The Grove Plantation
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Call-Collins Mansion at The Grove
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| Location: | Leon County, Florida |
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| Nearest city: | Tallahassee |
| Coordinates: | 30°27′1″N 84°16′55″W / 30.45028°N 84.28194°WCoordinates: 30°27′1″N 84°16′55″W / 30.45028°N 84.28194°W |
| Architectural style: | Greek Revival |
| NRHP Reference#: | 72000335 |
| Added to NRHP: | June 13, 1972 |
The Grove was a modest cotton plantation located in central Leon County, Florida and established by Richard Keith Call in the 1830s. Call was also owner of Orchard Pond Plantation.
In 1942, The Grove and its history passed to Mary Call Darby Collins and became the home of the late Gov. LeRoy Collins and his wife, Mary, great-granddaughter of Call. The Collinses sold the home and remaining land to the state for eventual use as a museum. LeRoy Collins is buried at The Grove Cemetery.
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[edit] Background
Constructed between 1826 and 1836 by Richard Keith Call and ten skilled African American servants, the Call-Collins Mansion at The Grove is a Greek Revival style home 640 acres (260 ha) located in central Leon County, Florida. Call was also owner of Orchard Pond Plantation, an agricultural plantation located north of Tallahassee on the shores of Lake Jackson. As a military and political protege of Andrew Jackson, Richard Keith Call's mansion at The Grove was heavily influenced by architectural styling incorporated at The Hermitage. In addition to its simplistically elegant Georgian floor plan, the house also includes a raised basements that was constructed to protect inhabitants in the event of an Indian attack and to also provide a cooler, less formal cooking and dining space. Having served twice as Florida's territorial governor (1836-39, 1841-44) and as a battlefield commander during the Second Seminole War, Call lived at The Grove until 1850, when he deeded the property to his oldest surviving daughter, Ellen Call Long. Call died in 1862, days after learning of the death of his favorite nephew on the battlefield at Shiloh.[1]
The period from 1850 through the 1930s was one marked by female ownership and resourceful economic entreprenurealism at The Grove. The home was the site of a silkworm farm, a boarding and guest house, and Reinette Long Hunt (daughter of Ellen Call Long) taught art and dance classes on the property. A New Years Eve fire in 1934 caused some damage to the home but was relegated to the attic.
In 1942, The Grove was purchased by the Collins family and became the home of the late Gov. LeRoy Collins and his wife, Mary, great-granddaughter of Call. The Collins family rescued The Grove and its grounds from disrepair. Collins was central in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and was instrumental in the peaceful integration of Florida's public schools. He was also a central figure in the creation of Florida's first Historic Preservation initiatives and statues. In 1985, The Collins family sold the home and remaining 10.22 acres (4.14 ha) to the state for eventual use as a museum. Richard Keith Call and his wife, Mary Kirkman Call, as well as Mary Call Collins and LeRoy Collins, are buried in the cemetery at The Grove.[2]
[edit] Location
The Grove is located adjacent to the Governor's Mansion in what is now mid-town Tallahassee. Its original acreage once extended from Brevard Street on the south to Tharpe Street and Lake Ella on the north.
[edit] Today
The Grove falls under the protection of Florida Statute 267.075, Title XVIII, Chapter 267 which states that The Grove be utilized as a house museum of history for the educational benefit of the citizens of this state. The Grove Advisory Council oversees and advises the Florida Division of Historical Resources on the operation, maintenance, preservation, and protection of the The Grove or Call/Collins House.
The Florida Division of Historical Resources is in in the initial stages of transforming The Grove from private residence to historic house museum and future site of the Call-Collins Center for Principled Public Service, which will build upon the legacy of Call and Collins to provide new forums for dialogue and learning outside of the classroom.[3] In addition to the development of interpretive programs and exhibits, project architects and engineers using state of the art restoration and rehabilitation techniques will ensure that when completed in the summer of 2012, The Grove will be one of three LEED-certified historic house museums in the United States. The others are the Mark Twain Boyhood home in Hannibal, Missouri, and FDR's Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia.[4]
[edit] Gallery
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Call-Collins Mansion, 1880
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May Day Party at The Grove, 1960
[edit] References
- ^ Call/Brevard Family Papers online via the Florida Memory Project at http://www.floridamemory.com/Collections/CallBrevardPapers/index.cfm#SearchForm.
- ^ LeRoy Collins, Forerunners Courageous, 1971
- ^ The Grove - A Brief History of the Site
- ^ LEED Projects & Case Studies Directory
[edit] Sources
- Menton, Jane Aurell. The Grove: A Florida Home Through Seven Generations. Tallahassee: Sentry Press, 1998.
- Collins, Thomas LeRoy. Forerunners Courageous: Stories of Frontier Florida (1970)
- Tallahassee Democrat, August 1, 2006
- Florida Senate statutes
- Paisley, Clifton; From Cotton To Quail, University of Florida Press, c1968.
- Works on the life and career of Richard Keith Call include: Edward E. Baptist, Creating an Old South: Middle Florida’s Plantation Frontier before the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); Caroline Mays Brevard, “Richard Keith Call,” (Florida Historical Quarterly, I, October 1908: 8-20); Kate Denison, “Richard Keith Call: Promoter of the Florida Wilderness,” (Florida Living, November 1992: 37); Herbert J. Doherty, Richard Keith Call, Southern Unionist (Gainesville: University of Florida Press 1961); Sidney Walter Martin, “Richard Keith Call: Florida Territorial Leader” (Florida Historical Quarterly, XXI, January 1943: 331-351). For a general overview of political context of Call’s governorship, see Arthur W. Thompson’s Jacksonian Democracy on the Florida Frontier (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1961).
- For works on the life and career of LeRoy Collins, see Sandy D’Alemberte and Frank Sanchez, “Tribute to a Great Man: LeRoy Collins in Florida State University Law Review 19 (Fall 1991: 255-64); Tom R. Wagy’s Governor LeRoy Collins of Florida (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985) engages the Governor’s political career prior to 1968, while Martin Dyckman’s Floridian of his century: The Courage of LeRoy Collins (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2006) is probably the most well-rounded and encompassing historical work on Collins. For primary source material on Collins, see the LeRoy Collins Papers at Florida State University (http://www.fsu.edu/~speccoll/leroy/lerocoll.htm) and Collins correspondence at the State of Florida Archives in Tallahassee (http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/barm/rediscovery/default.asp)
