From the Archives: William and Emma Wells House

William and Emma Wells House, 1802 Cherry Street

This elaborate Queen Anne style house was designed by architect William Stanton for William L. Wells and his wife, Emma.  It was completed in 1890 on the southwest corner of Cherry Street and Shannon’s Alley, at a cost of $20,000 by Curphey and Mundy, contractors.  

Both the interior and exterior were elaborately detailed.  The parlor was finished in red gum trimmed with walnut and it exhibited a magnificent walnut mantel decorated with heavy plate-glass mirrors that was, according to the Daily Commercial Herald “unexcelled in its rich appearance.”  The article also reported that the fireplaces in all rooms were finished with ornamental tiling and the grates were generally oxidized silver.

The upper rooms were finished in cypress or pine, oiled and polished, but, declared the newspaper, “the crowning beauty of the place is the front hall which is finished in antique oak, honest white oak from the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, quarter-sawed so as to bring out all the beauty of its grain, and polished until as smooth as glass.”

“There was a bay window in the front room, cut off from the hall by a portiere which hangs from carved Moorish fret-work, also of oak.  The floor is of oak and want alternately, the mantel is antique oak and of a very beautiful design.  Near the center of this room begins the staircase of carved and polished oak, the handsomest feature of a building where all is rich and tasteful.”  

A native of Alabama, Wells moved to Vicksburg in 1885 and quickly established himself as one of the most prominent citizens of Vicksburg.  He was a cotton merchant and served as the president of the Cotton Exchange, as well as, serving on the board of directors of Merchants National Bank and People’s Bank and Savings and Loan Company.  Wells was a member of First Baptist Church, the Elks and the Vicksburg Country Club.  

Wells and his wife had five children- Elizabeth, Kenyon, Charles, William and Danella.  William died of Bright’s Disease on April 16, 1909 and the funeral was held in his house.  After his father died, Kenyon and his wife moved into the house on Cherry Street with Emma and the other children.  They moved about 1918 to Baum Street.

When Danella married William Raworth in 1918, the couple also moved into the house.  Emma died in 1923 and by 1929 the house was the home of Annie and Henry Brister, the manager of the Southern Gin Company.  The house was gone by 1935.  I assume that it burned, but the newspapers are not available for searching after 1923.  About thirty years later, the present building was erected.

Read more by Nancy Bell:

• From the Archives: The George Reeve House
• From the Archives: St. Paul’s Rectory
• From the Archives: The Vicksburg Infirmary