Settling in Petit Gulf, he married, set up a medical practice and bought a large plantation. After graduating, he set out on horseback to tour the “Southwest” in 1905. A native of Virginia, Nutt grew up to earn a medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Rush Nutt, a physician, planter, scientist, and author of a multi-volume diary of travels on the Natchez Trace. One of the earliest and most influential settlers of the area was Dr. The Laurel Hill Plantation near Rodney, Mississippi, by Jack Boucher, 1972. In 1814, the name of the town was changed to honor Judge Thomas Rodney, the territorial magistrate who presided at the Aaron Burr hearing. As settlements along the Mississippi River grew, so did the importance of the port of Petit Gulf. Spain would hold the site until 1791 when a Spanish land grant deeded the site to Thomas Calvit, a prominent territorial Mississippi landholder. The Spanish took control of West Florida from the British in 1781. The land near the river is high, very broken, very rich, and several plantations have been established. Captain Matthew Phelps, a member of the expedition, described the area - Firm rock lies on the east side of the Mississippi River for about a mile. In 1774, General Phineus Lyman from New England, led an expedition through the area to organize a settlement on the Big Black River. Though the area was controlled by Great Britain as a result of the French and Indian War, it was first settled by the French in January 1763 and called Petit Gulf, to distinguish it from the larger port of Grand Gulf.
It was also an early crossing place for travelers along the El Camino Real, the old Spanish “Royal Road.” Today, the old townsite isn’t on the Mississippi River anymore but, rather, about two miles inland. Long before a settlement was ever formed here, the location was a popular Mississippi River crossing for many Native Americans.
Today, it is a ghost town with only a handful of area residents.
Located in Jefferson County, about 32 miles northeast of Natchez, Mississippi, Rodney was once such an important city that it very nearly became the capital of Mississippi. Two boys making their way in Rodney in 1940, photo by Marion Post Wolcott.
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