The Oxford-Lafayette County Heritage
Foundation has undertaken the restoration of the
Oxford home of Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar
(1825-1893), U.S. senator, secretary of the interior,
and the only Mississippian ever to sit on the
U.S. Supreme Court. The national historical landmark,
located on North 14th Street, was purchased last
December 2003 by OLCHF and will be open to the
public once restoration is complete. A teacher
and administrator at the University of Mississippi
for several years, Lamar lived in the home from
1868 until 1888.
Although Lamar drafted Mississippi's
1861 Ordinance of Secession, he is best remembered
for his 1874 eulogy of Massachusetts senator and
former abolitionist Charles Sumner, which called
for reconciliation between North and South as
well as between black and white and which led
to Lamar's inclusion decades later in John F.
Kennedy's Profiles in Courage. Lamar died while
still serving on the Supreme Court, and his body
was re-interred in Oxford's St. Peter's Cemetery
after initial burial in his native Georgia.
The Oxford-Lafayette County Heritage
Foundation invites donations to assist with the
restoration of the house and to help match two
government grants awarded for this purpose: $390,000
from the National Park Service's "Save America's
Treasures" program and $425,000 the Mississippi
Department of Archives and History's Community
Heritage Grant program. Tax-deductible contributions
should be sent to the Oxford-Lafayette County
Heritage Foundation, P.O. Box 622, Oxford, MS
38655.
Jennifer Southall
courtesy Howorth & Associates Architects
