Marworth/ Home Place

Old Taylor Rd. Oxford, MS

Circa 1853

It was originally a 20 room mansion built at what is now 315 Eagle Spring Rd. 

In 1844 Jacob Thompson moved to Oxford and purchased the home in 1846. He was a lawyer, a politician and planter. He was also a founding member of St. Peters Episcopal Church and a member of the first board of trust of the University of Mississippi as well as the president in1848.

The Thompsons were one of the wealthiest planter families in Northern Mississippi. Jacob Thompson (1810-1885) and Catharine Anne Jones Thompson (1822-1891) built the home. Catharine was the daughter of wealthy LaFayette planter John Payton and Tabitha Wheelwright Whatley Jones. He was a Congressman in Mississippi in the 1840s-50s, served in Pres. Buchanan’s administration. He joined the Confederacy and went on a mission to Canada to try to secure aid. He was the Inspector General of the Confederate States of America, and also involved with the guerilla arm of the Confederacy. It was burned in the Oxford and Oxford Square burning in 1864 during the Civil War, and only 2 rooms remained. After the war, they lived in Europe before returning and rebuilding.

Their son, Caswell Macon Thompson, inherited the property when the elder Thompsons moved to Memphis. Macon opened the first hotel after the Civil War (1869) burning of the Square - the Thompson House - on the site of the first Oxford lodging - the Oxford Inn.

The Howarth family owned the home for much of the twentieth century, and it was called Marworth by them. In 1962, they moved in. In 1986, Dr. M. Beckett Howarth, Jr. and Mary Hartwell Bishop Howorth owned the property. Mary was a native of Oxford, and the couple wed in 1944.

Tom & Dorothy Howorth purchased Marworth in the mid 1990s. He is a principal of Howorth & Assoc. of Oxford. David Howorth started the legendary Square Books (1979) on the Oxford Square in starter space and then its own building in 1986 . 

In 2017, a developer purchased about 5.5 acres and put up the Cedar Bend development.

Sources:

Lafayette Heritage bk, Oxford Eagle,