O'Ferrall House and Landscape: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Natchez National Historical Park

IR 2 Cultural Landscapes Program

This Cultural Landscapes Inventory report documents the O'Ferrall House and Landscape, a historic, vernacular, residential landscape located approximately one mile east of downtown Natchez, Mississippi. The cultural landscape consists of the O’Ferrall House, a storage building, the surrounding yard, planted and spontaneous vegetation, a gravel driveway and parking area, brick and concrete walkways, remnants of fences, and other small-scale features. The O’Ferrall House and Landscape are within the 18-acre boundary of the Forks of the Road site defined by Congress in 2017. Recent studies of the Forks of the Road and the O’Ferrall House, including a 2023 CLI and a 2020 NATC-prepared Preliminary Evaluation Questionnaire, posit two potential areas of significance for the O’Ferrall House and its landscape. According to these documents, the site is potentially significant in the areas of Ethnic Heritage: Black and Social History for its association with the domestic slave trade. The recommendation of this CLI is that the O’Ferrall House and Landscape is eligible under Criterion B on a local level for its association with John J. O’Ferrall (1846-1899), the son of John O’Ferrall. John J. O’Ferrall constructed the O’Ferrall House around 1882- 1886. He was a prominent businessman in Natchez, who operated one of two cotton gins in Natchez between 1870 and 1899. During the period of Reconstruction, the Forks of the Road developed into a significant commercial district in Natchez that reflects the transformation of the local economy after the Civil War. O’Ferrall is emblematic of those events, through his ownership of the cotton gin, investment in commercial real estate in Natchez, and investment in a ferry operation linking Natchez to Vidalia, Louisiana, on the opposite bank of the Mississippi River. The O’Ferrall House and Landscape is also eligible at a National level under Criterion D in the areas of archeology—historic non-aboriginal and Black ethnic heritage, as the house stands on the site of a former slave market at Forks of the Road and has the potential to yield important information about the domestic slave trade and the lives of the enslaved people who were sold and purchased at the market An analysis of the integrity of the O’Ferrall House and Landscape is based on comparing the current conditions of landscape features with their known conditions during the period of significance—circa 1882 and 1889. This period of significance begins with John J. O’Ferrall’s construction of the house and spans his occupancy to his death in 1889.

O'Ferrall House and Landscape: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Natchez National Historical Park

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