The New International Encyclopædia/Natchez (city)

NATCHEZ. A city and the county-seat of Adams County, Miss., 100 miles southwest of Jackson; on the Mississippi River, and on the New Orleans and Northwestern and the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley railroads (Map: Mississippi, C 7). It is built largely on a bluff, 200 feet above the river, the summit of which contains the most costly residences, and the base, or water front, the principal shipping and business houses. Among noteworthy features of the city are the fine Memorial Park, Fisk Library, Stanton College, Natchez Institute, Institute Hall, Temple Opera House, Pearl and Natchez hotels, and the handsome court house and city hall buildings. A national cemetery, on a bluff adjoining the city, contains 3159 graves, 2780 of unknown dead. In the cemetery is an observatory which commands good views of the vicinity. Natchez has steamboat connection with the whole Mississippi Valley, and is the shipping port of a large cotton region, exporting annually many thousand bales. There are cotton mills, cotton compress, cottonseed oil mills, a foundry, saw and planing mills, an artificial ice plant, etc. The government is administered under a charter of 1877, which provides for a mayor, chosen biennially, and a unicameral council that elects the school trustees. Population, in 1890, 10,101; in 1900, 12,210.

In 1716 Bienville built Fort Rosalie on Natchez Bluff. In November, 1729, the place was destroyed, and most of its inhabitants were massacred by the Natchez Indians. In 1763, according to the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the English took possession and renamed the fort Fort Parmure. From this year dates the real foundation of the village. A Spanish force from New Orleans dispossessed the English in 1779, and in 1798 Spain gave way to the United States. Natchez was incorporated as a city in 1803, and was the capital of Mississippi from 1798 to 1820. It suffered considerable damage from a tornado in 1840. The city was shelled by Commodore Porter in 1862, and in 1863, soon after the fall of Vicksburg, it was occupied by Federal troops, and remained under their control until the close of the war.