Location Information (for the Kimball-Rowlands-Crosby House) Name: Kimball-Rowlands-Crosby House ["The Hermitage"] Address: 1 River Road City/County: Picayune, Pearl River County Architectural Information Construction Date: 1855 Architectural Styles(s): Eclectic/Composite No. of Stories: 1 Registration Information NR Listing Date: 07 Sep 2016 View National Register Nomination Form Context/Comments The Hermitage is significant for its association with Lamont Rowlands and Robert H. Crosby, noted businessmen and philanthropists, and also for its architectural character, as a locally notable work of Colonial Revival design. This house was listed on the National Register on 7 September 2016, with 12 acres of land.	Loading
Brief Description One-story, frame, Colonial Revival house with a hipped roof and an inset full-width porch. Windows are full-height with working shutters. The house rests on piers, is clad with clapboards, and has an asphalt shingle roof. The house appears to have an addition on the right.
Historic Information Leonard Kimball constructed this house on the property he inherited from Moses Cook. The lumber used to construct this house was likely acquired from the Varnado’s water mill which was situated on Catahoula Creek northwest of Picayune. During the Reconstruction Era, Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson also known as Pearl Rivers, was raised in this house. She would go on to become a poet, contributor, literary editor, and the "first women in the United States to operate a metropolitan daily newspaper," The New Orleans Picayune (later Times-Picayune). By 1919, the house was acquired by lumber tycoon Lamont Rowland and by 1937 it was owned by L. O. Crosby, Rowland’s business partner and significant contributor to the growth of Picayune during the early 20th century. Water powered mills were a slow method of milling lumber averaging about 1,000 boards a week; as a result it took two years to cut the lumber for The Hermitage.