Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis Home and
Presidential Library
Beauvoir, which means "beautiful to view" is the
historical post-war house and Presidential library of
Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, that was constructed in
1848, right across from the Biloxi Beach in Biloxi, Mississippi,
and how it would get its name. The estate originally consisted
of the house, some outbuildings and 608 acres of land. Today it
has shrunk to just 52, and the outbuildings were destroyed, when
the main house would be badly damaged from Hurricane Katrina in
2005, after having survived another terrible storm called
Camille that hit in 1969. At the time the site was inhabited by
a Louisiana raised cottage style plantation residence,
Confederate soldier museum, former Confederate veterans home,
the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum, a botanical
garden, gift shop, numerous outbuildings and a historical
Confederate cemetery that houses the Tomb of the Unknown
Confederate Soldier. Five of the seven structures would be lost
in the storm, but copies of those buildings lost are now in the
works. The house is encompassed by oaks, magnolia trees and
cedars, and did have an orange grove in the rear of the house at
one time, and the house faces the Gulf of Mexico. Beauvoir was
constructed by James Brown, an entrepreneur and planted, started
in 1848 and finished in 1852. It was sold to Frank Johnston in
1873, and not long after, to Sarah Ann Ellis Dorsey, who was a
novelist and intellectual from Natchez, as well as being a
staunch southern sympathizer. She lived in the house with her
half-brother, Mortimer Dahlgren, and she asked Davis to stay at
the house and write his memoir, The Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government. Jefferson accepted her generous offer
and moved into the library pavilion in 1877. His wife, Varina,
would join him later, and in 1879, Davis would arrange to buy
the estate for $5500 to be paid to her in three installments.
Sadly, Sarah passed away within six months, but left the estate
to Davis in her will. The Davis family would move into the main
house, with their youngest daughter, Winnie, and they would live
there until Jefferson's death in 1889. Varina would stay at the
estate until she finished her book, Jefferson Davis: A Memoir,
and then she and Winnie would move to New York City in 1891.
Jefferson left the estate to his daughter Winnie, but she passed
on in 1898, with the property reverting to Varina, who would
sell off much of the land to the Sons of Confederate Veterans in
1902 to be used as a memorial to her husband and the location of
a home for Confederate veterans and widows.
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