Greensboro's Treasured Places

Cold War Communications History Fades in Downtown Greensboro

Before cell phones ruled our world, long distance communication was handled through a national network of radio towers managed through a division of AT&T known as the Long Lines Department. Long lines (as opposed to local short lines) referred to long distance communications between larger regions, countries or continents, and the system relied on a complex series of relay towers that transmitted signals from point to point to serve distant customers. One such relay tower was located in downtown Greensboro atop the Southern Bell/AT&T building at the corner of West Market and South Eugene streets.

The first relay system was established between Philadelphia and New York in 1945. With a higher carrying capacity than copper wire, and more easily expanded than wire networks, the system utilized high frequency microwave bandwidth to transfer information directly from antennas (horns) atop towers by way of a focused beam.

The towers, many of which were erected in the 1950s and 60s, were part of the government’s Cold War defense-era communications plan. In some cases, towers were insulated with concrete in order to survive nuclear blasts, and in other cases the microwave horns were covered with a protective shield to protect against the elements as well as radioactive fallout.

The era of microwave relay systems began to wane in the 1980s as demand for bandwidth capacity necessitated the construction of a new network of fiber optic cables. Fiber optic strands, made of glass, transmit a great deal more information than microwave transmissions. Additionally, satellite transmissions increased capacity and further antiquated the relay system. As relay towers were abandoned, many of them were retrofitted to carry cellular technology.

This was not the case in downtown Greensboro, where workers are busy dismantling the approximately 200 foot tower. The building stood as the third tallest structure on the Gate City skyline from the time it was built around 1971 until 1990 when additional office buildings were constructed. Today, the relay tower remains the highest structure west of Greene Street and still dominates the skyline of the city from the west.

Workers began dismantling the structure in the first week of August; the first signs of change in the removal of the giant protective horns that occupied the top level of the tower. Later work has removed the top level of the superstructure, and workers are now removing the lowest open floor. No building or demolition permits were required or issued for the removal of the equipment and supporting tower since the North Carolina Building Code exempts equipment owned and operated by utilities.  Although the current work has removed the antenna equipment platforms, it is not known if plans include removal of the entire tower, or if some element will remain for future use. 

The Secrets of East Greensboro

East Greensboro is rich with historic and cultural sites, ranging from Dudley High School to the L. Richardson Hospital and War Memorial Stadium, as well as the campuses of Bennett College for Women and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (A&T).

However, one asset has been forgotten by historians and neighborhood advocates – the Bluford Street neighborhood. Once the prestigious home of academics, administrators, professionals, and even a participant in the Manhattan Project, the future of this important historic neighborhood is bleak.

The community aligns along Bluford Street (formerly the eastern extension of Lindsay Street), a residential lane adjacent to the A&T campus that once catered to professors and administrators of the university. The street was laid out around 1900 from land previously owned by the North Carolina Steel and Iron Company and later by the Cone family. The Cones sold the property for residential use after the construction of the nearby A&T campus in 1893.

Bluford (then Lindsay) Street was quickly established as a convenient location for professors and administrators to live close to the university across the street. They built sturdy Craftsman bungalows and rectilinear Foursquares with generous front porches beneath pendulous oaks. Throughout the 20th century, professors and students could make the quick commute across the street to the university for classes and special events.

The oldest home on the street is likely Nelson Station, the home of Walter N. Nelson at 903 Bluford Street (image, right). The Queen Anne-style house was built around 1903 and features turned porch posts with sawn brackets, a cut-away bay window with corner brackets, and decorative sawn shingles in the gables. Nelson and his wife Agnes were natives of Georgia, where Walter earned a degree from Georgia State University before studying at the University of Chicago and Columbia University. He began work at A&T in 1903 where he taught carpentry in the school’s Mechanical Department.

In 1918, Nelson left his position at A&T served in the U. S. Army in Europe during World War I. By the 1930s, the Nelsons returned to their Greensboro home where they lived the remainder of their lives. Walter was hired by the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, where he worked until he passed away in 1966. Agnes died ten years later. In 2006, Nelson Station was recognized as a Guilford County Landmark property for its intact Queen Anne architecture and its strong historical ties with A&T.

A block east of Nelson Station is the Bluford-Jeffries House at 1007 Bluford Street (iamge, right). This handsome American Foursquare house was constructed in 1916 and features Prairie-inspired details, such as boxed and broad overhanging eaves, a full-width front porch and a central hipped-roof dormer window. The home was built for Dr. F. D. Bluford and his wife Hazel. Dr. Bluford was a native of Virginia where he attended Virginia Union University and later Howard University. He was hired by A&T in 1916 where he quickly rose through the ranks.

In 1925 Bluford was appointed acting president upon the death of A&T President James B. Dudley. Bluford's 30-year career at A&T is legendary. The campus (image, right) was expanded, numerous buildings erected, and enrollment expanded ten-fold. Bluford boosted the accreditation of the institution to an A-rating and A&T grew into one of the largest and most prestigious historically black universities in the nation. Bluford passed away in 1955 and Lindsay Street was renamed in his honor in the 1960s.

Hazel Bluford sold the home in 1963 to Dr. Jasper Jeffries and his wife Marguerite. Jeffries, a native of Winston-Salem, earned degrees at West Virginia State College and the University of Chicago before serving as Chairman of the Department of Physics at A&T. Jeffries was one of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project developing the first atomic bomb during the close of World War II. He was one of eight former members of the project who received the Distinguished American Award.

Bluford Street began to change in the late twentieth century as homeowners retired or moved away and their homes were converted for rental use. Poorly maintained older homes were condemned and destroyed for parking or multi-tenant housing. As neighborhood land values continued to decline, A&T saw opportunity to expand its campus north across the street. The current campus master plan calls for the streetscape to be destroyed and replaced with green space within a 10-15 year timeline.

Sign of the Times

Traipse the woods and old fields of the Carolina Piedmont in the month of March, and you will likely discover a lonesome cluster of daffodils randomly sited off the path. Those who work with historic buildings in the region recognize these flowers as reliable signs of settlement that might stretch 100 years or more into the past. Often, the daffodils are all that remain of an old homestead that has long since been reclaimed by the elements.

Daffodils are a hardy member of the Narcissus genus of flowering bulbs. Also called jonquils here in the South, daffodils were a flower of choice for early settlers, who shared the bulbs among family and friends to embellish their yards and walkways.

A popular type of daffodil that is found around old home-sites here in Guilford County is "Butter and Eggs", a scruffy looking yellow flower (image, upper right) that rises approximately five to ten inches above the ground. Whether it is truly the Butter and Eggs variety can be determined by aficionados, but the locals still link the name to the type.

Other refined kinds of very early daffodils can be found throughout Guilford County, including more distinct flowers (image, lower right). Daffodils are just one sign of an abandoned home-site. Other markers can include periwinkle (also indicative of cemeteries!), boxwood, daylillies, and ivy.

Enjoying our warm spring with woodland walkabout? Keep an eye open for the signs of prior times, and sites long lost.

Greensboro a Gate City Again?

Governor John Motley Morehead, whose home Blandwood is operated by Preservation Greensboro as a museum, would be pleased.

North Carolina's restored and historic railway stations, like ours here in Greensboro (image, right), might soon be getting a workout. With $8 billion of the recent Federal stimulus package reserved for the development of intercity high-speed rail service, our state's prior investment in passenger rail service has positioned us for an infrastructure-improvement windfall. Greensboro's historic station and others like it were recognized with an award by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2007. Though they are already well-used, their popularity could rise in the near future.

The Southern Political Report says:

Despite “tremendous untapped potential” in Texas and Florida, the work which has already been done to develop the Southeast corridor leaves North Carolina and its partner Virginia as the only Southern states likely to benefit directly from this portion of the stimulus package, Capon said.

The result, over decades, could be as crucial to the development of the economic spine of the emerging piedmont megapolis as the old coast-to-piedmont line was to the opening of North Carolina.

Governor Morehead of Greensboro is remembered for being "the Father of Modern North Carolina" as illustrated by his interest in improving education, social services, and transportation ...including the approval of the famed North Carolina Railroad during his administration. His influence led the path of the railroad through Greensboro instead of Asheboro, an older city 25 miles south and more directly in-line between destinations Raleigh and Charlotte. By the turn of the twentieth-century, Greensboro was such a railway hub that it was dubbed North Carolina's Gate City, a name that remains to this day.

And perhaps soon, apt again.  

Get Off The Beaten Path

With the arrival of March comes warmer temperatures and nicer weather. North Carolinians know that we can begin to crawl out of our indoors environment and to enjoy the great outdoors. Why not do that with an historically themed hike?

Weekend hikes are led by Tom Magnuson, the director of the nonprofit organization Trading Path Associates (TPA). TPA is based in Hillsborough, but focuses broadly on a mission to preserve, study, and promote the remnants of the historic Trading Path which once connected the Chesapeake country with towns in the Carolinas and Georgia. Many of those paths crossed Guilford and surrounding counties, and traces of their route survive in woodlands, pastures, and fields across the Piedmont.

This Sunday, March 1st, TPA will lead a tour here in the Triad in Randolph County near Ramseur. The hike will follow the Deep River to examine and explore early mills sites and perhaps a few other surprises. Monitor their website in case the weather causes a cancellation. For more information, consult the TPA website.

Big Dig Begins in Downtown Greensboro

The Big Dig at Blandwood, part of the city's Bicentennial celebrations, began today.

The project seeks to explore the hidden history of Blandwood, the eighteenth century residence in downtown Greensboro that has housed early settlers, industrialists, and even a North Carolina governor. The dig is funded through the History Committee of the 2008 Greensboro Bicentennial Commission in partnership with Dr. Linda France Stine, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG).

 

Early discoveries include brick fragments, a chard of ceramic, and even a button. Objects found at Blandwood will be carefully reviewed and researched, and listed in a report completed at the end of the project. Organizers hope to illuminate understanding of the early history of Blandwood, including eighteenth century history, evidence of enslaved workers, and the working history of the site where John Motley Morehead is thought to have houses a tinsmith.

 

For more information on the dig, you can visit the Preservation Greensboro website. In the meantime, I will try to keep you updated on any exciting discoveries. The dig will continue through June 22^nd.

Future-Perfect-in-Past-Tense: Reclaiming the Historic Warnersville Neighborhood

Future-Perfect-in-Past-Tense grammatical terms were once the topic of discussion in the classrooms of Warnersville’s J. C. Price Elementary School, but today, the term describes a new direction planned by residents of the historically black neighborhood.

Warnersville’s roots are deeply planted in Greensboro’s soil. Yardley Warner, for whom the settlement was named, was a Quaker missionary from Philadelphia who visited the South in the closing days of the Civil War. Alarmed at the plight of blacks in the region, he sought to enhance opportunities for African Americans freed from slavery and after traveling the American South, he found a home in Greensboro among other Quakers who were sympathetic to his ministry.

In 1867, Warner purchased 35 ½ acres of land on behalf of a Quaker aid organization from Philadelphia, and subdivided the property into one acre lots. Each acre was capable of supporting a large family, and lots were sold to families that could build equity and financial independence through home ownership. Soon, a community of 600 people featured tidy frame houses with garden plots (image, right), a school, a church, and the Union Cemetery on South Elm Street.

The self-sufficient community became a model for similar settlements in the region. Warnersville, in essence, became Greensboro’s first suburban community – predating other subdivisions by 20 years. Warnersville’s school grew to become Bennett College for Women. Residents became community leaders, most notably Harmon Unthank, a freed man employed as a carpenter at a local wagon wheel factory who grew to become Director of the People’s Savings Bank (believed to be North Carolina’s first mutual savings institution).

The community remained strong through the 1920s, when the J. C. Price School was erected and named in honor of Dr. Joseph Charles Price (1854-1893), the son of a slave who served as a minister, lecturer, and founder and president of Livingstone College in Salisbury. However, by the 1950s, the absentee landlords who owned much of the neighborhood had not improved housing to modern standards.

In the meantime, Greensboro instituted the first urban renewal program in the state with the intent of ridding the Gate City of vacant and substandard housing. The Warnersville neighborhood was promptly identified as an area of blight, and in 1965 the city moved to “renew” the neighborhood by rebuilding it to modern standards (map, right). This renewal project, funded by the federal government, was the first of its kind in North Carolina. The reconstruction process was so thorough that only the J. C. Price School and the Union Cemetery survived destruction. In place of the original frame houses and stores were widened avenues, suburban-style ranch houses, and garden apartments and townhomes.

Today, residents of Warnersville struggle with articulating their neighborhood’s deep history with a lack of historic structures. Unlike nearby College Hill and Southside, the neighborhood has only two community landmarks to show for their notable past.

The solution may lie in blending the neighborhood’s past with Greensboro’s future. As the Gate City begins to cultivate its reputation as a creative city with investment in the arts, opportunities exist to define the historic Warnersville using art. Portland, Oregon’s Pearl District has used art to enhance its neighborhood character, exemplified in the colorful totems that cover of the Portland Streetcar poles adjacent to Jameson Square (image, lower right). Warnersville could do the same using its history of artisan residents as a theme to unite the whole.

Neighborhood organizers Angela Harris and James Griffin describe other initiatives to expand awareness of Warnersville history. These include historical narratives that will be placed along the planned Downtown Greenway adjacent to the neighborhood.

Warnersville’s history may be largely destroyed, but spirit and enthusiasm for the neighborhood remain strong. With creative planning, the detriment of losing a community’s history may be countered with opportunity for interpretive expressions of the past. The historic neighborhood is sure to maintain a strong position as a defining neighborhood in the Gate City.

The Secrets of Kirkwood

Long before Kirkwood became a neighborhood of tidy post-War housing, the area featured scattered semi-rural farms and estates with notable homes and varied recreation areas.

Development of neighborhoods north of Cornwallis Drive began during the roaring 20s, and spurred by the success of Irving Park to the south. One by one, small family farms were developed as subdivisions, including the 116-acre D. A. and Effie Kirkpatrick farm in 1923. The Kirkpatrick farm became Kirkwood, featuring patriotic names such as Liberty, Independence, and Colonial given to gridded streets with deep lots. A similar cluster of gridded streets was platted to the southwest - composed of streets with bucolic names such as Lawndale, Fernwood, Dellwood, and Fairfield (image, upper right).

Both neighborhoods had little time for development before the stock market crash of 1929. For over a decade, streets remained largely undeveloped. Interspersed among the unbuilt lots were notable houses constructed just before the Great Depression began. Among these houses was the home of Lucille and Joseph Holt, located at 2000 Dellwood Drive.

The Holt House (image, right) was built in 1927-28, by Alabama native Joseph Holt and his first wife Lucille. Holt is remembered for his leadership in Home Federal Bank; Lucille is remembered for her petite form and flaming red hair. Both Holts were well connected to Greensboro’s social scene in the late 1920s and 1930s, hosting elaborate parties in a log cabin on the grounds of their home that were followed by dancing into the night.

As Alabama natives, the Holts asked Greensboro architect Harry Simmonds to design a residence evocative of the Gorgas House on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa (image, right). The original Gorgas House was built in 1828 as a dining hall for students. In the 1840s it was converted into a faculty residence, and after the Civil War it became the home of Josiah Gorgas, a Confederate general and seventh president of the University. The house was designed by architect William Nichols, who also won commissions in the Raleigh area. Greensboro's Holt House replicated the delicate descending stairs, portico, and symmetrical facade of the original Gorgas House.

With its period style, the two-story Holt House is illustrative of growing interest in historic preservation and early American architecture in the 1920s. As the Holt House was being erected, conservation efforts were just beginning to gain momentum in Williamsburg, VA and Charleston, SC. In addition to the recreated Gorgas House design, the Holts acquired architectural elements from throughout the Old South to compliment their project. Wrought iron elements found on the front and rear verandas were purchased from historic homes being destroyed in Baltimore, MD. Doors used in the house were found in Richmond, VA. Historic sites in Alabama supplied the salvaged fountain in the yard and fireplace mantles.

The grounds of the Holt’s home were equally sumptuous, incorporating an entire block of the new subdivision. The Holts preserved the mature oaks and poplars on the property, and beneath the trees they planted extensive azalea gardens. A stream was impounded to create a pond and swimming hole. To the rear of the property, a rustic-style log house was erected for lavish dinner parties and late-night dances.

Happy times ended with the passing of Lucille Holt around 1950. Holt remarried, this time to Emmaline (married nine times, he was number seven!). Joseph Holt passed away in the late 1960s, and Emmaline moved to Florida.

In 1966, the home and grounds were purchased by Laura Dean and Lawton Gresham, who selected Clyde Elrod to orchestrate renovations of the house. As a seasoned building contractor, Elrod knew the significance of the site, and guided the Greshams in preserving the most important attributes of the property. Today, the house looks much as it did when they purchased the property over forty years ago.

With their growing appreciation for historic preservation, the Greshams soon embarked upon a new project for the grounds of the historic Holt Home. Visiting downtown Greensboro in 1976, they became aware of the destruction of the old Major Stedman House on McGee Street for today’s Weaver Center. The grounds of the Stedman House contained a small cottage that dated to 1870. The cottage was said to have been built for Major Stedman’s aged manservant, who was too respected to be turned out upon being awarded his freedom after the Civil War. The cottage had been used as a tea and lunch room in the 1960s by preservationist Helen Miller. The Greshams acquired the Stedman Cottage and saved it from the bulldozers by relocating the Victorian structure to their Dellwood property. There, it was preserved as a guest cottage.

The Holt House and Stedman Cottage remain well-preserved landmarks in today’s Kirkwood neighborhood. Both remain benchmarks in Greensboro’s preservation movement and represent local examples of national trends in conservation. The property is an important reminder that all neighborhoods contain history that is more than skin deep. Our challenge as a city is to understand the significance of these historic sites before they are lost to bulldozers and redevelopment. Kirkwood, it seems, is home to one of Greensboro’s most treasured places.

The Secrets of Fisher Park

Before there was a Center City Park, before there was a Lindley Park, and even before there was an Irving Park, Fisher Park reigned as Greensboro’s premiere civic open space.

It’s true that one of the secrets of Fisher Park is that it is the geographic center of Guilford County. This point featured prominently in 1807, when the county seat was relocated from Martinville (near Guilford Battleground) to the relative wilds of central Guilford County. When surveyors established the center point in 1808, they found it “in the middle of a duck pond in a brush thicket.” Unsuitable for the location of a new town, lawmakers rectified the situation by platting the village of Greensborough a mile south at the intersection of today’s Market and Elm streets.

By the turn of the twentieth century, the area around today’s Fisher Park remained undeveloped. Historian Ethel Stephens Arnett reported the area to be “a famous haunt for birds, squirrels, and ‘possums, which provided great sport for hunters.” One hundred years later, the park remains popular with all three long-term inhabitants.

The story of the creation of Fisher Park is a much celebrated part of Greensboro’s history. The fact that a wealthy British gentleman and gold prospector deeded the heart of his new subdivision – named in his own honor – to the city for perpetual public use is an inspirational lesson in civics. Few, however, know that this gesture of largess came with a few conditions.

Captain Fisher (also an astute businessman) required in the deed that the approximately 14 acre parkland be sold to the city for five dollars in exchange for the city “building a drive-way around the park” (now North Park Drive, South Park Drive, and Fisher Park Circle). The remaining natural space was “to be kept open for the joint benefit for said City of Greensboro … for the purpose of a public park and pleasure ground.” Fisher, who wanted to add value to his subdivision through the transaction, left nothing vague in his expectations on the city’s side of this deal.

In the 100 years since it was created, the park has seen elements come, and go. Few people today remember the shallow round concrete wading pond located just east of North Elm Street. It was a grand affair, roughly 30’ in diameter, and contained a central fountain to the enjoyment of area waders. This element was removed in the mid-twentieth century.

Others remember the “Summer House” a substantial wooden structure with a roof and open on all sides located just west of North Elm Street. The structure was a favorite meeting place for families, neighbors, and especially neighborhood kids. Whether it was round (as remembered by some), or octagonal (as remembered by others) it provided a central focus for the park for decades until it was removed in the mid-twentieth century.

Others recall the wooden bridges (image, right) that crossed the small stream passing through Fisher Park. The rusticated bridges were built of railroad ties with rough-hewn and bark-covered branches forming handrails. These bridges likely did not last long, and were likely replaced during the 1930s by today’s handsome stone arched bridges. Possibly constructed through efforts of the Civilian Conservation Corps as
part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s initiative to put Americans back to work after the Great Depression, the stone bridges act as a uniting theme for the park and a popular subject for local artists’ canvases (image, right).

Recent efforts in park improvement have centered on honoring the park’s past, including the East Park’s “Genesis Monument” erected by historian Jim McLamroch to recognize the County’s center. Another monument along North Elm Street recognizes the history of the park through a gift from neighborhood resident May Gordon Latham Kellenberger.

Stewardship of the park has gone beyond routine maintenance. Over the past century countless city residents have volunteered their time and energy to the preservation of the public space. Such stewards include, but are not limited to Mr. Craft and Dr. Gerard, who did much of the landscaping in the west park in the seventies and eighties.

The Philadelphia landscape firm Wallace, Roberts, and Todd designed park improvements that worked to solve the longstanding problem of erosion caused by cars parking along the edges of the park. The solution was found in the form of landscaped parking bays lined by concrete curbing and aggregate gutters around the park, funded by a capital improvements bond in the 1980s. The project included decorative lighting and street signs (image, right).

A grant from the National Trust for Historic Places helped fund a reforestation plan for the park in the 1990s. With help from resident landscape architect Chip Callaway, the project focused on the park but included consideration of neighborhood street trees as well. The City of Greensboro contracted with Keely Nursery near McLeansville to supply the trees for the project. These efforts were complimented by the Neighborhood Association, which rebuilt the wisteria arbor in the West Park in 1996.

Recent work includes the addition of “New York City-style” trash receptacles in 2002, the replacement of playground equipment, and construction of a hand-crafted stone entrance to the park by scout Will Copeland in memory of his grandmother and long-time park advocate Mary Lee Copeland (image, right).

Fisher Park has had a lasting effect on the city’s popular consciousness, resulting in a civic appreciation for open spaces such as the Greensboro Arboretum and the Bog Garden. Momentum continues with plans for a Bicentennial Greenway and Gateway Gardens. These projects define the city in an age of homogenization in which Durham sometimes blends with Charlotte. Clearly Greensboro has a love affair with its system of public parks…and Greensboro’s public parks began with Fisher Park.

Who done it? Reading the Clues of an Old House

The Junior League of Greensboro may have a real treasure on their hands!

Named to Preservation Greensboro’s inaugural Treasured Places Watch List in 2005, the Albright House has kept its history close to its vest. Drive-by estimates of age dated the two-story frame residence with a notable two-story portico overlooking West Friendly Avenue to the third quarter of the nineteenth century (1850-1875). A recent investigation reveals these preliminary estimates might have been conservative.

Carl Myatt, the architect for the project, arranged a recent visit by Mitch Wilds of the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, along with Junior League president Daniela Helms and myself. The purpose of the meeting was to analyze the physical evidence of the house to determine what was old and what was not; as well as what is worth preserving…and what is not. The evidence discovered suggests the history of this house is more than skin deep.

The small group explored several elements of the house, with special interest in determining the date of construction using key components such as structural members and decorative elements. We found that the house has been well-cared for throughout its history, and that occupants have maintained an interest in embellishing the house with the latest and most popular styles using quality materials throughout its history. This characteristic of the Albright House made identification of materials easier.

Material investigation involves an understanding of building technology as well as the understanding of popular styles. Just as “Motown” has its unique fingerprint of sound, so does architecture.

Style

From the street, passersby notice the low-pitched hipped roof of the Albright House. The façade is symmetrical, with a central portico flanked by six-pane sash over one-pane sash windows. The building was covered by aluminum siding in the 1980s, which has hidden some of its identifying features. Beneath the siding the review team found heart-of-pine siding and wide overhanging eaves. The eaves, in fact, were embellished with heavy exposed rafters – now covered with false-siding (image, right). Considered together, the low-pitched roofline, wide overhanging eaves with rafters, and symmetrical façade are all characteristics of Italianate architecture…likely influenced by Blandwood Mansion’s innovative façade of 1844.

Saw Marks

Lumber dimensioning technology witnessed several key changes throughout the nineteenth century. Early in the period, timber in Guilford County was dimensioned in saw mills using water power. Saw mills relied on a “sash-saw,” a mechanism that left distinctive parallel marks on the wood face. Around 1852, steam-powered circular saws were introduced to Guilford County with the construction of the Fayetteville and Western Plank Road. Easier and more reliable, circular saws quickly became the tool of choice in dimensioning lumber in the region. The structural members used to build the Albright House, ranging from floor joists to roof rafters, reveal the parallel marks of sash saws, an indication that the Albright House could date before 1852.

Nails

Like saw technology, the method of manufacturing nails changed rapidly in the nineteenth century. Earliest nails here in Guilford were hand-forged, but nail-making machinery quickly reduced the time and cost involved in making nails by the 1820s. Instead of being forged over a fire, machinery cut iron using force, resulting in nails with a squared cross-section. After 1880, nails were manufactured from extruded wire, resulting in the rounded cross section familiar to us all today. Predictably, the Albright House features cut nails throughout its frame, with the exception of the roof of the front portico, which contained wire nails. This could indicate the portico is a post-1880 addition.

Chimneys

Before the days of forced air and/or radiator heat, residents of Guilford County relied on wood-burning fireplaces for warmth. Every room of consequence required a heat-source during our cool Carolina winters. However, the Albright House today has only one chimney! The question of the existence of chimneys perplexed the group until we gathered in the basement. There, embedded within the flooring system, was a shadow of an old fireplace hearth. The placement of the hearth indicated the house had side-wall chimneys that vented fireplaces in all four original rooms.

All things considered, the Albright House now appears to have been built between 1845 and 1860. Additional research is needed, especially in terms of the Albright family history and land records. However, the physical clues hidden within the walls of the house indicate that it is among the earliest buildings in the city and holds a special place in the history of Greensboro. Ironically, in terms of age and appearance, the Walker-Scarborough House (image, right) on McGee Street in College Hill stands out as a close representation of how the Albright House once looked. Standing two-stories in height, the clapboard residence with symmetrical façade, wide overhanging eaves supported by exposed rafter tails, and a modest front porch is likely similar to the original appearance of the Albright House.

Further investigation and restoration will bring the Albright House back to better days. Already it is appareent that the original historic windows, the oak floors, the 1920s era trim, double panel doors, and staircase are treasured details in the house. The generosity of the Starmount Company, and the dedication of the Junior League will result in the preservation of part of Greensboro’s antebellum past. The project goes to show that you never know what history will reveal.

March 2008: See update HERE

September 2008 See update HERE.

Post Script: Deed research and oral history have aligned well with material history. A deed from 1847 Jacob Albright transferred 247 acres of land to his son Daniel E. Albright, at which time he presumably built his home. Albright family historian Reverend Fred P. Albright, Jr indicated the house originally stood near the intersection of Pembroke Rd and West Friendly Avenue. The house remained in the Albright family until the Great Depression, at which time it was purchased by the Benjamin family who relocated the house closer to the intersection of Pembroke Rd and Kathleen Drive and added the two-story portico. Just a few years later, around 1935-37, the house was moved to its present location on Friendly Avenue.