Our third and final stop was Melrose. Melrose is a 15,000 sq ft mansion that is said to reflect "perfection" in its Greek Revival design. The house is furnished for the period just before the Civil War. Melrose was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974. John T. McMurran, a successful lawyer and planter, had come to Natchez in 1824 or 1825 from Pennsylvania and became a law partner of future Governor of Mississippi, John A. Quitman. McMurran married in 1831 Mary Louisa Turner, daughter of Edward Turner, a prominent Mississippi Supreme Court Justice. After a tornado ravaged Natchez in 1840 John McMurran hired an architech to begin plans for a grand mansion to be built on the outskirts of town. They named the house Melrose after Melrose Abbey in Scotland. The McMurran's spared no expense as the windows, doors, cornice moldings, stairways and floors are made out of the finest woods. In 1865, John McMurran, hurting financially due to the Civil War, and grieving from the deaths of their daughter and two grandchildre, sold Melrose.