Part 1: A Fairytale Wedding at Dinglewood

Researched and Contributed by Callie McGinnis, Assistant Director, Historic Linwood Foundation

Photos Include: 1. Headshot of Julia Flournoy; 2. Headshot of Peyton Holt Colquitt; 3. The Dinglewood Mansion

One of Columbus’s favorite love stories features a handsome young couple from Civil War days. The young lovers, Julia Flournoy Hurt and Peyton Holt Colquitt, were united in matrimony on the morning of October 24, 1861. Their fairytale wedding took place at the bride’s home: Dinglewood, a magnificent Columbus mansion. 

Julia was almost twenty years old at the time of her marriage, and one of the most beautiful young women in the South.  She was the daughter of wealthy Columbus planter Joel Early Hurt and his wife Frances Flournoy.  Hurt had built Dinglewood, a fabulous three-story Italianate villa-style house, around 1859. Julia had had a large following of suitors, but her heart belonged to Peyton, a dashing young soldier – a Captain in the Columbus Light Guards.

The groom, Peyton, age thirty, was the son of Walter Terry Colquitt and his wife Nancy Holt. Peyton’s father was a U.S. Senator and Peyton’s brother Alfred later became Governor of Georgia. Peyton had attended West Point, but dropped out after he was held back a year (some sources say because of a math deficiency).  He returned to Columbus to pursue a legal career; he also served for a while as a newspaper editor. It was not long before he was captivated by the beautiful Julia, fell in love with her, and asked her to marry him.

The wedding was held in Dinglewood's double parlors.  Columbus historian/author Etta Worsley describes Julia on her special day:  “The bride, of course, was more than ever a vision of beauty on her wedding day. Her blue eyes and blonde hair were enhanced by a morning gown of yards and yards of azure taffeta, made over a hoop, and a Watteau bonnet with an ostrich tip. With her father she swept into the double parlors, past one marble mantle and heavy gilt mirror, over the white-carpeted floor to the second gilt mirror. There the marble mantel, banked with bride's roses and ferns, and flanked by lighted candles, formed an altar.”

After the ceremony, the guests enjoyed a bountiful wedding breakfast. Then, Julia surprised everyone by coming down Dinglewood’s splendid mahogany staircase dressed in a riding habit, wearing a small derby hat, with a riding crop under her arm.  She and Peyton rushed out the front door, where, on the path to the house, two riding horses were waiting for them.  Julia and Peyton mounted their horses and headed off for Virginia, where Peyton’s City Light Guards were stationed (as the Civil War had started a few months earlier).

Sources:

Thomas, Kenneth H., “Dinglewood: A History and Some New Information,” Muscogiana, Vol. 33, N0.2 (Fall 2022), pp. 1-17.

Williford, William Bailey, Peachtree Street, Atlanta (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1962), pp. 66-67,

Worsley, Etta Blanchard, “A Bonaparte Romance with a Georgia Belle, The Georgia Review,  Vol. 8, No. 2 (Summer 1954), pp. 218-227.
________, “Dinglewood,” in Columbus on the Chattahoochee (Columbus, GA: Columbus Office Supply Company, 1951), pp. 221-223.