Robert O. Wilder Building

The house was completed in 1860 for wealthy cotton planter and slave owner John Williams Boddie who died at the end of the American Civil War.[3] In 1869 the 500-acre former plantation, including the house, was bought for $10,500 (~$194,201 in 2021) by the Freedmen's Bureau and the American Missionary Association to become the campus of a school for Black students who were recently freed from slavery. [4]

Initially the building was used for a day school and then for housing female students in the upstairs bedrooms. Later it was used as a faculty dorm and for the college president's office. The building was renamed after college trustee Robert O. Wilder to better reflect the school's mission as a historically black college by distancing itself from a slave owner. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and later became a contributing property to the Tougaloo College Historic District in 1998.[4]

The building underwent structural renovations in 2003 and the exterior was refinished in 2012.[5] The interior was renovated in 2020.[6] The rebuilding project funds came from a combination of state and federal grants.[7]

A large majority of the Antebellum plantation houses are of a Greek Revival style and the house is an unusual example Italianate architecture. It was designed by local architect and builder Jacob Lamour of Canton. The building is a two-story Italianate plantation house with a gabled roof, bracketed cornices, and a belvedere. There is a grand entrance frontispiece with a six-panel front door.[4]

• Annandale Plantation: another Italianate house also designed by Jacob Lamour