Dates: 1932-1988.

History:

Natchez Garden Club

The Natchez Garden Club was organized and chartered as a women's civic-improvement organization in Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi, in 1927. The club is governed by an executive board composed of elected officers, members of standing committees, and members who own homes featured on pilgrimage tours. As a civic-improvement organization, the club is actively involved in preserving local historic architecture, decorative arts, and landscape architecture. It also seeks to promote tourism in Natchez and throughout state and to foster the study and appreciation of Natchez history. The Natchez Garden Club is affiliated with the Garden Clubs of Mississippi and the National Council of State Garden Clubs.

The first Natchez Pilgrimage was sponsored by the Natchez Garden Club in 1932. Its success encouraged the club to make the pilgrimage an annual event. By 1935, the Natchez Pilgrimage and its accompanying pageants and balls had become the primary fundraiser of the Natchez Garden Club. The profits from pilgrimage events enabled the organization to purchase the former Connelly’s Tavern, now known as the House on Ellicott’s Hill, and to donate money to various local beautification and preservation projects. However, around this time a number of homeowners felt that they should receive a larger portion of the total receipts from pilgrimage tours. The garden club felt that it could not allocate the homeowners a larger share of the proceeds and continue to fulfill its mandate as a civic-improvement organization. The dissenting homeowners, who belonged to the Association of Pilgrimage Homes, subsequently resigned their memberships in the Natchez Garden Club and withdrew their homes from pilgrimage tours. The association was chartered as the Pilgrimage Garden Club on February 17, 1937.

From 1937 to 1942, the Natchez Garden Club and the Pilgrimage Garden Club held separate pilgrimages, Confederate pageants, and king’s and queen’s balls. During World War II, both pilgrimages were suspended from 1943 to 1945. The Pilgrimage Garden Club was the only one to sponsor the pilgrimage in 1946. Eventually, each organization realized that a united pilgrimage was in the best interest of both clubs and the community. The first united pilgrimage was held in 1947, and the first fall pilgrimage was held in 1977. The Natchez Garden Club and Pilgrimage Garden Club continue to sponsor the Natchez Pilgrimage.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of various garden-club records, newspaper clippings and other materials (numbered), notebooks, and publicity relating to pilgrimages and other activities of the Natchez Garden Club and the Pilgrimage Garden Club. These materials were accumulated and in some cases arranged by the donor, Kate Don Brandon Adams. 

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Garden Club Records. 1935-1937. 4 folders. 

Dating from 1935 and 1937, the club records document events surrounding the split of the dissenting homeowners from the Natchez Garden Club and the formation of the Pilgrimage Garden Club.

Among the Pilgrimage Garden Club papers is an August 26, 1935, petition signed by many of the homeowners who later founded the Pilgrimage Garden Club. The petition attempts to justify why the homeowners should receive seventy-five percent of the net profits from pilgrimage tours. Also included is an August 30, 1935, letter from Mrs. Hubert Barnum of the Pilgrimage Garden Club to Mrs. Ferriday Byrnes of the Natchez Garden Club. The letter identifies Pilgrimage Garden Club committee members who were chosen to discuss the petition with the Natchez Garden Club.

The papers from the Natchez Garden Club consist of two letters, a resolution, an address, a report, and two essays. The first letter is addressed to Mrs. Hubert Barnum of the Pilgrimage Garden Club and is unsigned and undated. It acknowledges receipt of Mrs. Barnum’s letter and expresses the desire of Natchez Garden Club representatives to discuss problems common to both groups, presumably regarding the split. The second letter is addressed to Mrs. W. H. Hale, president of the Natchez Garden Club. It is signed by several garden-club members and accompanied by an earlier annotated draft. It expresses support for the Natchez Garden Club and its president and also provides an accounting of the division of pilgrimage profits from 1932 to 1935. The letter was published in the Natchez Gazette on October 16, 1935. A printed version of the letter is available in series three.

There is an unsigned three-page Natchez Garden Club resolution with a penciled-in date of 1936. The resolution objects to the rival pilgrimage and its organization and promotion by homeowners who were technically still members of the Natchez Garden Club. Also included is an address with handwritten notes, apparently delivered at a Natchez Garden Club meeting. The address explains the purpose of the meeting, the discussion of the Pilgrimage Garden Club’s seventy-five-percent-profit-sharing proposal, and the reasons for the Natchez Garden Club’s opposition to the proposal. Accompanying the address are two typescripts and a photocopy of a report summarizing the address.

Roane Fleming Byrnes wrote two essays on behalf of the Natchez Garden Club. The first essay discusses the origins of the Natchez Pilgrimage and is undated. Byrnes also cites evidence from Natchez newspaper articles to prove that the idea to open the antebellum homes for tours originated in 1931. The second essay is entitled “Natchez Pilgrimage Week of 1933” and was written around 1935. It offers a brief overview of the origins of the Natchez Pilgrimage and includes many of the same details as the first essay. A copy of this essay also appears in series three.

The jointly created garden-club records consist of transcripts of two November 1937 meetings of committees representing the Natchez Garden Club and Pilgrimage Garden Club. The meetings were held to discuss the possibility of holding a united pilgrimage.

Box 1, folders 1-4

 

Series 2: Newspaper Clippings and Other Items (Numbered). 1935-1982; n.d. 1 folder. 

There is a series of newspaper clippings and other items dating from 1935 to 1982. They provide a brief history of the Natchez Garden Club and the Pilgrimage Garden Club, including the controversy surrounding the split, and were apparently arranged and numbered by the donor. There is a one-page typewritten narrative on the origins of the Pilgrimage Garden Club and the homeowners who founded it. Of interest is a June 28, 1937, newspaper clipping of a letter from the Natchez Garden Club to the Pilgrimage Garden Club urging the latter to reopen its homes for the next pilgrimage.

Box 1, folder 5

 

Series 3: Notebooks. 1932-1988. 17 folders. 

A series of Natchez Pilgrimage-related items, apparently arranged by the donor and formerly housed in two notebooks, are now in folders. Some loose items have also been merged with this series. Materials removed from the first notebook include printed items from Confederate pageants that were held in conjunction with the pilgrimages from 1936 to 1988. There are also Natchez Garden Club yearbooks dating from 1932 to 1942. They contain constitutions, lists of standing committees, and descriptions of ongoing projects such as the restoration of Connelly’s Tavern. A calendar of annual meetings includes agendas and lists of hostesses. Materials removed from the second notebook include booklets, brochures, invitations, and programs that were produced for spring or fall pilgrimages from 1932 to 1988. The booklets and brochures often contain photographs and descriptions of houses such as Bontura, the Elms, and Longwood that were featured on pilgrimage tours. Both notebooks contain lists of current members and memorial rolls of members who died during a particular year.

Box 2, folders 1-17

 

Series 4: Publicity. 1932-1986. 14 folders. 

The publicity includes newspaper articles and magazines documenting the Natchez Pilgrimage or Natchez antebellum homes from 1932 to 1986. Of interest are “pink editions” of the Natchez Gazette for 1932 and 1934. Among the magazines is a November 1939 issue of House and Garden containing an illustrated article on such Natchez homes as the Burn, Dunleith, Melrose, and Stanton Hall. It was part of a larger feature article on the antebellum architecture and style that influenced the set designer of the motion picture, Gone with the Wind. The other is a January 1947 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal that contains an article on the Beltzhoover family and their home, Green Leaves.

Box 1, folders 6-7
Box 2, folders 18-20
Box 3, folders 1-2
Box 4, folders 1-7 (reference photocopies)
Box 5, folders 1-7 (restricted originals)

 

Box List:

Box 1, folders 1-4: Garden-club records, 1935-1937.
Box 1, folder 5: Newspaper clippings and other items (numbered), 1935-1982; n.d.
Box 1, folders 6-7: Publicity, 1935-1977.

Box 2, folders 1-17: Notebooks, 1932-1988.
Box 2, folders 18-20: Publicity, 1935-1986.

Box 3, folders 1-2: Publicity, 1939-1947.

Box 4, folders 1-7: Publicity, 1932-1985 (reference photocopies).

Box 5, folders 1-7: Publicity, 1932-1985 (restricted originals).