Album: Hugh Craft House

National Center for Preservation Technology and Training

Locally known as one of the first “Big Houses” in Holly Springs, Mississippi, the two-story, stucco-plastered, Greek Revival style plantation known as the Craft House and the Fort Daniel Place was built by Maryland-born Hugh Craft in 1851. The Maryland-born Craft’s antebellum home, adorned with a cast iron fence, was built on the property of his third wife’s mother by way of inheritance. According to the 1850 U.S. Federal Census, nine enslaved people lived on the Craft property and include as part of the “household”; the nine enslaved people consisted of one adult male, two adult women, and six children ages ten and under. During the Civil War, the home was used as the headquarters for Colonel Robert C. Murphy and his staff. In 1891, a Sanborn map of the Craft Home records the presence of wood-framed slave quarters and a detached kitchen that was also built in the 1850s. After his death in 1868, the home transitioned to James Fort Daniel, the son of Craft’s wife and new husband. The Craft-Fort-Daniel family owned the home for over 141 years until it was sold in 1992.