"An antebellum​ house in the Mississippi Delta is a rare sight. This rich land, which would prosper during the Cotton Kingdom's second stage in the late 1800s, was sparsely populated in the years before the Civil War. Without levees to hold back the annual spring floods from the Yazoo, Tallahatchie, and Sunflower rivers and myriad streams and creeks, it was uninhabitable. Vast cypress swamps were roamed by bears and choked by alligators and water moccasins. Those few pioneers adventurous or foolish enough to try their hand in this harsh land battled malaria, typhoid, and yellow fever. It was much easier, and immeasurably safer, to plant cotton in the gentle hills of Marshall County or along the Tombigbee River prairies than to risk life, limb, and fortune in the Delta.

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There was one exception. On the westernmost edge of the region, Washington County was a remote outpost of pre-Civil War life. Greenville grew into a decent-sized town in the mid-1800s, and a hardy contingent of Kentuckians and Carolinians carved out holdings along the banks of Lake Washington. Settlements with names like Wayside, Chatham, Erwin, and Glen Allan ringed the lake and gave rise to most of the Delta's rare antebellum architecture.

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The taking of Choctaw Indian lands in the 1820s and Chickasaw lands a decade later brought an influx of settlers to the north and central Mississippi. Only a few were willing to tackle the challenges of the Delta, with its heat, floods, fevers, and wild animals. Of those who did, none made a more lasting architectural impact than the Worthington brothers. Kentucky natives Samuel, Elisha, William, and Isaac Worthington bought thousands of acres of land in Mississippi and Arkansas and established vast holdings. Each brother built at least one house. Isaac's was Leota, close by the Mississippi River at Leota Landing. He ignored the warnings of his neighbors that the house was too close to the river. Rising spring floodwaters took first his lawn, then swept Leota from its foundations and off to the Gulf of Mexico. Samuel Worthington's Wayside was a thirty-eight-room mansion that also if more indirectly, was a flood victim. It withstood the disastrous 1927 holocaust, only to be condemned and demolished when the new levee construction placed it on the west side of the earthworks.

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Of all the Worthington houses, only Belmont remains.  We believe eighty slaves worked the cotton fields and at the house, and research is underway to identify their names and other family members, as well as stories about life at Belmont. The land where it stands was sold by the U.S. government to Governor Alexander G. McNutt, the first man to own it. Samuel Worthington purchased it in 1853 to complement his three existing homes: Redleaf, Mosswood, and Wayside. Two years later Samuel sold it to his brother, Dr. William W. Worthington.  He built his house between 1855 and 1861. The bricks were hand-fired on the property and still remain on the property. It is a blend of the prevailing Greek Revival and Italianate styles of the day. The main two-story block is red brick with a full-height portico featuring square Doric columns, turned balustrades, and a pediment pierced by a circular window. The cornice line is heavily bracketed. The roof is of shallow pitch, hipped, and crowned with molded chimneys. Windows are tall and narrow, capped with stone lintels. An all extend from the main block to the rear.

 

Inside, The Belmont 1857 features some of the finest decorative plaster work in Mississippi. Local lore holds that German plaster artists were stranded in Washington County when the Civil War started; having no means of escape and no other work, they whiled away the war years by carving intricate molding and ceiling medallions into Belmont's plaster. Another version relates that Dr. Worthington met a group of Italian carvers on a boat trip to New Orleans and convinced them to return with him to Belmont. Regardless of its origins, the decorative work in Belmont rivals the finest interiors of Natchez or Columbus.

 

The large central hall is backed by an elegantly turned stair. Two rooms are open on either side of the hallway. To the right, the formal rooms can be divided by huge wooden doors which glide in and out of the walls. On the left [is a music room and a library]. Upstairs are four bedrooms, separated by a wide hallway that serves as a drawing room. Ceilings soar to fourteen feet on both levels. A two-story ell adds several more bedrooms, kitchen space, and [the formal dining room], all opening onto long, high-ceilinged screen porches that look out over endless cotton fields. Altogether, the house encompasses nine thousand square feet, with three thousand square feet of porch space, ten bedrooms, and twelve fireplaces.

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Originally, the grounds extended to the Mississippi River.  Just across the road (now [the levee]) was Wayside, the home of Dr. Worthington's brother, Samuel. That house suffered more directly than did Belmont during the Civil War, with one of Samuel's sons being shot by Union soldiers in his own pasture. Roving bands of troops wreaked havoc across Washington County for several months, foraging and burning Greenville.  Remarkably, all of the Lake Washington homes, including Belmont, were spared.

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The Belmont 1857 remained in the Worthington family until the late 1920s. A young girl living at Wayside in the early years of the twentieth century recalled Dr. Worthington's son, always known as "Mr. Will": "[He] was really a southern gentleman. He wore white linen suits and  Panama hats and on hot days he carried  a parasol or umbrella, and he was a very genteel person." (Recounted from Mary Howey Key, interview by Roberta Miller,  MDAH and Washington County Library System Oral History Project (Oct 1977).)

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In 1927 the Delta was devastated by a great flood and broken levee- the story alleges that The Belmont had 9 feet of water on her first floor.  Faced with immense repair costs, Dr. Worthington's heirs decided to walk away; the insurance company foreclosed on the property by 1928.  Despite the enormous amount of work, lack of electricity and plumbing, and turbulent depression-era economy, The Belmont was purchased from the insurance company by the Weathers family who immediately hired an architect and set to work restoring the estate.  They repaired plaster, installed indoor plumbing and modern electricity, purchased new furniture, and even created closets between the bedrooms by salvaging doors and moldings from Wayside which was going to be surrendered to the River across the new levee.