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Hancock County’s Historic Claiborne Home
Right now the Mississippi His-	„	'	,	,
torical Society is seeking the nec- the "Gulf Coast s Confederate essary state funds, estimated Yankee,” covertly supported the around $25,000, to restore and add Union Cause while professing loy-to the Coast’s already imposing alty to the Confederacy, array of historic tourist attrac- i He moved to Laurel Wood to
tions the long inaccessible, cen^j 1853, tury and a half old former plantation home of J. F. H. Claiborne on Mulatto Bayou west of Bay St. Louis and about two miles southeast of Pearlington off U.S.
90.
The home and 40 acres, owned by the International Paper Company, was offered to the state of Mississippi as a state park and historical site in early I960. The legislature authorized the acceptance of the gift but failed to provide funds for the restoration.
The original owner of this home was L. Boisdore, who built it on a French Land Grant with slave labor in 1800 from pine lumber hewn in the surrounding forest and handmade brick. It has a number of features not found in other antebellum planter type homes, one of which is its hipped tin roof broken in front by two gable windows and surmounted by a box observatory that towers, at least 75 feet above the adjacent marsh that stretches to the Gulf.
Its raised main floor Is supported by high brick piers, once joined together with iron bars to form a large cage under the house, where the new slaves brought from Africa were con-: fined until they were docile enough1 to live in the slave quarters be-(jhind the house.
l| Although owned by several different families during , its first half century of existence, it was its occupancy by J. F. H. Claiborne during the Civil War and the early Reconstruction years that has made it historically prom-1 meat; It was in this planta-
When the War BttmMT~tBc* States'~t3rted Colonel Claibottie to all appearances was g l&yrf sup- j porter of the Confederacy. Actually he was probably the most ac-tive advocate of the Union in South- I em Mississippi. While he was j writing to Mississippi’s Governor Pettus bewailing tHe starving 1 condition of the Coast country and
______	.ranting at the depredations of
a 44 year old politically jthe Yankee invaders, he was also
tin correspondence with Union I Major General Nathaniel Banks
scarpfed Mississippian. His earlier carcicr had been hectically spotted with ill health, political successes jat New Orleans, and political defeats. Bom in 1809 i While he purchased several in Natchez, John F. H. Claiborne j thousand dollars worth of Con-had entered the practice of law j federate bonds, he informed at eighteen. Before he attained ; General Banks of everything mili-his majority he had been sent to jtary that he could and mairitain-the State Legislature and been re-, ed cordial relations with the Union elected twice with increasing m?»-i soldiers at Fort Pike, jorities. His popularity was so On five different occasions dur-
great that he received 6000 votes in one election in which he was not even a candidate.
Afflicted with a lung disorder I contracted early in life he had twice gone to Cuba for his health. Then one day during a heated debate in Congress, to which he had been elected in 1835 he suffered a violent hemorrhage of the lung ‘from which he never entirely recovered. That marked the end of bis political career — although in 1842 he was made president of the Board of Commissioners set up to settle the claims of the Choctaws. During the course of the proceedings Claiborne ruthlessly exposed the machinations and manueverings of the land speculators, which won him almost as many enemies as friends.
He is best known to native Mis-sissippians of course as the able historian of their state. Little is known of his life at Laurel Wood where he enjoyed the government post at a good salary of supervising and caring for the timber district combining Alabama, Mississippi Qnd Louisiana.
Beginning in 1853, after many political ups and downs and bouts with his lung ailment, Colonel Claiborne toe* up the management and ownership of Laurel
tion home, then known as Laurel ____________ _____
Claiborne, from the .1 Wood with his timber agent ap-un.“1 he was 61, pro-1 ipointment as his financial cushion, recnirnitirai	ll^rn ; Although he knew nothing pre-
turv’^fnrpm^f^h nu?e.teent^ i viously of plantation management of Mu- ]or farming he proceeded to make sissippi history. It was here that
John Claiborne, sometimes called
ing the month of July 1863 Claiborne informed Banks of the activities of the salt makers along the Coast. Claiborne revealed that Governor Pettus had contracted for 100,000 bushels of salt !flt $35 a bushel, and suggested these Coastal areas be shelled and the salt makers seized. In later memos he reported that salt (making was proceeding at the irate of 500 bushels a day and that (twenty wagon loads of salt had .been shipped to General Joseph E. Johnston’s army.
On one occasion he revealed the location of a train of four hundred Confederate supply wagons. Another time he disclosed the location and size of Johnston's army. And on a number of occasions was able to supply Banks with the names of people serving, the Confederacy in Bank’s own headquarters.
He continued to produce cotton at Laurel Wood and by. securing i the appointment to serve as pur-
chasing agent ia the Confederacy
1
1 for the Belgium Consul in New ©t«. (leans, he was able to move freely ! through the lines. with his own ^ cotton and that purchased from other planters on the Ptearl River. Claiborne’s intrigues were not j unknown to the Confederate gov* J emment but in the absence of ab. a financial success of it—experi-ji solute traffic with the enemy they menting with new crops, introduc- ] 5 ’ were unable to interfere. Iii hi •ing new varieties of garden peasjij position at Laurel Wood he was I he procured abroad , and producing,: under the protection of the Feder-! with his hundred slaves an average! ;al gunboats that blockaded th« lof eight hundred pounds of seal j Coast.
I island or long staple cotton to the; ■ When the war was over Clai-lacre.	j	borne immediately took the an>
■ It was during these years be-j nesty oath professing his alle-tween 1853 and the start of the; giance to the United States, be-War when he produced the great-! came aligned with the Carpetbag-/eet w>luoaeotJiis waitings tbathavej er governor in his state and lived
{earned him the title of	1	until 1870 at Laurel Wood _______ tha
‘StoTOi’s Historian.” \-f -	1	Confederate Yankee who today
paradoxically is known for his excellent history of Mississippi h»