Kinchen Holloway House

07.17.11

One of three nineteenth-century miller's houses surviving along the Eno River in Durham County, this well-preserved side-gable frame I-house was built on the north side of the river for Kinchen Holloway, miller of the Guess Mill. The house is typical of the substantial but plain postbellum farmhouses of Durham County with weatherboard siding, six-over-six windows, exterior end chimneys of fieldstone and brick. Wide hand-planed paneling and wainscoting found only in the northernmost parlor and the contiguous rear kitchen ell suggests that the house began as a one-story antebellum dwelling and was enlarged by Holloway when he purchased the property on which it stands in 1870. Window and door trim is plain, and the one-bay front porch is a replacement added by Drs. Howard and Eleanor Easley in the early 1940s. Recent owners have eliminated an interior wall on the first floor thus modifying the original center-hall plan to create a traditional hall-parlor plan.

Built by William Guess in 1848, the Guess Mill (now demolished) was located on the south side of the river. Guess was bankrupt at the end of the Civil War, and the mill was taken over by Fred Geer in 1874 some years after Kinchen Holloway became its miller. Holloway’s daughter, Ida Inez Roberts recalled that she, or one of five sisters and six brothers, would bring the coarse- ground flour or “seconds” home from the mill to their mother.

08.06.12

As of August 2012 this home is on the market (yet again). I feel like it was just a year ago it was on the market and I day-dreamed about living here  (it was).  Here's more info from the realtor:  4418 Guess Rd

(The information below in italics is from the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Kinchen Holloway House)

The Holloway family has owned property in northern Orange and Durham Counties since the late 1700s. In 1787, Thomas Holloway (1747-1835) purchased a 260- acre tract of land on the north side of the Eno River near the corner of Cole Mill and Umstead Roads. In 1816, Holloway purchased an additional 433 acres of land, though the location of this second tract is unknown. Thomas Holloway most likely farmed his 693 acres; he had nineteen children, one of whom was James H. Holloway." 

In 1848, James Holloway (1814-1890) purchased 165 acres of land on the north side of the Eno River, along the present Guess Road. He bought the land from Moses Leathers, his father-in-law, who retained an adjoining tract of land. James and his wife, Martha "Patsy" Leathers, established a farm on the property and constructed a one-story, two-room log house that faced the Eno River. It is possible that the Holloways constructed the house as early as 1838, after their marriage, and leased the home and property from Martha's father until they purchased it in 1848. 

James and Martha Holloway had three children: Kinchen, Jeanette, and Mary E. According to Kinchen's daughter, Ida Inez Holloway Roberts, he was born on December 21, 1841 in the log house that James Holloway had built." In the same article she claims herself to have been born in a log house on the property, though at the time of her birth in 1873 construction of the two-story front portion of the house had already begun. This indicates that the original two-room log house stood on the property as late as the early 1870s. 
In July 1869, James Holloway lost the property on Guess Road. He owed a total of $375.15 to the County of Orange and his land was confiscated and sold at public auction. The "land and appurtenances" were bought by John D. Lipscomb for a sum of five-hundred dollars. One year later, Kinchen Holloway, bought the land back from John Lipscomb. According to the deed, the tract of land on the north side of the Eno River, "whereon James Holloway now lives," was conveyed for a total of $825.' It took Kinchen until 1881 to pay the total purchase price and to obtain full title of the property; however, he and his father likely erected the two-story I-house soon after obtaining the tract in 1870. 
 
Kinchen Holloway was prominent throughout the area. He was a horn player for the Durham Light Infantry and fought for the Confederacy as part of the 6th North Carolina Regiment during the Civil War. After his return, he married Mary Jane Dunnegan in 1868. The Holloways had twelve children while living in the house, ten of whom lived into adulthood. Mary Jane kept house and, in the 1900 census, was listed as a tobacco leaf stringer. As well as being a prominent and successful farmer (he owned and farmed 162 acres), Kinchen was the miller at the Geer Mill (formerly the Guess Mill) beginning just before Geer purchased the mill in 1874. He was also a member of the Durham County Board of Education in the 1880s and was a Durham County Commissioner from 1890 to 1894.

 
Kitchen died in 1921, at the age of 80 from complications due to old age. He had been a farmer and Orange County/Durham County resident his entire life. Mary Jane Dunnegan Holloway died in December 1931; she was living in a house on Old Hillsborough Road at the time of her death. The Holloway heirs sold the property on Guess Road, totaling 123 acres, in 1938. 

The Popes purchased the property and owned it for a very short time, likely never living in the house, before selling it to the Easleys in 1941. Local lore states that the Easleys traded a property on Nation and Legion Streets for the Holloway property, which is supported by the fact that the Pope's son, George, went to live in the house on Nation and Legion when the Easleys moved into the Holloway House, which had been vacant for several years. 

Howard Easley and Eleanor Easley moved to Durham in 1930 for a teaching position that Howard had secured with the Psychology Department at Duke University. They moved to the Holloway House in 1941 and modernized the house, completing many of the twentieth-century alterations to the house. They constructed a new stone foundation, installed oil heat, a bathroom, and plumbing, as well as altering the front porch 
and gable-end windows. Howard retired from Duke in 1957 and turned his focus to farming the approximately 300 acres on Guess Road. The farm was a popular spot to visit, especially during harvest, when Easley was known to give out armfuls of fresh corn to visitors. Additionally, Easley raised a grove of maple trees between Guess Road and Lebanon Circle, many of which he is said to have sold to the state capital. 

The Easleys were prominent citizens, well-known amongst their neighbors and residents of Durham. Eleanor entered the first class of Duke Medical School and went on to become a prominent obstetrician in Durham.14 The couple sold the house in 1950, but not before Howard Easley gave a 115-acre tract of land to the Eno River State Park, land that included a former Girl Scout camp. The Easleys also donated land to Durham County for the future Easley Elementary School on Lebanon Circle. When asked why he simply gave the land away, he replied, "because I couldn't eat it."

Later residents of the house include John Curtis, a Russian History Professor at Duke University, and Tim and Gail Crowley. From 1986 to 1996, owners David Lutz, Holly Reid, and Rich Shaw renovated the house again, earning them a preservation award from the Historic Preservation Society of Durham. Lutz, Reid, and Shaw were also instrumental in the struggle to protect the property from the proposed widening of Guess Road. 

For more information, see the full Registration Form here.