Shaifer House Dedication Photographs EA2007.001
The A. K. Shaifer House was built in the late 1820s in Port Gibson, Mississippi, by Abram Keller Shaifer Sr. and his wife, Elizabeth Hannah Humphreys Shaifer (sister of Governor Benjamin Grubb Humphreys). It was the site of opening shots of the Battle of Port Gibson on May 1, 1863, and the house was used as a surgical hospital for wounded soldiers. A. K. Shaifer Jr. was away from home, in service to the Confederate army, at the time of the battle, but he returned to the house after his release from a prisoner-of-war camp and established friendships with Union veterans who had fought on his property. Shaifer hosted reunions at the house and sent potted flowers from the battlefield to Union soldiers' graves every Memorial Day from around 1900 until his death May 30, 1921.
The Shaifer family donated the house and grounds to the state in the late 1970s, and the property was transferred to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in 1999. Restoration was undertaken in 2006, under the direction of architect Robert Parker Adams, as part of the TEA-21 Mississippi Civil War Trails Project. Historian Charles L. Sullivan of Perkinston, Mississippi, took these digital photographs of dedication ceremonies held at 10:30 a.m. November 20, 2007, at the A. K. Shaifer House, and donated them to MDAH in November 2009.
The A. K. Shaifer House was built in the late 1820s in Port Gibson, Mississippi, by Abram Keller Shaifer Sr. and his wife, Elizabeth Hannah Humphreys Shaifer (sister of Governor Benjamin Grubb Humphreys). It was the site of opening shots of the Battle of Port Gibson on May 1, 1863, and the house was used as a surgical hospital for wounded soldiers. A. K. Shaifer Jr. was away from home, in service to the Confederate army, at the time of the battle, but he returned to the house after his release from a prisoner-of-war camp and established friendships with Union veterans who had fought on his property. Shaifer hosted reunions at the house and sent potted flowers from the battlefield to Union soldiers' graves every Memorial Day from around 1900 until his death May 30, 1921.
The Shaifer family donated the house and grounds to the state in the late 1970s, and the property was transferred to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in 1999. Restoration was undertaken in 2006, under the direction of architect Robert Parker Adams, as part of the TEA-21 Mississippi Civil War Trails Project. Historian Charles L. Sullivan of Perkinston, Mississippi, took these digital photographs of dedication ceremonies held at 10:30 a.m. November 20, 2007, at the A. K. Shaifer House, and donated them to MDAH in November 2009.
Collection Description General & Tech Data Catalog Record
Biography
Charles L. Sullivan, a fifth-generation Mississippian born December 25, 1942, earned his academic degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi (BS 1965; MS 1969.) He attended the University of Mississippi for a year of post graduate work (1969-70). In 1967 he became a history and geography teacher at the Perkinston Campus of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. In 1977 he became chairman of the Perkinston Campus Social Studies Department. Upon his retirement from teaching in May 2006, he was named MGCCC's first Professor Emeritus. Beginning in 1994 Sullivan assumed the duties of MGCCC Archivist, a position he currently holds in 2009.
Sullivan is the author of The Mississippi Gulf Coast: Portrait of a People (1985) and Hurricanes of the Mississippi Gulf Coast (1986). In collaboration with Bourbon Hughes he produced Valor Remembered: 20th Century War Dead of the State of Mississippi (1996). In 2002 he completed a 608-page volume titled Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College: A History, 1911-2000. In 2006 he published Down South with the Dixie Press—a pre-Camille journey from Pearlington to Pascagoula in photographs selected from the C. C. "Tex" Hamill Down South Magazine Collection and the Dixie Press Collection. His other writings include a number of scholarly monographs, journal articles, and many newspaper and popular magazine offerings. Together with colleagues Winfred Moncrief and Doug Mansfield, he wrote and produced four documentaries comprising MGCCC's award winning "Magnolia Series"—Henry Jetton Tudury: Mississippi's Most Decorated Doughboy (1988); Gathering at the River: South Mississippi's Methodist Camp Meetings (1990); Beauvoir: Memorial to the Lost Cause (1991); and No Greater Love: Roy Wheat in Vietnam (1992). Sullivan was named Biloxi Historian of the Year in 1987.
Collection Description
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History hosted dedication ceremonies for the restored A. K. Shaifer House in Port Gibson, Mississippi, November 20, 2007. Charles L. Sullivan attended the event and used a digital camera to document the proceedings. His 97 color photographs include images of speakers H. T. Holmes (MDAH Director), Terrence Winschel (Historian, Vicksburg National Military Park), and Al and Elizabeth Shaifer Hollingsworth; other Shaifer family members; Civil War re-enactors; spectators; and the Shaifer House, grounds, and original furnishings on loan for the event by Shaifer descendents.
Image Description
The image curator provided descriptions of the images that can be accessed through keyword search on the Web site and by subject headings through the MDAH online catalog. The timestamps linked to the photographs were captured by Charles L. Sullivan's digital camera.
Provenance
Charles L. Sullivan gave a CD of digital photographs he made at the November 20, 2007, A. K. Shaifer House dedication ceremonies to MDAH Director Emeritus Elbert Hilliard on November 29, 2007. Sullivan signed a contract of gift to MDAH on November 10, 2009, transferring all rights to the images. In December 2009 the Electronic Archives section made them available online within the MDAH Electronic Archives Graphic User Interface.
References
Criss, Leslie. 1993. Shaifer House Advisory Commission Studies Future of Historic Homesite. Vicksburg Evening Post, April 11, 1993.
Mississippi History Newsletter. 2007. Shaifer House Dedication Nov. 20. November.
Port Gibson Reveille. 2007. Dedication Held for Shaifer House. November 22.
Port Gibson Reveille. 2007. Historic Civil War Site outside Port Gibson to Be Dedicated on Nov. 20th. November 15.
Van Cleave, Bill. 1993. The Shaifer Portrait. The Rebel Yell, June 1993.
Vicksburg American. 1905. An Historic Chair. April.