Our History

Henry Leflure served as an interpreter of Native American languages for King George III and was rewarded with 500 acres of a British land grant, where Glenfield now stands. His home faced south, overlooking St. Catherine's Creek. After Leflure's death, his widow sold the property to the Monsanto brothers, who were prominent slave traders in the South. Learn more about the Monsanto family here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_family

Charles Green acquired the property during Spanish rule over the Mississippi Territory and built the original structure of Glenfield, including four rooms and a stone gallery used as a summer sleeping porch. Facing east to worship the sun, the home was built in the Spanish style. Its original hand-made shutters and bricks, created by slaves, are still in place.

During the South's cotton boom, John McDonnell, a wealthy Scotch-Irish attorney from New York, bought the property and hired European craftsmen to build a stunning English Gothic addition for his bride. This made Glenfield the only home in Natchez with a complete English Gothic architecture. 

After the home was completed, McDonnell's young bride died of yellow fever. Heartbroken, he sold the property to William and Jane Shipp Cannon, a prominent young couple in Natchez. They expanded the property with 1,000 acres and ran a thriving cotton plantation named "Glencannon". They raised their 4 children, housed over 33 slaves, and encountered the devastation of the Civil War, as documented in the diary of their 16-year-old daughter, Lucy A. Cannon.   (picture right, Lucy at 24)

After the Civil War, the Cannon's surviving children sold Glencannon to Osborne King Field in 1880. Field, a wealthy architect and brick mason owner, was known for supplying bricks to many antebellum homes and structures in Natchez. He renamed his new property Glenfield and his family descendants have lived there for seven generations. Today, it is privately owned the 4th generation owner, Marjorie Field Meng. (photo: bottom center, with her mother and grandmother in back row)