From the Archives: Dr. Robert A. Quin House

Dr. Robert A. Quin House – This house was built about 1879 at 1612 Cherry Street and was the home of Dr. Robert A Quin and his wife, Malvina.

Quin was born in 1847 in Memphis and several years after his mother died (he was two weeks old), he was brought to Vicksburg to live with Mrs. Susan Leatherberry. He attended St. Louis University in Missouri and the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, where he graduated with high honors. He then studied at the Austrian University in Vienna before returning to Vicksburg in 1870.

When he moved back to Vicksburg, he boarded with a family, possibly Dr. P.F. Whitehead, in the same block as 1612. Quin quickly assimilated himself into the Vicksburg community and was the secretary of the Board of Health in 1873 and was active in the Knights of Honor Vicksburg Lodge No. 757, acting as one of its medical examiners. He was also a founding member of the Vicksburg Opera House and was on the board of directors of First National Bank and the Vicksburg Improvement Committee.

He was highly praised for administering to the sick during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878 and he witnessed the death of a number of fellow physicians. The Vicksburg Herald reported on August 30, 1885, that “A lawn tennis club has been organized in this city and play almost every evening on the delightful grounds of Dr. Quin on Cherry Street. The costumes of the ladies are beautiful, and those of the gentlemen appropriate.” The Quin house had a greenhouse and a hen house.

On July 24, 1887, the Vicksburg Herald reported that “After a short rest, chicken thieves have again begun to plunder and several midnight raids on hen roosts have occurred in the past few nights. Dr. Quin’s hen house in the rear of his residence on Cherry Street had the top lifted off a few nights ago and all the plumpest occupants were carried away.”

Quin was also a charter member of the Nogales Club, founded in 1890. The purpose of the club was “to establish and maintain agreeable and beneficial social relations between its members, to encourage and facilitate the dissemination of knowledge, and to provide and maintain an attractive and suitable resort for its members and their visiting friends.” He was also a founding member of the Vicksburg Athletic Club in 1891. The purpose of this club was for “cultivating physical health and bodily training, and the encouragement of gymnastics and the establishment of a natatorium in Vicksburg.”

In September 1893, the Herald reported that E. A. Meissner was installing “modern heaters” in the Quin’s house and in June 1894, that they were totally renovating their house and had moved into the Carroll Hotel until the house was finished. The paper stated that “Architect Stanton had awarded contracts yesterday for very extensive additions to the residence of Dr. R. A. Quin on South Cherry Street. Messrs. Curphey and Mundy will do the carpenter work, Mr. J. D. Tanner the brick work and Mr. J. J. Mulligan the tin, sheet iron and pipe work. Included in the work to be done, was to stucco the entire house.

Dr. Quin died on June 30, 1923, following a stroke. Malvina continued to live in the house for a few years and then in 1929, Rev. G. M. Reese called the building his home. In 1935, Robert Arnold lived there and then in the 1950s through the early 1980s, it was the Nicola family’s house. The Quin House was torn down in about 1985 for a parking lot.

-Nancy Bell, Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation.