Spring Pilgrimage

"The most extensive tours of the most extravagant antebellum homes in America." That's the way the Pilgrimage Garden Club describes the Natchez Pilgrimage—the spring and fall tour of homes that has kept visitors coming back to Natchez since 1932. It's easy to see why. Natchez was once home to more millionaires per capita, than any other city in America—and although that situation came to an abrupt end after the Civil War, the city has managed to preserve the extraordinary architectural legacy of that wealth, through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and into the twenty-first. Today, Natchez' streets remain lined with the palatial mansions and filigreed townhouses of the cotton barons, and each year the families that occupy them open their homes to visitors during the annual Spring Pilgrimage. Guests can nose through two-hundred-year-old homes, meet descendants, hear their tales, sip a mint julep, stay in one of more than fifty historic B&Bs, and generally get a resident's eye view of life in this most genial of Southern cities.

This season, nineteen antebellum mansions will open their doors for tours, each filled with antique furnishings, porcelain, portraits, silver, documents, diaries, and more. Other diversions include the Historic Natchez Tableaux that depicts life in Natchez from its inception to the Civil War through tableaux, song, and dance. Natchez is also home to dozens of African-American heritage sites, including historic churches, neighborhoods established by freedom after the Civil War, the boyhood home of internationally acclaimed author Richard Wright. In the 19th century, Natchez was home to John Roy Lynch, the first African-American to hold office in Mississippi and the first to chair a major political party convention; Hiram Revels, first African-American elected to either house of Congress; and Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, a classically trained African-American singer who performed for Queen Victoria. Visit natchezpilgrimage.com for photos and descriptions of the homes on tour, special event details, and to purchase tickets. (601) 446-6631.