The Grove Plantation, Historic house museum in Tallahassee, Florida, United States
The Grove, officially the Call/Collins House at The Grove, is a brick plantation house begun around 1838 and finished by the end of 1839 on a 10-acre parcel in Tallahassee, Florida. Its thick exterior and interior walls and columns are all brick, probably fired on site, giving it a fortress-like look; wood flooring, marble fireplaces and sandstone window sills were brought in via the Tallahassee Railroad. It is now a state historic house museum.
Richard Keith Call began building The Grove around 1838 and finished it by the end of 1839, replacing an earlier 1825 frame house on the site. The brick house was raised during the Second Seminole War and served as headquarters for a contingent of the US 6th Infantry. Call's daughter Ellen Call Long owned it until 1903, and the state of Florida bought the property in 1985 to create a historic house museum.
Mary Kirkman Call, Richard Keith Call's wife, is credited by oral tradition with naming the property; an early letter of hers to Rachel Jackson is datelined "Hickory Grove." The house became a museum after the state acquired it in 1985, and the family cemetery on the grounds holds several generations of the Call and Collins families.
The site is located in central Tallahassee and can be reached on foot from Monroe Street. Guided tours run several times a day and are the best way to see the interior rooms and grounds in full.
The Grove's name comes from Mary Kirkman Call, who datelined an early letter to Rachel Jackson from "Hickory Grove". The house was built by enslaved craftsmen of African descent, many likely hired from other owners and perhaps also employed on Call's railroad; their work still stands after more than 175 years.
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