Homewood Plantation (Natchez, Mississippi)

Homewood Plantation
Homewood Mansion in 1936
General information
Status	Burnt down in 1940
Location	Natchez, Mississippi, U.S.
Completed	1860

Homewood Plantation was a historic plantation with a mansion of the same name located on it in Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi. Built in 1860 as a wedding present for the Southern belle Catherine Hunt, the daughter of planter David Hunt, the mansion remained unscathed during the American Civil War of 1861-1865. By the early twentieth century, it was used as a shooting location for 1915 classic film The Birth of a Nation. The mansion burnt down in 1940.

Homewood was located north of the Natchez, Mississippi city limits on Pine Ridge Road.

Homewood was the antebellum plantation home of William S. Balfour and his wife, Catherine Hunt. It adjoined Catherine's sister Charlotte's Lansdowne Plantation. The 600 acre Homewood Plantation was a wedding gift to William and Catherine from Catherine's millionaire, planter father David Hunt. William S. Balfour's father, William L. Balfour of Madison County, Mississippi, was one of the richest Mississippi antebellum planters. He was a founder of the Mississippi College at Clinton.James Buchanan had picked him to run as his vice-president in the 1857 presidential election; however, he died before the election.

William and Catherine's mansion on Homewood Plantation was the suburban Natchez equal of nearby Stanton Hall, which was in the town of Natchez. The mansion, designed by Scottish architect James Hardie, took the five years from 1855 to 1860 to build. While it was being built, William and Catherine lived on his Issaquena County, Mississippi Plantation. They moved to Homewood in 1860 with their six children. During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, William served in the Confederate States Army as a Major, and Catherine left by carriage with her children for about one year, moving from place to place. The family returned after the war to find that Homewood was intact. Without the slave labor from before the war, the Balfour's wealth began to decline. Generally, Catherine and her siblings used Cincinnati, Ohio real estate, inherited from her father David, mortgages on their plantations, and whatever else they had to support themselves after the war.