Lochinvar Photograph Album PI/HH/1984.0001
The collection consists of an original album of 46 albumen print photographs, ca. 1880-1891, documenting Lochinvar, the plantation home of Robert Gordon and his son, Col. James Gordon, of Pontotoc County, Mississippi. The anonymous photographer captured images of the exterior and interior of the house, various family members, ex-slaves and their quarters, the grounds around the house, and hunting scenes.
Robert Gordon immigrated to Cotton Gin Port, Mississippi, from Scotland; married Mary Elizabeth Walton; excelled as an Indian trader and landowner; and founded the town of Aberdeen in Monroe County, Mississippi. After the Chickasaw Cession of 1832 Robert purchased two sections of land near Pontotoc, where he built Lochinvar in 1836. Robert and Mary Elizabeth's son, James Gordon, grew up in the house, married Carolina Virginia Wiley, and had two children of his own, Annie and Robert James. James Gordon served as an officer in the Confederate Army under Jeb Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest, and he was briefly suspected of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. James Gordon represented Chickasaw County in the Mississippi legislature in 1857, 1878, 1886, and 1904-1908; and in December 1909 Governor Edmond F. Noel appointed him to fill the unexpired term of U.S. Senator Anselm J. McLaurin until the state legislature could elect a new senator in February 1910.
James Gordon inherited Lochinvar when his father died in 1867. Lochinvar remained in the Gordon family until 1900, when J. D. Fontaine, an attorney in Pontotoc, Mississippi, bought it to use as a tenant house. Dr. Forrest Tutor and his wife, Dr. Janis Burns Tutor, purchased the home from Fontaine's son in 1966 and restored it. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places.
read more...The collection consists of an original album of 46 albumen print photographs, ca. 1880-1891, documenting Lochinvar, the plantation home of Robert Gordon and his son, Col. James Gordon, of Pontotoc County, Mississippi. The anonymous photographer captured images of the exterior and interior of the house, various family members, ex-slaves and their quarters, the grounds around the house, and hunting scenes.
Robert Gordon immigrated to Cotton Gin Port, Mississippi, from Scotland; married Mary Elizabeth Walton; excelled as an Indian trader and landowner; and founded the town of Aberdeen in Monroe County, Mississippi. After the Chickasaw Cession of 1832 Robert purchased two sections of land near Pontotoc, where he built Lochinvar in 1836. Robert and Mary Elizabeth's son, James Gordon, grew up in the house, married Carolina Virginia Wiley, and had two children of his own, Annie and Robert James. James Gordon served as an officer in the Confederate Army under Jeb Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest, and he was briefly suspected of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. James Gordon represented Chickasaw County in the Mississippi legislature in 1857, 1878, 1886, and 1904-1908; and in December 1909 Governor Edmond F. Noel appointed him to fill the unexpired term of U.S. Senator Anselm J. McLaurin until the state legislature could elect a new senator in February 1910.
James Gordon inherited Lochinvar when his father died in 1867. Lochinvar remained in the Gordon family until 1900, when J. D. Fontaine, an attorney in Pontotoc, Mississippi, bought it to use as a tenant house. Dr. Forrest Tutor and his wife, Dr. Janis Burns Tutor, purchased the home from Fontaine's son in 1966 and restored it. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Collection Description General & Tech Data Catalog Record
Collection Description
The Lochinvar Photograph Album collection consists of an original album of 46 albumen print photographs, ca. 1880-1891, documenting Lochinvar, the plantation home of Robert Gordon and his son, Col. James Gordon, of Pontotoc County, Mississippi. The anonymous photographer captured images of the exterior and interior of the house, various family members, ex-slaves and their quarters, the grounds around the house, and hunting scenes.
Image Description
Descriptions of some of the photographs, apparently written by one of the women who appears in them, are in quotation marks. Other images were described by the curator. Descriptions may be accessed through keyword search on the Web site and by subject headings through the MDAH online catalog.
Provenance
The album was purchased by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History from the Jenkins Company of Austin, Texas, in 1984. Copy negatives of the 46 photographic prints attached to the pages of the album were produced by MDAH in September 1987. The MDAH Image and Sound section scanned the pages of the album as preservation-quality TIFF images in June 2009. These were then converted to Web-friendly, JPEG images by the Electronic Archives section and made available online within the MDAH Electronic Archives Graphic User Interface in October 2009.
References
Gordon, James. 1903. "Biographical Memoranda in Reference to Col. James Gordon." Gordon, James, Subject File, MDAH.
Lochinvar Photograph Album Control Folder, Image and Sound Section, Archives and Records Services Division, MDAH.
Lochinvar Subject File, MDAH.
Pontotoc County Historical Society. 1999. Cemeteries of Pontotoc County, Mississippi. Jackson, Miss.: Express Printing.