Location Information (for the "The Cedars" originally "Cedar Grove") Name: "The Cedars" (originally "Cedar Grove") Address: 405 College Street, East City/County: Clinton, Hinds County Architectural Information Construction Date: c.1839 Architectural Styles(s): Greek Revival No. of Stories: 1 Registration Information NR Listing Date: 04 Jan 1977 View National Register Nomination Form	Loading
Context/Comments One of the oldest houses extant in Clinton and Hinds County, "The Cedars" (originally called "Cedar Grove") is typical of the simple but spacious vernacular form of Greek Revival cottage once popular in Mississippi. Its exact date of construction is unknown, but land records indicate that there was a structure on the site by 1839, and architectural evidence places the period of the house at 1835-1850. The house was listed on the National Register on 4 January 1977.
Brief Description "The Cedars" is a five-bay, one-story frame house which faces south from an elevated site fronting on College Street (the old Jackson-Vicksburg road) in Clinton, Mississippi. Built as a simple Greek Revival cottage with a center hall plan two rooms deep, the house is sheathed with clapboards and has a gable roof from which two interior chimneys originally projected symmetrically at the ridge. A full front gallery, supported by six tapered square columns, was extended around the southeast corner of the house in 1903 with the addition of a full gallery across the east elevation. At the same time a four-room wing was added along the west side of the house and extending at the rear, providing space for a kitchen, pantry or service area, bedroom, and bathroom. Two closets and another bathroom were created out of existing space in the original portion of the house, and a rear portico was enclosed as a sun-porch.
Historic Information The property on which "The Cedars" stands was originally owned by Minerva Fitz Morgan and Jacob B. Morgan, pioneer settlers in the Clinton area, and the house changed hands at least five times during its first twenty years of existence. It finally came under more permanent ownership and began an unbroken affiliation with Mississippi College in 1859 when Emile Menger, a professor of music, arrived from Germany with his family. Called "Cedar Grove" at the time, the house belonged to the Menger family during the Civil War, when College Street served as the main route along which the forces of Grant and Sherman marched from Jackson to besiege Vicksburg in 1863. The Mengers owned the five acres containing Cedar Grove until 1903, when the property was sold to Patrick Henry Eager, professor of English and acting president of Mississippi College. Mrs. Eager changed the name of the house from "Cedar Grove" to "The Cedars" in order to avoid confusion with her family home in Aberdeen, Mississippi, which was also called "Cedar Grove." The Cedars remained in the Eager family for seventy-two years, during which time the growth of Clinton and the gradual division of the property reduced the grounds to a tree-shaded three-quarter-acre lot. The property had been threatened by plans to expand an adjacent apartment complex when Doctors James T. and Patricia Sumners Currie, also connected with Mississippi College, purchased the house in August, 1975, from Miss Annie Laurie Eager, daughter of Professor Eager.