Greer-Ross-Tucker House (1840)

The Greer-Ross-Tucker House was built in 1840 by Robert S. Greer (1811-1872). Born in Robertson County, Tennessee, the Greer family were early settlers to Holly Springs. Robert Greer was a longtime member of the Mississippi Legislature, representing Marshall County in the House of Representatives from 1840 to 1846, and then serving in the Mississippi Senate from 1848 to 1858, and then serving one final term from 1861 to 1862. Between his terms in the House and Senate, Greer served as the Postmaster at the Holly Springs Post Office from 1846 to 1848.

Robert Greer sold this house to Uriah R. Sanders in 1843 for $850. In 1849, Sanders sold the home to Gabriel B. Stone (1807-1852) for $1,400. After Stone’s untimely death in 1852, the house was lost to foreclosure in 1855, and was purchased by Ulysses H. Ross (1811-1878). Ross was a local architect and contractor, and his most famous architectural work in Holly Springs was the raised basement structure, known as Oak View, which was built on the site of today’s Rust College (1866). Oak View was, in fact, only the kitchen of a planned plantation home, which was never constructed due to the outbreak of the Civil War. After the end of the War, the property was sold to Shaw University (the original Rust College), and Oak View was used by the new school. It remains the only antebellum structure on campus. Sadly, Ulysses Ross died during the Yellow Fever Epidemic, on September 9th, 1878.

Ulysses’ son William T. Ross (b. 1848) inherited the Ross House after his father’s death. William suffered from Yellow Fever during the Epidemic, though unlike his father, he survived. In the dark days of the late 1870s and early 1880s, William found himself penniless, but he soon rose in the ranks at the Bank of Holly Springs until reaching the position of book-keeper. After William’s death, his daughter Mary Ross Tucker (1896-1974) inherited the house from her father. Mary and her husband Leslie Tucker (1902-1950) lived in the home for many decades. In 1990, after 135 years of continual ownership by the Ross-Tucker family, Ulysses H. Ross’s great granddaughter sold the home. The house was destroyed in Spring of 1991 and replaced by a parking lot for a nearby funeral home.

The original Greer-Ross-Tucker House was a two-story flanking-gable frame house with a front portico, similar to many other houses built in Holly Springs in the early 1840s. A notable feature of the house was a brick kitchen and slave quarters located behind the home. In the late 19th century the house was “modernized”, with the addition of a much larger five-bay hip roof Victorian front porch with Eastlake elements, including a small front gable with decorative detailing.