Day 84, October 24th, 2009
What a great day we had. And what a lovely little town. We started off back to the Visitors Centre where the lady called up one of the antebellum homes and made an appointment for us to view. First we walked to the "Amzi Love Home" where we met the great grandson of Amzi Love. He was the 4th generation to own the home and had kept it exactly as his family had had it. Fascinating history of Amzi and his family. There had been a son and five daughters. Only the youngest daughter had had children, which was this fella's grandmother. Boy, could he talk!!! He offered us coffee as soon as we arrived and very shortly thereafter another couple arrived who were staying at his bed and breakfast right next door. It was a beautiful old home, complete with all the old furniture, clothing and personal items of the whole family. I was amazed that they had kept it all, when I thought of all the stuff I have thrown out over the years!!! After Amzi's house we walked on to "Temple Gate". This was lovely too. We were met by the owner of the house again, a lovely lady who told us she and her husband had bought the home shortly after they married and were told that they could knock down the old house and use the lot!! They didn't knock it down but set about fixing it up and furnishing it as it would have been furnished back in the 1830s. Her husband was the swimming coach at the local school and she was an elementary school principal. Unfortunately he died a few years ago and she had run into some health problems and had the house up for sale. What a beautiful job they did!! It was so charming. She showed us the house from the third floor to the basement, the original kitchen out in the yard and the old slave quarters. Originally there were 10 slaves for 9 family members living there. She is in touch today with a descendant of one of the slaves, a professor at a northern university who sometimes brings his family to visit to show them where their roots are and how far they have come!!! What a fine story!
After a delicious lunch at "Harvey's" (I had New Orleans Pasta with craw fish tails and shrimp and John had a Philly sandwich), we took ourselves on the walking tour of the downtown region. It was a little tricky as the businesses had changed names since the tour was written, but we had a lot of fun figuring it all out and must have walked around the area at least three times before we got to the end. So many times people stopped to help us, thinking we were lost or something! We just explained we were doing the tour and they added little comments or told us their story.
By 4:30 are feet were tired so we went back to the boat for a cup of tea and a snooze and then took the dinghy to Rubens, a catfish restaurant on the river just 100 yards up from where we'd anchored. The catfish was very good, along with the salad bar, but Mike and Clayton Maska's catfish in Illinois were definitely a bit better, especially accompanied as it was with Clayton's secret Tartar sauce recipe. Clayton, you need to open your own catfish restaurant!!!
We really enjoyed our visit to this gorgeous little town. Oh, I should mention that during the Civil War, Columbus was a hospital town - the wounded from Shiloh were brought here for care and treatment. Because of this General Sherman left the town intact, instead of razing it to the ground as happened elsewhere. Consequently, Columbus has over 200 period and antebellum homes which are so beautiful today.
What a great day we had. And what a lovely little town. We started off back to the Visitors Centre where the lady called up one of the antebellum homes and made an appointment for us to view. First we walked to the "Amzi Love Home" where we met the great grandson of Amzi Love. He was the 4th generation to own the home and had kept it exactly as his family had had it. Fascinating history of Amzi and his family. There had been a son and five daughters. Only the youngest daughter had had children, which was this fella's grandmother. Boy, could he talk!!! He offered us coffee as soon as we arrived and very shortly thereafter another couple arrived who were staying at his bed and breakfast right next door. It was a beautiful old home, complete with all the old furniture, clothing and personal items of the whole family. I was amazed that they had kept it all, when I thought of all the stuff I have thrown out over the years!!! After Amzi's house we walked on to "Temple Gate". This was lovely too. We were met by the owner of the house again, a lovely lady who told us she and her husband had bought the home shortly after they married and were told that they could knock down the old house and use the lot!! They didn't knock it down but set about fixing it up and furnishing it as it would have been furnished back in the 1830s. Her husband was the swimming coach at the local school and she was an elementary school principal. Unfortunately he died a few years ago and she had run into some health problems and had the house up for sale. What a beautiful job they did!! It was so charming. She showed us the house from the third floor to the basement, the original kitchen out in the yard and the old slave quarters. Originally there were 10 slaves for 9 family members living there. She is in touch today with a descendant of one of the slaves, a professor at a northern university who sometimes brings his family to visit to show them where their roots are and how far they have come!!! What a fine story!
After a delicious lunch at "Harvey's" (I had New Orleans Pasta with craw fish tails and shrimp and John had a Philly sandwich), we took ourselves on the walking tour of the downtown region. It was a little tricky as the businesses had changed names since the tour was written, but we had a lot of fun figuring it all out and must have walked around the area at least three times before we got to the end. So many times people stopped to help us, thinking we were lost or something! We just explained we were doing the tour and they added little comments or told us their story.
By 4:30 are feet were tired so we went back to the boat for a cup of tea and a snooze and then took the dinghy to Rubens, a catfish restaurant on the river just 100 yards up from where we'd anchored. The catfish was very good, along with the salad bar, but Mike and Clayton Maska's catfish in Illinois were definitely a bit better, especially accompanied as it was with Clayton's secret Tartar sauce recipe. Clayton, you need to open your own catfish restaurant!!!
We really enjoyed our visit to this gorgeous little town. Oh, I should mention that during the Civil War, Columbus was a hospital town - the wounded from Shiloh were brought here for care and treatment. Because of this General Sherman left the town intact, instead of razing it to the ground as happened elsewhere. Consequently, Columbus has over 200 period and antebellum homes which are so beautiful today.
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