House on Ellicott's Hill, House museum at Canal Street, Natchez, United States.
The House on Ellicott's Hill is a house built into a hillside, with a two-story front including a raised brick basement and a single-story rear. Its central gable is surrounded by shed roofs attached high on the walls, and the upper story uses bousillage infill of mud and Spanish moss.
James Moore, a Natchez merchant, acquired this hill as a Spanish grant in 1797 and built the house between 1798 and 1801. Before construction, the site hosted Major Isaac Guion's soldiers and Andrew Ellicott's boundary-survey camp; Ellicott raised the first American flag here, prompting Spanish Governor Gayoso to aim cannon at it. A 1801 notice shows Moore living on the property.
The house is operated as a museum by the Natchez Garden Club, whose 1930s restoration was the first time an organization acquired and restored a historic building in Mississippi. Its name recalls Andrew Ellicott's 1797 encampment on the hill, and the house was long misidentified as Connelly's Tavern; research later placed the tavern a block southeast.
The house museum is operated by the Natchez Garden Club at 211 North Canal Street. Because it is built into a hillside, the front façade shows two storeys while the rear reads as a single storey; a dry moat at the back lights and ventilates the basement rooms.
The upper storey's exterior walls are bousillage, a mix of mud and Spanish moss, tying the Anglo-American house to French Louisiana building. Inside, the principal room has a ceiling dome made to give a light fixture extra height, probably tin-lined to reflect light.
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