The John F. Cates House (sometimes locally referred to as "The Hill") is a historic structure that was built ca. 1859. The house, which stands on the north side of Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 and is a registered Mississippi Landmark.

History

The house, which has been in the same family for six generations (its entire history to date), is a vernacular

Vernacular

A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...

 example of the type of Greek Revival architecture

Greek Revival architecture

The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...

 built by small farmers in the area during the antebellum years. It is the sole surviving antebellum structure in Brownsville

Brownsville, Mississippi

Brownsville is an unincorporated community located on Mississippi Highway 22 in northern Hinds County, Mississippi. Brownsville is approximately southwest of Flora and approximately north of Bolton....

 and was damaged during a Civil War skirmish, when a chimney

Chimney

A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...

 cap was blown off by an artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 round.

The house was restored in 1989-1992 by the late Marcus Charles Hammack, a descendant of the original builder.

Features

The John F. Cates House is a story-and-one-half, five-bay, side-gabled residence with a gabled portico

Portico

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...

 on the front and a full-width gallery across the back. The basic plan is a center hall with two large rooms on either side; there is also a modern apartment in the half-story, accessible by a stair mounting from the back gallery.

Notable features include board-and-batten siding

Siding

Siding is the outer covering or cladding of a house meant to shed water and protect from the effects of weather. On a building that uses siding, it may act as a key element in the aesthetic beauty of the structure and directly influence its property value....

; eight-foot, paneled, single-leaf doors, tongue-in-groove, random width heart pine floors; and a mixture of original pilastered and shouldered-architrave mantels.