They Are Just Beautiful

Recently, Jane Hartwell, right, from Portland, Maine, and Marjorie Barry of Hingham, Mass., looked at the Vicksburg Waterfront Murals on Levee Street. "They are just beautiful," the women said of the works by Louisiana artist Robert Dafford. Twenty-two murals have been completed along the flood wall at Vicksburg's City Front.

Brett Chigoy, a staff member of artist Robert Dafford, puts the final touches on the latest mural that was unveiled last Saturday. It's called, "The Founding of Vicksburg and Methodism." It depicts Newit Vick greeting a Methodist circuit rider. The ceremony was held inside the Methodist Church which sits on the land that was given to the Methodist Church by Newit Vick's family.

Back in 1877, a Methodist circuit rider, the Rev. Tobias Gibson, established the Hopewell congregation in Warren County. He was the first to bring Methodism to Mississippi, traveling by boat down the Mississippi River and landing in Natchez. Newit Vick, a Virginia native, moved to Mississippi from North Carolina in 1804, and established a ministry in Jefferson County. His home near Spring Hill was the site of the first meeting of the Mississippi Methodist Conference. When Vick moved west and established a plantation on the Mississippi, naming it Open Woods, he and Foster Cook erected a log cabin nearby for worship. It is depicted in the "The Founding of Vicksburg and Methodism."

After Vick's death in 1819, his son-in-law, John Lane, incorporated the settlement then known as Walnut Hills in 1825 and named the town Vicksburg after the Methodist preacher. The town's name was originally "Vicksburgh," and reasons for the dropping of the last letter is unknown. Vick's son, John Wesley Vick, deeded the lot at Crawford and Cherry streets, which became the site of the first Crawford Street church. Vick gave to slaves the building on Cherry Street that was renamed Wesley Chapel Methodist Episcopal. That church was rebuilt on First East Street and continues today as Wesley United Methodist Church.

Next on the mural project will be one commemorating the Vicksburg Theatre Guild's record-setting production of "Gold In the Hills," and one depicting the Miss Mississippi Pageant.

Five other murals are partially funded, but are in need of more sponsors to finish raising the $16,500 it takes to get reviewed and approved. They are representations of the 1927 flood, Planter's Hall, Rosa A. Temple School, Koestler's Bakery and The Governor Kirk Fordice.