[4] Thus, in 1830, Junius R. Ward, a planter from Kentucky who used the forced labor of enslaved people, built this house.

[3][5] She was married John Erwin, the original owner of Mount Holly in Foote, Mississippi.

[3][5] Painter George Caleb Bingham did a portrait of Maltilda Ward, which still hangs on a wall inside the house.

[5] The house was inherited by their son, Victor Erwin, who lived there with his wife, Margaret Preston McNeilly, the daughter of Confederate veteran and newspaper publisher J. S.

[3] During that time, William Alexander Percy, the author of Lanterns on the Levee, was often invited to the house.