What you see here is a reconstruction of the 1852
house built by the Cokers. Efforts to fully restore
the original house were not successful. In order to
save the structure, the house was dismantled and
the salvaged materials were used in the rebuilding.
The Coker House was built in the vernacular Greek
Revival architectural style used in many planters'
houses and town houses in the Deep South. The
floor plan features a wide center hall with two
matching rooms on either side. The facade has an
attached portico supported by four squared columns
with Greek Revival detailing.
The kitchen and dining room was located in a
single outbuilding immediately behind the house to
safeguard the house from fire. It was removed in
the 1960s.
Preservation
In 1933 Maude Coker Thomas sold the house and property
to Alfred Gervin who lived here with his family for the next
thirty years. Fred Adams of Cal-Maine Foods purchased the
property in 1963 and later donated the house to the Jackson
Civil War Round Table, a nonprofit history and preservation
organization.
Unable to raise sufficient funds for a complete restoration,
the Round Table deeded the house to the State of Mississippi
in 2000.
"[Nestled] in a wilderness of flowers and shrubbery and large forest
trees stood the comfortable Coker house, with its large airy hall running from end to end," recalled an Ohio infantryman. "It stood on brick pillars, some three feet or more above the ground, allowing a free circulation of air, a very necessary thing in that climate."
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