Mount Carmel, Mississippi
Ghost town
Mount Carmel is located in Mississippi
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel is located in the United States
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel
Coordinates: 31°38′43″N 89°47′43″W / 31.64528°N 89.79528°W / 31.64528; -89.79528
CountryUnited States
StateMississippi
CountyJefferson Davis
Elevation
492 ft (150 m)
Time zoneUTC-6 (Central (CST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC-5 (CDT)
GNIS feature ID673998[1]

Mount Carmel is a ghost town in Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi, United States.

Once a thriving 19th-century community, little remains today of Mount Carmel but a museum located within a historic home.

History

Mount Carmel is one of the oldest settlements in Jefferson Davis County.[2]

Mt. Zion Methodist Church was established near Mount Carmel in 1817.[3]

John Ragan, a Revolutionary soldier from Virginia, laid out the town in 1819, in what was then Covington County.[2][4] The plan provided for lots, streets, and a large central square with two springs.[2] Mount Carmel incorporated in 1835, and had two or three stores, and two churches.[2]

The town also had a well-regarded co-educational school, Mount Carmel Academy, which opened prior to 1830. At one point it had 70 to 80 students. The school moved in 1845.[2][5]

Benjamin L.C. Wailes traveled through the community in 1852 and wrote in his journal:

After crossing [the] Bouie over a bridge (passing through the bottom land in which there is a good deal of large oak & gum mixed with some Shortleaf pine) ascended a considerable eminence to a level table land of Oak and hickory, on which the village of Mount Carmel is situated. About 70 inhabitants. Two or three considerable Country Stores. More business [is] done [here] than at Williamsburg, and the situation is much handsomer, & the buildings (tho' plain frame) [are] better.[2]

Around 1873, John Fielding Holloway built a large house in Mount Carmel, and it remains the community's only 19th-century structure.[2]

Mount Carmel was by-passed during the construction of the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad in 1899, and the Mississippi Central Railroad in 1903. As a result, many businesses and residents moved to one of the nearby railway towns of Prentiss, Bassfield, or Collins.[2] In 1904, Mount Carmel was officially unincorporated.[2]

The nearly abandoned community began to grow again during the early 20th century, when African-Americans began purchasing land in the town and surrounding community. The new community began to prosper, and contained all the essential services, goods and farm products needed for self-sufficiency.[2] In 1911, Robert Decatur "Cap" Polk, a leading African-American planter and businessmen, purchased the Holloway House, and installed a large and modern farm on the nearby property.[2] Now called the John Fielding Holloway House, it remains one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in Jefferson Davis County. The home is a historical and cultural center, and tours are available.[6]

Notable people

References

  1. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Mount Carmel
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Holloway, John Fielding, House - National Register of Historic Places Registration Form" (PDF). U.S. National Park Service. September 27, 1994.
  3. ↑ Riner, Steve (November 3, 2001). "Mt. Zion Methodist Church Cemetery". Genforum. Archived from the original on May 4, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Mt. Carmel". StoppingPoints. June 17, 2006.
  5. ↑ Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi, Part 1. Firebird Press. 1891. p. 311. ISBN 9781455601196.
  6. ↑ "Holloway-Polk House Historical and Cultural Center". Holloway-Polk House Historical and Cultural Center. Retrieved May 3, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Oral History with Mrs. Raylawni Branch". University of Southern Mississippi. June 13, 2004. Archived from the original on June 13, 2004.
  8. ↑ "GRAVES, Alexander, (1844 - 1916)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved May 3, 2014.
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