Windsor Antique Cameo and Ceramic Fruit Bowl Donated to MDAH

An antique cameo and porcelain fruit bowl connected to the Windsor Mansion in Claiborne County are now part of the Historic Object Collection at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Sarah Daniell Coleman-Craig donated the latest artifacts among MDAH’s Windsor acquisitions. Coleman-Craig’s ancestors owned the Windsor Mansion, once the heart of an extensive slave plantation of 2,500 acres, with a workforce of over 300 enslaved people. Destroyed by fire in 1890, what now remains of the mansion is known as Windsor Ruins, a site donated to MDAH by the Magruder family in 1974.
Coleman-Craig, grandniece of the Magruder brothers who transferred the property, said the artifacts were passed down from her grandmother. She said her donation is an expression of appreciation.
“It is a way of showing my gratitude for the important work MDAH is doing telling the full history of Mississippi, in addition to the recent improvements at Windsor,” she said.

In 2025, MDAH completed a preservation and stabilization project at Windsor Ruins, where 23 Corinthian columns and capitals are all that remain of the mansion. The improvement project included a walking trail and new signs that tell the stories of the plantation owners and the people who were enslaved there.
“Windsor is representative of an economic era that was fully unsustainable, precarious and immoral,” Coleman-Craig said. “I would like to think the ruins are a reminder of this reality that provides an opportunity to reflect on ways to reimagine what progress can look like.”

Coleman-Craig said she’s inspired by the work MDAH is doing to tell “the full story and the possibilities that might hold.” She is now renovating an older home in Claiborne County with the intention of transitioning there full-time in the future.
Nan Prince, director of collections at MDAH, said much of the Historic Object Collection comes from public donations. Prince said the agency also holds in its collection a demitasse cup that was found in the ruins of Windsor and a family Bible donated by Samuel B. Magruder and Linden Langberg.
“We are grateful for these items,” Prince said. “These kinds of gifts allow us to enrich the department’s holdings for researchers and enthusiasts as we fulfill our mission to preserve Mississippi’s history for future generations.”
Windsor Ruins, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is a Mississippi Landmark that annually draws visitors from across the nation.













