Adams-Wells-Power House (Cedar Crest) (1853)

The Adams-Wells-Power House, more commonly known as “Cedar Crest”, was an antebellum Greek Revival house located in Red Banks, Mississippi. The house was built by Captain G. C. Adams in 1853, after purchasing 20 acres in the northeast corner of Section 18 from Sidney McKinney. Between January 1853 and October 1853, Adams constructed the home on a hill surrounded by a grove of oak trees. According to some legends, Captain Adams built the house to resemble his daughter’s doll house.

In October 1853, James Wells (1798-1878) purchased the home and surrounding land from Adams for $1,250. Over the next several years, Wells purchased 112 additional acres around the house, including much of the modern town of Red Banks and the modern highways to the south. During the Civil War, Wells and his family continued to live in the house. According to some reports, during General Ulysses S. Grant’s occupation of Holly Springs, several of his officers were quartered in this home. The Wells family was forced to live in tents outside the home, while Union soldiers destroyed the original oak grove to provide fuel for the Union army. The house was also supposedly used as a field hospital throughout the Civil War. After the Civil War, cedar trees were planted around the house, and these trees remain today and give the house its name.

In 1873, the house and surrounding 132 acres were sold to Albert F. Clayton (1833-1902) for $5,500. The Clayton family owned the property for six years, before selling it to Elza M. Moore (1816-1910) in 1879 for $3,000 (the reduced selling price of the property may have been due to the economic trouble caused by the Panic of 1873). After owning the house and land for six years, the Moore family sold the property to Samuel T. Power (1849-1928) in 1885 for $3,250.

For most of the 20th century, Cedar Crest was owned by the Power family. After Samuel T. Power’s death in 1928, the house was inherited by his son, Samuel R. Power (1890-1963) and his wife, Octavia K. Power (1890-1992). During the 1900s, the Power family slowly sold much of the original 132 acres surrounding the house, until only the immediate 8 acres adjacent to the house were left. In September of 1992, Cedar Crest was a featured home on a local history tour sponsored by the Marshall County Historical Museum and led by Director Lois Swanee. Just two months after the tour, the Power family sold the house to James Shepherd, ending over a century of ownership by the Power family.

In 2020, Cedar Crest and her 8 acres were purchased by the Red Banks Baptist Church, which is located to the north of the property. The church plans to use the surrounding land for their church, but the fate of the house itself remains unsettled as of the end of 2020.

In March of 2022, Cedar Crest was destroyed.

Cedar Crest was a one-story frame Greek Revival house with triple gables on the front of the house and a gable-front portico supported by square columns. A double-wide entry door was surrounded by transom and sidelights, and leads into the front hall. On either side of the front hall were located a parlor and a dining room.