Windsor Ruins

Windsor Ruins. . , Smith Coffee Daniell II, a successful cotton planter, completed construction of Windsor in 1861. Daniell owned 21,000 acres of plantation land in Louisiana and Mississippi. Ironically, he died in April 1861, only weeks after completing his mansion. His wife and children continued to live at Windsor but were left to suffer the loss of much of the family's holdings during the Civil War., Windsor's basic style was Greek Revival but with added details borrowed from Italianate and Gothic architecture. The house contained 23 rooms, with an above-ground basement, two residential floors, and an attic. The ell-shaped extension on the east side, attached to a single row of columns extending from the main square, contained the kitchen, pantry, and dining room. Rainwater stored in large tanks in the attic supplied two bathrooms. A cupola, from which the Mississippi River could be viewed, was centered on top of the roof., The mansion survived the Civil War only to be destroyed by accidental fire on February 17, 1890. All was lost except for the columns and the ironwork. One flight of metal stairs from Windsor is now installed at Oakland Chapel on the campus of nearby Alcorn State University. All of the Daniell family's photographs and drawings of the mansion were lost in the fire. In 1991, historians discovered a drawing of Windsor sketched in 1863 by a Union soldier in Major General Ulysses S. Grant's army. The soldier's drawing is similar to the illustration reproduced here., Descendants of the Daniell family donated Windsor Ruins to the State of Mississippi in 1974. Today the site is administered by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.