He was a lawyer from New Jersey who made his fortune in this area, having a practice, gaining political appointments, and becoming a cotton planter.

This was the home for years for his large family in Port Gibson, including son Earl Van Dorn.

The owners donated the house and surrounding 5.1 acres to the State of Mississippi Department of Archives and History by December 1972.

Peter Van Dorn was of Dutch descent, born in 1773 and raised in Peapack, New Jersey with nearly a dozen siblings.

Van Dorn moved north from Natchez to Port Gibson, which he helped to develop, as well as the surrounding Claiborne County alongside the Trace and bordered by the Mississippi River.

In 1821 the relatively new Mississippi legislature created an Orphan Court system (handling probate matters) and appointed Peter Van Dorn to the circuit including Claiborne County.

[citation needed] Van Dorn also became a planter in Mississippi, owning a cotton plantation on the Yazoo River and the numerous enslaved African Americans to work it.

[dead link‍] After settling in Port Gibson, about 1812 Van Dorn had married Sophia Donelson Caffery, daughter of a prominent Tennessee family.

This family connection gained son Earl Van Dorn a federal appointment to West Point, the catalyst for his military career.

[3] Peter Van Dorn in 1830 traveled to New York and Washington, D.C., with 14-year-old daughter Octavia; they met President Jackson at the White House.

Donelson Caffery, a nephew in Louisiana through his wife's family, became a prominent sugar planter, Confederate officer, and was elected by the state legislature as a U.S.

He was fatally shot on May 7, 1863, in Spring Hill, Tennessee, by Dr. George B. Peters, who was often away because of his service as a legislator and had been told that his wife was allegedly having an affair with the general.