13582 Hwy 553 , Church Hill, MS 39120(Adams County)

Oak Grove Plantation is an excellent example of a fine Mississippi plantation estate. Loving care has been taken in its restoration and maintenance. The present owner has invested significantly in the grounds creating a beautifully serene environment with gardens, a pond, gazebo and an outstanding waterfall! This truely unique water feature is an outstanding compliment to the pastoral experience created at Oak Grove.

Natchez is famous among Americas historic cities for the great mansion houses that testify to the opulent life of the citys planting society before the Civil War. The worlds richest cotton planters lived in Natchez, where they built mansion townhouses and suburban villa estates.

Just as fascinating are the houses in the countryside around Natchez. The town of Natchez rests on high bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River to the west. Extending to the north, east, and south is picturesque, undulating countryside that once contained numerous plantations, whose owners lived year-round on their cotton-producing land. This group of Natchez planters, the rural gentry, built houses that are diverse in architectural style and vary from cottage to mansion.

Since a trip to Natchez in the family carriage or wagon might take half a day, plantation families formed themselves into loosely knit plantation communities. Each plantation community spawned at least one country store and one or more churches that served as many as twenty-five or more plantations. The country store was a plain utilitarian building, but the churches were picturesque, vernacular interpretations of high style ecclesiastical architecture. The social lives of the planting families revolved around the churches that served as neighborhood meeting places. The churches usually featured adjoining graveyards for plantation families that chose not to bury in a private plantation cemetery.

Today, the most significant of those plantation communities is Church Hill, which retains its pastoral setting, historic church, and plantation store. Church Hills name derives from an Episcopal Church prominently and picturesquely sited on a steep knoll in the center of the community. Immediately across the road is the nineteenth-century store building that functioned as the post office until a few years ago. Church Hill is also known as the Old Maryland Settlement, because so many of its early settlers came from Maryland.