Descendants relate that nine generations of the Evans family have occupied the weathered log house built by John Evans, Jr., ca. 1850. Evans son, Reuben, reported to have been born in the house, was about twelve years old when Union soldiers raided the family farm near the end of the Civil War. Among other items, peanuts belonging to the boy were...

Easily identified by single-sash upper-story windows, the one-and one-half-story, side-gabled Kepley House is a good example of a late-nineteenth-early-twentieth-century vernacular house type less common to Durham County than the Triple-A I-house or Triple-A cottage. This dwelling has one of two exterior end chimneys still standing and a full...

A Queen Anne window with a colorful border of red and blue glass squares is a lively token of fashion on the entry door of the substantial frame tri-gable I-house built by John Thomas Couch ca. 1900. Set well back from the road on 17.5 acres of the original 130-acre farm, the house has the six-over-six sash windows, rear brick chimneys, full-length...

Ella Chisenhall began a family enterprise in 1935 when she built this frame, gable-roofed, box and canopy store with money inherited from her parents. When the structure was completed, her husband, Herbert, gave her one-half acre of land surrounding it. The couple’s oldest son, Clarence, ran the store for a number of years, selling groceries and...

Directly across the road from the homeplace, Durham contractor Telphor Lawrence built a large and fashionable bungalow for Neal’s son, John, and his wife, Annie Lou, in 1921. The bungalow features such characteristic Craftsman details as a deep side-gabled roof that engages a spacious front porch, wood shingled walls, braced eaves, and a side bay...

Since 1833, several generations of the Neal family have farmed land in what is now northwest Durham County. An early family house (demolished ca. 1940) is said to have served as a kitchen after William T. Neal built the present frame tri-gable I-house with its one-story rear ell around 1890. Eight acres of Neal’s once-extensive farm and the house...

When John Cabe’s fifth daughter, Rachel, married Moses McCown in 1813, Cabe helped the couple settle on the south bank of the Eno River near a site where the water drop was sufficient to power a mill. Rachel and Moses shortly established a mill that operated first as a tilt hammer for forging metal and later as a sawmill and a gristmill for...

According to E. L. Terry, the main block of the Giles Latta House, a frame, two-story, gable-roofed structure with a large fieldstone and brick end chimney, and a side passage plan was constructed in 1875 and added to an antebellum one-room structure with simple Greek Revival details that is now a part of the rear ell. At first glance, the main...

Notable for a two-tiered full-facade porch with an unusual sawn work balustrade on the upper level, the Dr. Edwin Holt House is a side-gable frame I-house with modest Greek Revival detailing. While the six-over-six windows with plain surrounds and boxed cornice with gable-end returns are typical of many Durham County residences of the mid- to late...