Bellevue House

Built around 1841, this home sat off of Jackson Bluff Road until 1967, when it was rescued from demolition and moved to the grounds of the then Junior Museum, which has since become the Tallahassee Museum. Its doors were opened to the public in 1972 after a five-year restoration project that included gathering furniture from the period and the house's eventual owner. Purchased in 1854 by Princess Catherine "Kate" Murat, the great-grandniece of George Washington by birth and the niece of Napoleon Bonaparte by marriage, along with the small 500-acre plantation it sat on. According to the 1860 Census, 24 enslaved persons worked the plantation. These included Patsy Lee, Kate's maid, and William Hughes, her husband's valet when her husband still lived. Though she spent summers at her Jefferson County plantation, Econchatti, Kate spent the majority of her last 13 years at Bellevue. She passed away at Econchatti August 6, 1867, after a months-long illness.

We begin at the end. Princess Catherine Daingerfield Willis Gray Murat lived here the final 13 years of her life, except the summers which she spent at her Econchatti Plantation in Jefferson County, about 20 miles from Tallahassee. Catherine, who went by "Kate," was well known for her social events, not just among the elite but across all layers of Tallahassee society. As her good friend Ellen Call Long put it in her biographical sketch of Kate, "It was not merely the votaries of fashion, the gay and young, that found welcome here; the poorest, the most miserable, the persecuted turned there instinctively to find relief and the heart sympathy so dear in the hour of trial and affliction."

When she purchased the plantation from her sister in 1854, she brought her 25 "favorite" enslaved people, a mix of skilled and unskilled workers. Among the few whose names are known are Patsy Lee, William Hughes, Thomas Hughes, and Thornton Hughes, all of whom were remembered in Kate's will after her passing. Patsy Lee, for example, received 20 acres of land with a cabin on it and $100. In 1932, her family still lived in that spot.

After Kate's passing, the land and home passed through a number of owners. In the 1880s, the land was split into lots forming a new area of town called "Murat." The name didn't stick, but the street names did. Lipona, the first plantation Kate lived at with her husband, Achille Murat, is one, as is Bellevue and even Murat.

Kate and Achille are buried side-by-side in the St. John's Episcopal Cemetery in downtown Tallahassee, their graves marked by 8-foot tall obelisks. Achille's was acquired by Kate at great cost when she had little money. Kate's was erected by her living siblings in her honor. It concludes with the words, "None knew her but loved her; None named her but in praise." These words continue to ring true 150 years later.

Glenn, Justin. The Washingons: A Family History: Volume 1: Seven Generations of the Presidential Branch. Savas Publishing.

Sandler, Roberta. "The Princess Who Save Mt. Vernon." The Free Lance-Star (Fredricksburg) October 23rd, 1999. 115 ed, Local History sec, 29-30.

National Park Service. National Register Information System, National Register of Historic Placdes. April 9th, 2010. Accessed April 22nd, 2023. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/SearchResults?view=list.

Visit Florida. "Bellevue (Murat House)". Accessed May 16th, 2023. https://www.visitflorida.com/listing/bellevue-(murat-house)/24004/.

Boyles, Hallie. "Another of City's Historic Homes in Danger." The Tallahassee Democrat (Tallahassee) May 31st, 1967. .21.

"Murat House Restoration Assured by Junior League." The Tallahassee Democrat (Tallahassee) June 20th, 1967. .9.