A Haven to Call Home

4 8 • south mississippi scene

special: history of brookhave n

Brookhaven wears its historyproudly on its sleeve. Whereveryou look in the charming smalltown of 13,000 located about 60miles southwest of Jackson,you’ll find vestiges of its past,whether it’s the pioneer-eraFoster-Smith Log Cabin, centu-ry-old Victorian houses or thecampus of the old WhitworthCollege, which opened in 1858and has found new life in its

third century as the site of theMississippi School of the Arts.

“The Home Seekers’Paradise” officially celebratesits 150th birthday in 2009, butthe city began a year-long cele-bration in January 2008, with avariety of events ranging froma train picture display at theMilitary Memorial Museum to alongest beard contest. Fallevents will include a parade on

Dec. 4 and an HistoricDowntown Tour on Dec. 6.

Brookhaven’s downtownhas undergone a renaissance inthe past decade.

“Our downtown is revital-ized,” said Bill Sones, presidentof the Bank of Brookhaven.”There’s 50 residential units inthe top floors of the buildings.They have balconies; it lookslike Oxford.”

STORY BY ROBYN JACKSONPHOTOS COURTESY OF TERRY PAPPAS

a haven to call homeBR O O K H A V E N

Brookhaven was founded on what was origi-nally Choctaw Indian land. The Choctaws cededit to the United States government in 1805 in theMount Dexter Treaty Grant, from which camethe counties of Covington, Forrest, Greene,Jefferson Davis, Jones, Lamar, Lawrence,Lincoln, Marion, Perry, Pike, Walthall andWayne. The first house built by whites in whatwould eventually become Lincoln County waserected in 1782.

According to a history compiled by TheresiaAbshagen in 1959 for the city’s centennial,Samual Jayne emigrated from a town calledBrookhaven on Long Island, N.Y., around 1818and decided to settle on land now known as“Old Brook.” He and his brothers established apost office and mill along the Bogue ChittoRiver and began encouraging settlers passingthough on their way to Natchez to settle in the“new Brookhaven.”

Milton Jacob Whitworth owned a plantationon the rolling land to the west of the Jayne set-tlement where he lived in a palatial home withhis wife and children. Whitworth began acquir-

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ing more land in the area in the1850s, sensing that the railroadfrom New Orleans to Cantonwould eventually be comingthrough the Bogue Chitto rivervalley. Negotiations werebegun by agents of the NewOrleans, Jackson and GreatNorthern Railroad to purchaser i g h t s - o f - w a y .

According to a story told in1909 by one of the early settlers,Abram Nations, the original 320acres where the present city ofBrookhaven now stands werepre-empted from the U.S. gov-ernment by Ezekiel Hudnall for12 1/2 cents an acre. The landwas covered with yellow pine,and Hudnall built a log cabin inthe vicinity of the LincolnCounty Courthouse and settleddown to wait for Whitworth,

who had promised to pay him$1,000 cash for it if the railroadran through the property.Hudnall eventually got his$1,000, a profit of $600 on hisi n v e s t m e n t .

Samuel Jayne refused to sellhis right-of-way, so in 1856,Whitworth persuaded the rail-road to come through his prop-erty, despite a steep up-grade,and Whitworth began layingout a city along Zeke Hudnall’sformer land, giving the railroada strip of land 300 feet wideand 2,000 feet long in the centerof town on the condition thatevery passenger train wouldstop at the station there.

By 1857, a name had to bechosen for the fledgling city.There is some confusion as towhether Brookhaven was

appropriated from SamuelJayne’s settlement along theriver or if the town was namedfor the Brooks family, whichbuilt the first house at the cor-ner of East Cherokee and Firststreets. Regardless, it wascalled Brookhaven when thefirst train steamed into town onMarch 31, 1858. The train leftNew Orleans at 7 a.m. andreached Canton at 11 p.m.

The entrepreneurialWhitworth established asawmill to cut the native yellowpine into lumber to build hous-es for the many new settlersflooding the town. Whitworthgave the land and hand-dressedtimber for the First MethodistChurch, located on what wouldbecome the Whitworth Collegecampus, and completed in

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September 1858. It was the sec-ond church built inBrookhaven, the first was theFirst Presbyterian Church,which was built on the cornerof Monticello and Secondstreets in 1857. The firstCatholic church was built in1866, with a parochial schoolopening in 1873. The FirstBaptist Church was built in1873 on what is now the frontcampus of Whitworth College.

The citizens of Brookhavensoon petitioned the state for acharter of incorporation, whichwas granted in 1859 by Gov.William McWillie.

Whitworth, who was appar-ently always looking for waysto make Brookhaven a betterplace to live, learned around1857 that the Methodist church

was planning to reactivateElizabeth Academy - the firstcollege in the United States togrant degrees to women - whichhad been founded in 1818 inWashington, Miss., and laterdestroyed by fire. Whitworthoffered land in Brookhaven fora new school and the offer wasa c c e p t e d .

Whitworth College openedits doors to young women in1858, and except for its closureduring the Civil War, operatedas a four-year, all-female,Methodist-sponsored institutionfrom 1865-1928, when it becamea liberal arts junior college aspart of the Millsaps system. In1937, the Methodist Conferencewithdrew its support, begin-ning decades of decline andeventual abandonment.

Whitworth College became aConfederate hospital during theCivil War, and the town sent104 enlisted men into battle asthe Brookhaven Light Artillery.They fought at Ponchatoula,Woodville, Jackson, Yazoo City,Kenesaw Mountain andAtlanta, before surrendering atthe end of the war in northernAlabama. The town escapeddestruction during the war, butthe railroad was taken over bythe Northern troops when theycaptured New Orleans.

After the war, the railroadwas repaired and new citizensflooded the town. On April 7,1870, Gov. James L. Alcornsigned into law a new county -Lincoln - with Brookhaven asits county seat. In 1872, thetown’s first school was built.

special: history of brookhave n

By 1903, the city had grown toinclude numerous commercial busi-nesses, two saw milling plants, acompress, a cotton oil mill, foundryand machine shop, wood workingfactory, ice factory, steam laundry,electric light plant, water works andfire system, public school, femalecollege, brick courthouse, six church-es and a synagogue, Masonic templeand opera house. In 1905, theBrookhaven Pressed Brick andManufacturing Co. was established.The Brookhaven Sanitarium wasestablished in 1909 and The King’sDaughters took it over in 1913. In1910, a new city hall was erected,and the first library was given spacein that building.

In 1959, the city’s centennial,Brookhaven had a population of11,500, and it was served by tworailroads, two bus lines and fourmotor freight lines. There was also alighted airport. Like other cities inthe South at the time, it was segre-

gated, with separate schools forblack and white students,including two high schools.

Today, the city’s centerpieceis the restored WhitworthCollege campus. Designated asa Mississippi Landmark, thecampus is also on the NationalRegister of Historic Places, butit was in danger of being lostuntil the Mississippi School ofthe Arts took up residence therein the 1990s. Working closelywith the MississippiDepartment of Archives andHistory, Albert & AssociatesArchitects of Hattiesburg begandesigning a campus that blendsthe restored historic buildingswith a contemporary StudentLife Center.

“We’re proud of that proj-ect,” said award-winning archi-tect Larry Albert. “There’s agreat history in WhitworthCollege. It was one of the firstplaces the electric light wasdemonstrated in Mississippi.”

Albert said that when hisfirm was asked to do the reno-vations on the existing build-ings for the new School of theArts, a boarding school for highschool students from all overMississippi, they were in ruins.

“The city had rallied togeth-er and did their own renova-tions,” Albert said. “That’sprobably what saved the cam-p u s . ”

“Nearly all of the old cam-pus is part of the School of theArts now,” said Tom Moak, alifelong Lincoln County resi-dent who gives walking toursof South Jackson Street, wherehe and his wife live in aVictorian home built in 1868 byAlfred E. Morton. “The housewas in that family until Ibought it. Whitworth Collegedates back to about that samet i m e . ”

Lampton Auditorium, themain building on the campus,has been restored, along with

several other original buildings.Students live in the newStudent Life Center, whichincludes a library, dining hall,commons area, computer room,lounge areas, laundry and resi-dential suites.

“It has everything they needin one building,” Albert said.

Albert, who is noted for hisskill at blending the architec-ture of the past with the needsof the present and future, saidBrookhaven has been able tocarry its 19th century charminto the 21st century.

“Brookhaven’s downtownhas never been dead like a lotof towns,” Albert said. “It’sbecause there’s never been amall there.”

Cliff Brumfield, director ofthe Brookhaven Chamber ofCommerce, agrees.

“Brookhaven has held ontothe best of its past whileembracing the future,” he said.