Looking Back: 1306 Mulvihill Drive has been home to interesting inhabitants

The Prairie style-influenced house at 1306 Mulvihill Drive was designed by the New Orleans firm of DeBuys, Churchill, and Labouisse in 1909. It was built for Harris and Madeleine Dickson and cost $10,000. Harris Dickson was a well-known author who was born in Yazoo City and educated at the University of Virginia and George Washington University, earning a law degree with high honors in June 1894. After graduation, he returned to Vicksburg where his brother was living. He was elected to the position of secretary of the Fair Association in 1896 and paid $100.  He opened a law firm and then in 1905 was appointed city judge. On April 24, 1906, Dickson married Madeleine Metcalf of Louisville, Ky., whom he had met while she was visiting the Searles sisters in Vicksburg. She was 19 years his junior, but very quickly was involved in community clubs and associations. The Dicksons had three children: daughters, Elizabeth (Shortle) and Madeleine (Bell); and a son, Harris Jr., who lived for only one day.

The Dicksons lived in the main house of Lonewood Plantation on Drummond Street when they were first married and until they sold it to Kate Compton, along with eight additional lots, for $12,400 in September 1907. Dickson is best known as an author of short stories and novels. This part of his life required that he visit locations for research. He said that travel took too much time away from his position as judge, so he resigned from city court in January 1908.

Dickson wrote stories and essays for The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s Weekly and other publications of the time. He was an ardent prohibitionist and was regarded as perhaps the strongest writer on the prohibition question in the periodicals of the day. Dickson was one of the men who arranged the hunting trip in Warren County of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. In June of that year, when the president learned that Dickson was to be in New York, he sent him an invitation for lunch. The New York World reported that “Harris Dickson, a Southern magazine writer whose articles on the negro question are said to have impressed the President, won the honor today of being the first caller of the season at Sagamore Hill. He was whisked from the railroad station to the negilgee (sic) White House hurriedly and mysteriously. When he returned after luncheon he bore a glass jar which looked as if it contained home made preserves sent by Mrs. Roosevelt to Mrs. Dickson. ‘It was purely a personal visit,’ he said.”

Dickson’s books, numbering at least 15, included “Siege of Lady Resolute,” “She that Hesitates,” “Children of the River,” “Duke of Devil-May-Care,” “The Story of King Cotton” and “An Old Fashioned Senator.” His most popular stories dealt with the adventures of a Reconstruction-era African American character from Vicksburg named “Old Reliable.” His tales of “Old Reliable” were published in two volumes – “Old Reliable” and “Old Reliable in Africa,” which were later adapted for the stage. Dickson wrote numerous articles and authored at least one movie – “The Kangaroo” in 1914 – and at least two shorts – “The Custard Men” in 1921 and “The Beauty Contest” in 1922. He also served as a correspondent for Collier’s Magazine during World War I and in the 1930s was a technical advisor to the Works Progress Administration in Mississippi.

Harris Dickson died on March 17, 1946, with his funeral taking place from the house.  Madeleine continued to live there with her daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law Robert, a contractor. In about 1953, she sold the house to Natalie and Theo Hardy, the president of R. C. Wilkerson, Inc. They sold the house in 1958 to the D. P. Waring family. In 1989, the Waring’s daughter Natalie Bailess and her family moved into the house.

Nancy Bell, Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation .