Wild game abounding in the virgin forest, succulent fruit growing near the clear streams, scattered villages providing shelter for Indians--it was a peaceful place when the Spanish first saw it several hundred years ago. They gave it a name, Nogales, because of the profusion of walnut trees that grew along the bluffs.

Western Civilization got its first toehold when the French came in 1698 and established a mission. The priests were followed in time by settlers, and a sturdy stockade was erected; they called it St. Pierre.

The sojourn of the French was brief; by the time the earliest English custodians of the land arrived the wilderness had reclaimed, nature had erased, most of the evidences of the earlier occupation. By the time the revolutionary guns sounded in faroff New England in 1776, the determined Tories here had anglicized the Spanish name, Nogales: They called it The Walnut Hills.

When in 1798 the Stars and Stripes were first unfurled over the Walnut Hills, newcomers from the eastern seaboard had cleared more of the wilderness. In 1819 a town was born on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River; it was named "Vicksburgh" for its founder, the Rev. Newet Vick, who died the same year his town was established.

Vick had been wise in his choice in his vision of a city. The bluffs on which Vicksburg stood gave way to open fields a few miles distant; the view from a hundred hills was spectacular.

The new town was born of the river. Its brown, rushing waters over which the Indian canoes had once silently skimmed became a highway for rowdy frontiersmen who landed their flatboats along the muddy banks and drank and danced and brawled in the shantys that catered to their lusts. Then soon came another type vessel, bringing a different class of people: looking like a floating wedding cake, the steamboat made its appearance at the Vicksburg landing. In time the scattered farms evolved into plantations, the small stores to thriving mercantile businesses, the modest houses to elegant mansions which lined the terraced hills, and Vicksburg took its place with the refined and cultured cities in the South.

In 1863 Vicksburg kept a rendevous with history and left its name indelibly imprinted upon its pages. The home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, yet Unionist in sentiment, Vicksburg found herself as strategically important in war as Vick had envisioned the site in peace. When the smoke had cleared after months of fighting and 47 days of siege, Vicksburg was scarred and wounded and subdued; but her spirit was never conquered.

From the ruins, from the ashes, Vicksburg rebuilt her houses and her stores. She entered the era of the New South with confidence. Bricks made from the soil, hardwood from the hills, went into construction of homes such as this house, built in November, 1880 by George Rogers.

The Walnut Hills have witnessed tragedy and tribulation, gaiety and gentillity, all meshed together into a proud heritage.

Gordon A. Cotton, Director
Old Court House Museum