The Cobb House is the middle building on Crawford Street that makes up the Southern Cultural Heritage Center. It was built for William and Minerva Mills in 1835 and most likely by William Bobb, contractor. 

William Mills came to Vicksburg from South Carolina with his first wife, Mary, sometime before 1830. Mills was the editor of The Vicksburg Whig from 1831-1834 and was also a probate judge and a member of the Board of Selectmen for Vicksburg from 1832-1834. Mary died in 1832 and Mills married Minerva Elliott on April 23, 1835, with the Rev. John Lane performing the ceremony. 

The Mills sold the house to Oliver Bradford Cobb on October 10, 1836. Cobb owned a plantation at Milliken’s Bend in Madison Parish, Louisiana. He was first married to Mary Jenkins, who died on July 24, 1834, at the age of 22. On April 19, 1836, he married Sarah Manlove. She also passed away. He was plagued with financial problems and lost the house in foreclosure by banker A. H. Arthur in 1848 In 1850, he lost his Louisiana plantation. He then bought the steamboat Mohawk and was listed as its captain, but lost that as well in October 1850. Cobb left his children, William and Mary, to live with their aunt and uncle, Miles and Rebecca Manlove Folkes. William was enrolled in the public school and Mary took lessons from Professor William Young’s private academy. The Folkes  provided lodging and food for two of the Cobb’s servants, Louise and Lucy, as well. Cobb shot himself on January 7, 1851, at the age of 49. The Vicksburg Sentinel reported that “pecuniary embarrassments and domestic affliction preyed upon his mind until life became a burden, and he sought relief by destroying it. He was an old and respected resident of this city and Madison Parish. He possessed many good qualities, and leaves children, relatives and numerous friends to mourn his sad fate.”

Arthur sold the house in 1852 to Harriet Martin Cobb. She then sold it to the Catholic Church on May 3, 1859, to be used as a convent for the Sisters of Mercy. When six sisters arrived in Vicksburg in October 1860, Sister Ignatius Sumner wrote that the house was “beautifully situated on Crawford Street.” The Rev. F. X. Leray blessed the house and Bishop William Elder of Natchez welcomed the sisters and then presided over the opening of the school. During the bombardment of Vicksburg in 1862, the sisters fled the city to Hard Times Plantation east of Vicksburg, taking as much of their furniture as they could with them. Three of the sisters returned to Vicksburg to nurse sick and wounded soldiers who were moved into the convent. When a hospital was set up outside of Clinton, the sisters went there to nurse. After the surrender, Bishop William Elder traveled to Vicksburg and met with Gen Ulysses S. Grant to ask for permission to check on the condition of the convent. After much back and forth, Elder was allowed to visit and he wrote that “the front portico is supported by two of the columns being knocked down. The front room upstairs west side has been damaged by a shell that came through the window passed through the partition and into the hall and there up into the ceiling. The philosophical apparatus left there seems uninjured. General Dennis says servants carried off various things belonging to the Sisters. Some man calling himself a Major General took the keys last week and has not returned.”  

The sisters requested their convent be returned to them, but they were refused. They then wrote to officials in Washington and sought the intercession of church officials there. Bishop O’Connor went personally to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and obtained an order on August 15 for the return of the property and the sisters were allowed to return to their house. Sister Ignatius wrote that “all the outbuilding had been burned down, the fence destroyed, the house injured, and trees destroyed, partly by Federal occupation, and partly by the family who were left in charge of it.” 

The sisters, with volunteer help from the community, were able to return their house to its proper condition. 

When the new convent was built next door, the Cobb House was used for classrooms and at one time it sported a third floor, since removed. The house was in full use by the Sisters of Mercy until the entire block of buildings was sold to the City of Vicksburg and the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation was created to oversee the rehabilitation and use of the property. We are so pleased to celebrate our 30th anniversary this year and to showcase this beautiful part of our city block of historic buildings.  

– Nancy Bell, Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation.