NATCHEZ
90th Spring Pilgrimage
F
Tour of Homes March 12-April 12, 2022
rom as early A.D. 700, when the Native American Natchez began to settle and live along the banks of the Mississippi River and atop its hilly bluff, the members of this sun-worshipping, mound-building tribe lived peacefully as hunters, fishermen, and farmers. In 1682, French explorers arrived and claimed this area for their homeland; and France, thereafter, sent settlers who in 1716 built a fort there, named Fort Rosalie in honor of the Duchess of Pontchartrain. Possession of this territory by two other European countries, Great Britain and then Spain, and then later by the United States of America in 1798 contributed to the cultural richness of this town perched high on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River and has contributed to the depth of stories that makes up what Natchez was and is today The city survived the struggles of the Yellow Fever epidemics, the slave-trading, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and even the boll weevil blight in 1907 that stymied progress yet preserved many historic buildings which progress may have displaced. With many of their owners reportedly “too poor to paint and too proud to white wash,” many of the buildings remained unchanged. Then, with the setbacks of World War I, the recurring boll weevil, the Depression, and the Great Flood of 1927, progress was non-existent. Against this dreary backdrop, however, the story of the beginning of the second oldest pilgrimage in the South was about to unfold from the resourcefulness of a group of local garden club women. The Natchez Garden Club was organized in 1927 as an outgrowth of The Women’s Club of Natchez. In her booklet The Natchez Garden Club, A Brief History, author Katherine Boatner Blankenstein discloses the history of the Natchez Spring Pilgrimage: In March 1931, a small but very active Page 50 { March/April 2022 { Bluffs & Bayous
