The Calhoun-Griffin-Mott House
A free-standing National Register Property located above the
Chattahoochee Riverwalk at 14th Street
"This house never went out of the Union" is a Columbus
tradition. When Union General James H. Wilson needed a headquarters
after the battle of Columbus, the owner of this dwelling is
purported to have said that the Union (and not the Confederate
flag) had always flown in his heart. So, Wilson accepted the
hospitality of Randolph Lawler Mott, whose son John was adjutant on
the staff of Gen. Henry L. Benning, giving credence to the claim
that many families had members who fought on opposite sides of the
war. Believed to have been built in 1844, the three-story plus
cupola brick house was originally the residence of Mrs. James S.
Calhoun, nee Nancy Howard. Later the residence of Daniel Griffin,
president of the Southern Telegraph Line, the house was sold by
Griffin to Mott in 1856.
Griffin had beautified the grounds, adding a wall along 14th
Street with towers at each end. Among the flowers that he probably
imported was a camellia (the best known of a genus of ten to eighty
species being the camellia japonica of East Asis) that in the
twentieth century became known as the "Lindsay Neill". The
ornamental shrub (with blossoms that are widely ranging in variety
from almost solid red to splashed with white) was named for the
textile executive who propagated it while employed at the Muscogee
Manufacturing Company."
Fieldcrest Mills purchased the property and used the ante-bellum
house as its local administrative office. The surrounding mill
buildings around and attached to the Mott House were removed and
The Mott House stabilized during the 1998 construction of the TSYS
Campus. The interior of the house has not been restored, and the
structure is not open to the public; exterior viewing only.
