Amzi Love Home to end 75‑Year Run in Columbus Pilgrimage
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The Columbus Spring Pilgrimage is wrapping up.
18 Antebellum homes are featured on the tours, including the nearly 180-year-old Amzi Love home.
Sid Caradine is the great-great-grandson of Amaziah “Amzi” Love.
Amzi built the Columbus home on his family’s property in 1848.
Generations later, Sid took over the home on 7th Street South.
“I like it. It’s fun. You see your ancestors’ pictures on the wall…even talk to few ghosts along the way,” said Caradine.
The Loves originally moved to the U.S. from Scotland in 1750. They settled in Columbus in the 1830s.
Three homes were built on the Love’s property, including Amzi’s, which has been featured in the Columbus Pilgrimage for the last 75 years.
“I think its just a great way to invite people into our town. We have unique architecture. We’re telling more of the stories of the homes, and I think we’ll see an increase in visitors,” said Visit Columbus tourism director Frances Glenn.
The Love descendants joined the Pilgrimage in 1951.
However, nearly 80 years earlier in 1874, Amzi’s children, including Sid’s great-grandmother, Annie Love, had to fight to keep the home in the family.
“The carpet baggers and the federal administrators, they wanted this house… and they told them you can’t live here and (the daughters) refused to leave. And when they refused, they imposed a $5,000 Guardian’s Bond,” said Caradine.
That was during the Reconstruction period following the civil war.
Sid says the daughters worked hard to raise the money and pay off the Guardian’s Bond.
“This house tour is about the tenacity of all these women, who all graduated from the old Columbus Female Institute, which we know now to be Mississippi University for Women,” said Caradine.
The Amzi Love home has been in the family for seven generations.
Sid started helping with the Pilgrimage in 1980.
This is the home’s last consecutive year in the Columbus Spring Pilgrimage.
“I thought 75 years was a good round number. I have to take care of other business, and it’s just getting harder to open it …but never say never. Who knows?” said Caradine.
The last Pilgrimage tour is Saturday night.
You can find more information and purchase tickets on the Visit Columbus website.
