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Bolivar County’s last standing antebellum home The “Baby Doll” home has been towering over the Delta for 142 years Three miles east of the small town of Benoit stands the only surviving antebellum home in Bolivar County. Known to locals as the “Baby Doll” house, the mansion stands as a testament to a different life once lived by many southerners. The old home was dubbed the “Baby Doll” house after a motion picture called “Baby Doll” was filmed there in the early fifties by famed Hollywood director, Elia Kazan and written by Tennessee Williams. Well known actors, Eli Wallach, Karl Malden, and Carroll Baker starred in the film which at the time was considered to be a risqué production due to an attraction between the married and much younger Baker and the older Wallach. To this day, many Benoit residents still talk about their roles in the film as extras. Director Kazan always remembered his short time spent in the Delta. “The town of Benoit reminded me of a community in a Chekov play,” wrote Kazan in his book Elia Kazan: A Life published in 1988. “It’s citizens were warmhearted and curious...I brought my family down (from New York) and they were adopted, entertained, and fed. For a dozen years, I received Christmas presents from the residents, mostly pecans from their own trees.” The home was built in early 1861 by Judge John C. Burrus. Burrus, who was born on August 25, 1814 in Madison County, Alabama, lost his parents when he was seven years old and was raised by relatives in Virginia and Alabama. Educated at the University of Virginia, Burrus first visited Bolivar County in 1836 on a hunting trip to his family’s plantation located just outside of Benoit. In the Fall of 1842, Burrus and his young wife from Huntsville moved to Bolivar County, working his family’s land and purchasing several more tracks of land. As the first shots of the Civil War rang out, a physical disability prevented Burrus from enlisting. Burrus was deeply opposed to secession. However, once the war began Burrus and his family fed, housed, and nursed the sick in his grand home. Many soldiers died in the house during the war as well as their daughter, Elizabeth on February 18, 1865. Burrus and his wife raised 11 children in the home–who all now rest in the family cemetery located a short distance from the great mansion. After the Civil War, Burrus played a vital role in the economic development of Bolivar County which before then was considered wilderness. <...HOME...>