henderson $900.00 in cash toward the purchase price of $2,000.00, and gave him a note for the additional $1,100.00, which was to be paid on receipt of a deed proving his title to the land had been cleared.

Although the residence and outlying buildings were completed by 1852, James Brown did not obtain a deed to the property until July 16, 1855, when he bid it in for $3,000.00 at a Harrison County Court Auction. To this tract of land he had added, in the meantime, a small piece bought from the Tegardens for $250.00.

James Brown was said to have been his own architect and building superintendent for both the Mansion and the cottages he built on his new home site. He brought slaves from his plantation in Madison County to do much of the building; but, for the higher grade of work needed, he employed carpenters and decorators from New Orleans. The cypress used was from the Back Bay swamp section, with most of the timber cut at Handsboro and on the place. The slate for the roof was imported from England. The buildings thus planned and constructed were the Mansion, a Louisiana plantation type house known as Beauvoir House since the time of its occupancy by the Davis family, one cottage to the east of this main building and one to the west. A four room cottage in the rear, which was on the property when purchased, was used by the owner and his family while 

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the other buildings were being constructed, and later became the kitchen and servants’ quarters for the families of both James Brown and Jefferson Davis.

Information from Mrs. Hobart D. (Olive Brown) Shaw of Gulfport, Mississippi, granddaughter of James Brown and the daughter of Joseph W. Brown who was born in this, the family home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, explains the practical use her grandfather made of the two cottages on the grounds, formerly identical in structure—the one on the east, the plantation office, used also as a school room for the younger children who were taught by a governess; the one on the west, the Guest Cottage, often called the Circuit Rider’s House from the frequent use made of it by the traveling Methodist minister in that section.

From September 2, 1848 until May 1873, James Brown was the owner of the Mansion and its surrounding eighty-eight acres more or less, either by Contract and Agreement or by a deed. In May of 1873, after the death of James Brown, it was sold under a decree of the United States Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, and was conveyed by deed of special commissioners to Frank Johnston of Jackson, Mississippi. Through a special warranty deed given by Frank Johnston July 7, 1873, Beauvoir became the property of Mrs. Sarah A. Dorsey, wife of Samuel W. Dorsey.

When Mrs. Sarah A. Dorsey (Sarah Ellis Dorsey) of Tensas Parish, Louisiana bought the Brown property, she gave it its picturesque name, “Beauvoir”. Her ownership of this beautiful coast property was brief, ending Feb. 19, 1879; but her use of it, for the most part, during the years she did own it and her final disposition of it by both will and deed caused Beauvoir to become historic Beauvoir, and made her worthy of outstanding recognition for the splendid contribution she thus made to the welfare of Jefferson Davis.

It was the spring of 1877 that Jefferson Davis, then 69 years old, came back to his beloved Mississippi, seeking rest 

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and a place to write an authentic account of the Confederate government that he had administered for four years as the President of the Confederate States of America. It was fortunate for him that just at that time Mrs. Dorsey, an old schoolmate of Mrs. Davis and one deeply appreciative of his great service to the South, invited him for a visit to Beauvoir; for there he found the place and the congenial atmosphere ideal for the rest he so badly needed and for the work he had in mind. He rented the east cottage, now called the Library Cottage, and fitted the front room with book shelves and furniture at his own expense. He used the second room for his bedroom and prepared the third for his son, Jefferson Davis, Jr. His son made little use of this room, however, occupying it only a few months in 1877, since he died of yellow fever soon afterwards in Memphis. It was later used as a study by Varina Anne (Winnie), youngest child of Mr. and Mrs. Davis.