Gloucester

Gloucester, originally known as Bellevue, was built for Samuel C. Young in 1803. He sold the house only four years later to Major Winthrop Sargent, first Governor of the Mississippi Territory. At that time the house sat on 490 acres and was renamed after the Governor’s hometown in Massachusetts.

The Governor was a Harvard graduate, Class of 1771, and a Revolutionary War officer, serving eight years with the Continental Army including many major battles such as Long Island and White Plains, New York; Trenton and Monmouth, New Jersey; and Brandywine, Pennsylvania. He also wintered at Valley Forge with George Washington. After he helped the United States win her independence, Sargent moved West to Ohio, and was promoted to Colonel in the U.S. Army to join in the fight against the Indians there. He was struck by three gunshots and carried two bullets in his hips for the rest of his life. He was appointed Governor of the Northwest Territory (as the land west of the Ohio River was known at the time). In 1798 he was named the first Governor of the Mississippi Territory and moved to Natchez. The Governor lived at Gloucester Natchez from 1807 until his death in 1820. He enlarged the size of the house by one-third, adding the sec-