Amos Deason Home
Amos Deason Home is a historic house in Ellisville, Mississippi. Historic house in Ellisville; research record. MDAH records Amos McLemore’s killing at the Deason house on October 5, 1863. Local lore holds that The owner recounts footsteps, moving chairs, shadows and an anniversary door-opening tradition.
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Is Amos Deason Home haunted?
The record holds 1 claim, 1 legend — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed documented legend. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
The Amos Deason Home is where the Free State of Jones started — with a shot through the door. On October 5, 1863, Confederate Major Amos McLemore — sent to Jones County to round up the deserters bleeding out of the army after Vicksburg — was visiting Deason's Ellisville house when a bullet killed him. Everyone believed the shooter was Newt Knight, the small farmer who'd deserted after the Confederates tortured him and took his family's animals. Eight days later Knight's fifty-five men formed the Knight Company — the guerrilla band that made Jones County the Confederacy's inner civil war.
The house itself is a quiet marvel — the oldest in Jones County, a c.1845 Greek Revival cottage with the only semi-octagonal entrance vestibule known in Mississippi, its wood facade painted to look like stone blocks. Dendrochronology found the longleaf pine in its walls was growing in the 1400s — timber older than Columbus holding a house that witnessed the Confederacy crack from inside.
The story the house anchors is bigger than one shot — the Knight Company's war against the Confederacy, the mixed-race community Newt and Rachel Knight built afterward, and the memory fight over what the 'Free State of Jones' really was. The house kept by the DAR chapter is the site where the legend and the archive meet: the room where the deserter's war began.
The Amos Deason Home is the archive's deserter file — the oldest house in Jones County, where the 1863 killing of Major McLemore launched Newt Knight's guerrilla war and the legend of the Free State of Jones.
Why this file matters
The Amos Deason Home is the archive's Knight file — the c.1845 Ellisville house where Confederate Major McLemore was shot dead in 1863, the killing that sparked the Knight Company and the Free State of Jones.
A house where a war turned inward keeps its vestibule — the file's suggestion being that the Deason Home's hold is the shot: the October night McLemore died and Jones County's inner civil war began.
The Amos Deason Home is located in Ellisville, Mississippi. Completed in 1845, it the oldest home in Jones County, Mississippi and is located at 410 Anderson Street.
Amos Deason HomeThe record of claims
The owner recounts footsteps, moving chairs, shadows and an anniversary door-opening tradition. Amos Deason Home in Ellisville, Mississippi is the kind of old house where every sound eventually gets a name. 'About the Deason Home' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. The haunting claim is now part of the site's identity, filed alongside the documented history.
The owner recounts footsteps, moving chairs, shadows and an anniversary door-opening tradition. Amos Deason Home wears the claim the way old houses do: visibly, and without comment. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. 'About the Deason Home' carries the account. As folklore it's unkillable: the story is too good, and the place too fitting, to let go.
Documented history
MDAH records Amos McLemore’s killing at the Deason house on October 5, 1863. Amos Deason Home's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. Sources including 'Newton Knight and the Legend of the Free State of Jones' carry the record. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.
Verified historyMississippi Department of Archives and History
Sources on file
- 01About the Deason HomeTallahala Chapter NSDAR · official site · A2
- 02Newton Knight and the Legend of the Free State of JonesMississippi Department of Archives and History · government · A1
Field notes & open questions
Owner page conflicts internally: header construction 1847, body 1845. Leave year_built null. Owner says Newton Knight was suspected but never tried; do not claim proven responsibility. Older tours schedule not current-verified.