1. Name and location of property: Overcarsh House, 326 W. Eighth St.

2. Name, address, telephone number of present owner and occupants:
C. C. Dees
3609 Tuckasegee Rd
(The occupants are renters).

3. Representative photographs of the property: Four photographs of the structure are included in this report.

4. A map depicting the location of the property: The report includes a map depicting the location of the Overcarsh House.

5. Current Deed Book Reference of the property: Mecklenburg County Deed Book 2793, page 157

6. A brief historical sketch of the property:

The property was purchased in 1879 from D.H. Byerly Mecklenburg County Deed Book 22, pages 436-437. The exact date of construction is not known; however the 1879-1880 City Directory indicates that Rev. Elias Overcarsh was living at 338 W. Eighth St. at that time. This strongly suggests that the house was constructed in 1879-1880. Rev Elias Overcarsh was a school teacher and Methodist minister in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. In 1896, Rev. Elias Overcarsh sold the property to his son B. J. (Bryan) Overcarsh (Mecklenburg County Deed Book 110, page 179). In 1945 B. J. (Bryan) Overcarsh sold the property to his son B. J. Overcarsh, Jr.(Mecklenburg County Deed Book 1157, page204). In 1966 Mildred Hartman Overcarsh, widow of B. J. Overcarsh sold the property to C. C. Dees (Mecklenburg County Deed Book 2793,page 157). The property will be purchased by Calvin E. Hefner and Dennis Cudd within the next two weeks. The Overcarsh House is of the Queen Anne style with Italianate and Eastlake features exhibiting a tower with “fish scale” shingles, an unusually large front porch, and large sun bursts in the gables. The carving around the front entrance is especially notable. The majority of the interior trim is intact. The doors and windows are all heavily molded. A wainscoting runs throughout the entrance hall, central hall and staircase, and through the upstairs hall. The oval windows in the dining room and the upstairs bedroom are cost unusual and were repeatedly noted by the Survey team as was the heavy rail in the dining room. The downstairs mantles all have overmantels. There is decorative, stamped hardware throughout the house. There is an etched window over the door that leads from the front porch to the master bedroom.

7. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria as set forth in N.C.G.S. 160A-399.4:

a. Historical and cultural significance: The house is a good example of the Queen Anne style of architecture. It is one of only a few left in Mecklenburg County. It was the home of a local schoolteacher and minister who influenced the religious development of Mecklenburg County.

b. Suitability for preservation and restoration: The house has been modified only slightly and this addition will be removed. The evaluation of the Survey Team of March, 1975, indicated that the interior of the house should be restored. There are fine mantels, stairs and doors and decorative brass hardware throughout.

c. Educational value: This Queen Anne style home exhibits a tower, sun burst gables, carved doorways and etched windows, all of which constitute craftsmanship exemplified by few remaining structures.

d. Cost of acquisition, restoration, etc: Calvin E. Hefner and Dennis Cudd have acquired the house for the purpose of restoration and to be used as their residence. Financing has already been arranged through local banks.

e. Possibilities for adaptive or alternative use of the property: The survey team of March, 1975, recommended restoration or preservation only. If used for adaptive purposes, the details, both interior and exterior should be maintained.

f. Appraised value: 1975 assessed value = $14,060.00

g. The administrative and financial responsibility of and person or organization willing to underwrite all or a portion of such costs: Dennis Cudd and Calvin E. Hefner have been approved by the banks and will be given the financial backing for restoration costs.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria established for inclusion on the National Register:

a. Events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history: Elias Overcarsh lad a great influence on the religious development of Mecklenburg County serving as minister in eight area churches. His grandfather, Franz Oberkirsh was a founder of the Organ Church in Rowan County.

b. Associated with lives of persons: The house was built by Elias Overcarsh who came to Charlotte in 1866. He established a grocery business and a farm in the area between Poplar and Church to Trade Street; taught school in two area schools and was a minister to eight churches in the area.

c. Type, period, method of construction: The Queen Anne style house, built in 1880, is one of only a very few remaining structures that exhibit the use of a tower, projecting bays, carved doorways, heavy moldings and mantles and the brass decorative hardware.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission maintains that the evidence presented in this report demonstrates that the property known as the Overcarsh House does meet the criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

9. Documentation of why and in what ways the property is of historical importance to Charlotte and/or Mecklenburg County: Elias Overcarsh, whose grandfather was a founder of the Organ Church in Rowan County, came to Charlotte in 1866. He had a grocery business on the corner of Trade and Church Streets. His farm extended from the present McClung House on Poplar Street to Trade and ran between Poplar and Church. He taught school in Charlotte at Prospect and Hickory Grove. In 1870 he was licensed as a minister by the Quarterly Methodist Conference meeting at the First Methodist Church. Serving as minister at eight churches: Fair Prospect, Calvery, Hebran, Big Springs, Harrison, Dows, Trinity, and Hickory Grove, Reverend Elias Overcarsh had a significant influence on the religious development of Mecklenburg County. An incident of interest: Bryan Overcarsh, son of Elias Overcarsh, was noted in Charlotte for his artistic ability. He designed and built the prize winning float in the parade of May 20, 1909, celebration when President William Howard Taft was a guest in the city.

Bibliography

Charlotte City Directory 1879-1880

The Charlotte Observer (March 30, 1930)

Mrs. T. L. Milwee, 824 Henley Place, interviewed by Dennis Cudd

Mr. Creasy Overcarsh, 254 Hillside, interviewed by Dennis Cudd

Mrs. Hazeline Overcarsh, 254 Hillside, interviewed by Dennis Cudd

Mr. A. H. Overcarsh, 812 E. Kingston, interviewed by Dennis Cudd

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission Preliminary Survey of Fourth Ward, March, 1975.

Records, Deeds, Wills on file at Mecklenburg County Deeds Office and Court House.

The late Victorian period house at 326 West Eight Street, known as the ‘Overcarsh’ house is one of the few remaining Queen Anne style buildings remaining in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The house is a simple rectangular structure, as compared to the vigorously irregular plans of many structures of the time done in Queen Anne style. Variations in the exterior are achieved with a moderate angular two story bay on the west side, a round turreted tower of the southwest corner facade, one story wings extending to the east and to the north, and a rectangular gabled turret added to the southeast second floor corner bed chamber. The simplicity of the execution does not diminish the significance of the house. It represents, with selective detailing, many of the appealing design elements of the popular Queen Anne architecture of the late nineteenth century. A style which was often repeated in Charlotte in the post civil war years and was the motif of many elaborate mansions in elegant Queen City neighborhoods, as well as the guiding light for more simple dwellings as represented in this house. During these years designers were influenced by styles other than Queen Anne and there are some suggestions of other influences on this house.

While ‘Queen Anne’ design meant variation in exterior surfaces, steep pitched roofs, verandas and porches, light frame construction, and open interior spaces, some “Eastlake” influence is noticeable in the elaborate trim, oval decorative motifs, and shingle surfaces here and there. Additionally, there is some hint of the ‘stick style’ appearing in gable stick work and in the curious built-up flare of roof overhangs where gutters are concealed. The exterior wall surfaces are covered with square edge, lapped clap board beginning suddenly above a low brick foundation wall with no drip molding. This siding extends to the second floor roof cornice where a wide overhang defines the roof line. This overhang is simply trimmed, lacking the expected ornamental brackets. Across the front is a narrow tin-roofed veranda sheltering the main entrance and turning down the east side a short distance. Here a side door connects to an unusually high ceilinged one story east wing. This side door has a unique patterned glass transom. The veranda roof is supported by solid square wood columns with intermediate chamfered edges and elaborate Eastlake carved brackets. The porch railing is a geometric pattern with turned, widely spaced posts connected with molded and fluted rails.

The ceiling of the porch shows a sensitive pattern of narrow beaded boards following a gentle vaulted shape as it rises from the column line toward the main house wall. On the west of the rectangular plan is a two story bay with angled corners containing windows on each floor. In the center segment of the bay unusual flat oval windows, likely stained glass originally, are set at eye level on each floor. This bay is crowned with a full gable roof frame which overhangs the angle corners, and is set off with molded supporting brackets and turned dropped pendants. In the gable face is a pattern of applied vertical and horizontal boards reflecting half timber construction. The upper panels of this framing are faced with a pattern of fan shaped wooden segments, creating a highly decorative feature. At the corner facade a circular turret tower presents the most important (and typical Queen Anne) design feature on the exterior of the house. This tower is covered with tight courses of ‘fish scale’ wood shingles through its full height, now painted but no doubt stained green initially. At the foundation wall and at the line of window sills and heads the shingles flare out to form distinctive bands at each level.

The turret rises well above the second floor roof line and includes small windows in the garret above two full length windows which occur on each floor below. The tower is capped with a high slate covered pointed roof, supported on closely spaced brackets. The peak of this roof terminates in a well proportioned turned wood crest spear. Above the veranda roof an unusual rectangular bay extends diagonally from the southwest corner bed chamber. This bay is simply detailed, containing one full size window in the outside face and being topped with a simple gabled roof. In the corner of the veranda a definitive square framing pattern in the ceiling indicates a probable cupola tower over the corner at one time. The one story east wing is covered with a slate surfaced gabled roof. On the gable wall there are small rounded ‘fish scale’ wood shingles and an arched wood louvered vent. The gable rake overhang is wide and the verge boards terminate in decorative carved motifs at the eave ends. In the gable peak a horizontal molded frame creates an elaborate design. After several attic fires damaged the original slate, the main roof surfaces were covered with asphalt shingles. It is likely that the original shingles were slate, similar to those on the one story east wing. Windows are typically high, double hung units divided in each sash with vertical center muntins creating an ‘Italianate’ theme, a theme which is reinforced in the shoulder trim of the veranda window casing. The front entrance door is heavy panelled oak with glass inserts at eye level. Framing the entrance, elaborate wide carved wood trim includes stylized pineapple motifs.

From the entrance hall inside the front door panelled folding doors open expansively to a parlor at one side and a sitting room at the other. In each room one finds carefully crafted fireplace mantels with beveled mirrors in each over-mantel. These mantels are classical in design and reflect a definite colonial influence. To the rear of the left side parlor and connecting also to a rear stair hall is a carefully detailed dining room, featuring an extraordinary molded plate shelf on four walls. Also, in the dining room is another fine classical mantel. Reflecting the simple rectangular shape of the house, the interior consists of a large central hall from which open two rooms at each side on both floors. In all first floor rooms as well as in the central hall the walls are wainscoted with carefully executed vertical ‘veed’ boards of various woods stained and finished to simulate golden oak. On the second floor the millwork has less distinction. This house is representative of probably the largest group of late Victorian Queen Anne style buildings erected in Charlotte during the late nineteenth century. While it lacks the elaboration often found in larger, more expensive structures, it was a sensitive development of the style in simpler terms and is unique in Charlotte, if not in the state.

Click Here to See Film of R. F. Outen at Work.

1. Name and location of the property:  The property known as the R. F. Outen Pottery is located at 430 Jefferson Street, Matthews, North Carolina.
2. Name and address of the current owner of the property:

Frank Outen

4000 Forest Lawn Drive

Matthews, NC 28105

3. Representative photographs of the property. This report contains representative photographs of the property.
4. A map depicting the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference To The Property. The most recent deed information for this property is found in Mecklenburg County Deed Book/Page 05580-884.   The tax parcel number for the property is 22702313.
6. A Brief Historical Essay On The Property. This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Stewart Gray.
7. A Brief Physical Description Of The Property.  This report contains a brief physical description of the property prepared by Stewart Gray.
8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S. 160A-400.5.
9. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission judges that the Outen Pottery possesses special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.  The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations:

1) The R. F. Outen Pottery is a rare surviving  example of a workshop and pottery that produced utilitarian earthenware and stoneware for local use from local clays.   This type of industry was common in the Piedmont of North Carolina in the nineteenth century but nearly disappeared as the twentieth century progressed.

2) The R. F. Outen Pottery is important for its association with Rufus F. Outen (1905-1983), one of the last traditionally-trained potters in North Carolina who continued to produce utilitarian ware in the second half of the twentieth century.

3) The R. F. Outen Pottery is significant as a rare surviving example of a twentieth-century workshop and kiln in Mecklenburg County.

4) The R. F. Outen Pottery is the most complete artifact of the pottery industry in Matthews, a town which was a significant  producer of pottery for much of the twentieth century.

1. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association:  The Commission judges that the physical description included in this report demonstrates that the property known as the R. F. Outen Pottery meets this criterion.
2. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a designated “historic landmark”.  The current appraised value of the R. F. Outen Pottery is $137,000. 
3. This report finds that the kiln, interior and exterior of the workshop building, and approximately 1.119 acres of land associated with the R. F. Outen Pottery should be included in landmark designation of the property.

Date of preparation of this report:   December 1, 2011

Prepared by:    Stewart Gray

Rufus Outen turning in 1968 at the R. F. Outen Pottery Company.

Pottery has been made for millennia in North Carolina.  Members of the Catawba Nation made pottery during the Woodland Period.  With European settlement, the Piedmont with its abundant clay became the center of  pottery production in North Carolina.  Lead-glazed earthenware, a relatively fragile and potentially toxic ware, dominated the early North Carolina pottery trade, much of it produced by the Moravians. Only one early-19th-century Mecklenburg County pottery has been documented.  William Goodwin recorded an indenture for his apprentice, seven year old Matthew Ormand, in 1802. (Perry: 3, 15)

During the nineteenth century stoneware largely replaced earthenware in North Carolina.   Stoneware is vitrified (takes on a very hard, inert, glass-like state) and is thus stronger, more durable, and not porous.  Stoneware requires a higher temperature fire (around 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit versus 1,800 for earthenware.) And whereas the clay required for earthenware could be found close to the surface, stoneware clay required deeper excavations.  The earliest stoneware in North Carolina was imported from England and New England.  But stoneware began to be produced in large numbers in North Carolina during the first half of the nineteenth century.  Early North Carolina stoneware is divided into salt glaze and alkaline glaze.  Salt glazing requires that salt be poured into the kiln when the kiln has reached its highest temperatures.  The extreme heat vaporizes the salt which fuses with the clay forming a hard glaze. Salt glaze production dominated the eastern part of the state (where salt was more abundant) and was concentrated in Moore and Randolph counties.  In the Catawba Valley near Vale, Daniel Seagle began producing alkaline glazed pottery in the 1830s.  This glaze is made up of wood ash, water, and clay and is applied to the pottery before being fired.  Alkaline glazed stoneware dominated the state from Charlotte to the west.  Salt or Alkaline glazed, the production of the pottery was virtually the same.  Clay was dug by hand.  It had to be ground to a usable consistency, which was done with an animal (horse, mule, or oxen) powered mill.  The pottery would then be turned on a foot powered wheel, a skill acquired after years of practice that often involved an apprenticeship.  The pottery was fired in a groundhog kiln, which was a long low kiln partially dug into the ground.  The groundhog kilns replaced the earlier beehive kilns used for earthenware.  This locally made stoneware was an invaluable product in the 19th century.  In the Piedmont of North Carolina there were no practical or available alternatives to the jars, jugs, crocks, pots and pitchers produced by the local potters.  (Perry: 6, 7-8, 14)  

Traditional pottery of the North Carolina Piedmont began to decline with the approach of the 20th century.  Cheap metal, glass, and other factory-made storage containers hurt the business of the local potters.  In the Catawba Valley the Seagle family stopped producing alkaline-glazed pottery in 1892.  In the east, the production of salt-glazed utilitarian pottery declined even as the craft of pottery was being revived.  In the Seagrove area, outsiders who recognized the inherent beauty of the traditional pottery developed a new market for the pottery and encouraged a switch from the utilitarian work to the production of art pottery.  (Zug: 16)

The Outen Family

Potters came into Union County, North Carolina from South Carolina in the mid-nineteenth century.  Thomas Gay (1837-1909) arrived in Union County in the 1850s, and likely trained his brother-in-law Nimrod Broom (1842-1912).  Broom in turn trained his son’s brother-in-law, William Franklin Outen (1871-1947), whose family had moved to Union County from South Carolina around 1860.  William F. Outen worked with Nimrod’s son “Jug Jim” Broom (1869-1957) in Monroe making salt-glazed stoneware until around 1900.  “Jug Jim” continued to operate a shop in Monroe until 1946 and was the last traditional potter in Union County.  William F. Outen, moved to South Carolina in the early 1900s and established potteries in Lancaster and Catawba Junction (1915).  Outen finally settled in Matthews, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina in 1922 where he established Matthews Pottery.  (Zug: 66; Baldwin:139)

Matthews existed in a “ceramic no man’s land” (Zug: 197) between the salt glazing tradition of the eastern part of the state  and the alkaline glaze tradition of the Catawba Valley.   His relative isolation in this “ceramic no man’s land” may help explain why William Outen moved away from the salt glaze tradition.  It is well documented that North Carolina folk potters were adverse to change. Yet in Matthews it appears that William Outen abandoned the salt glaze and began to employ the Bristol glaze, a glaze developed in England in the first half of the 19th century that gave pottery a white or white-mottled finish. Unlike salt and alkaline, the Bristol glaze required commercially produced components.  William Outen combined feldspar, whiting (calcium carbonate), ball clay (kaolinitic sedimentary clay), and zinc and tin oxides to produce his Bristol glaze.   It is unclear why William Outen switched from salt to the Bristol glaze, but it may have been to stay competitive with the factory-made pottery coming out of the North.  The Kennedy family, traditional potters in Wilkesboro, adopted the Bristol glaze in the 1920s to compete with the white factory-made pottery coming out of Ohio. (Zug: 196 – 197)

Rufus Franklin Outen

Rufus Outen, wife Louise and daughter Doris ca. 1930 at the Matthews Pottery

William Outen’s son, Rufus Franklin Outen was born in 1905 and learned the traditional pottery trade from his father and from his uncle “Jug Jim” Broom.  Rufus Outen probably worked in his father’s potteries from an early age and certainly labored in the Matthews Pottery.   Perhaps to establish himself as a potter, Rufus Outen  moved to Marion Virginia in 1929 to work in a pottery there.  His timing was bad.  With the onset of the Great Depression, Outen was forced to come back to the Matthews Pottery.  After his return, the Matthews Pottery began to produce machine-stamped flower pots, while Rufus Outen continued to throw pots in the traditional manner.  Rufus Outen continued to work at the Matthews Pottery until he opened R. F. Outen Pottery, around 1950.  He built his shop on Jefferson Street on the edge of Matthews, next door to a home he constructed in 1947.  Rufus Outen built a vaulted brick kiln with help from a mason named Long.  The vault was formed with wood framing and was built with several layers of fire brick.  The kiln featured six chimneys when built and was fed by fuel oil (heating oil or diesel fuel) and forced air.  The process of perfecting the kiln involved trial and error.  The burners, the air flow, the fuel flow, and the exhaust draft all had to be modified until the kiln functioned optimally.  This process took years, and Rufus Outen’s children recall that “months of work” were ruined as Outen tinkered with the kiln design.  His patience paid off, and once the kiln was adjusted properly, Rufus Outen lost very few pots in the kiln for the rest of his career. (Interview, Outen, 9-8-11)

While the Matthews Pottery employed ten to fifteen workers, the Outen Pottery was a smaller business with Rufus Outen and one or two part-time helpers.   Rufus Outen would make “selling trips,” north as far a Wilkesboro, North Carolina and south as far as Greenville, South Carolina.  On these selling trips, Outen would visit hardware stores and take orders for churns, crocks, rabbit watering bowls and feeders, pots and pitchers.  When Outen had enough orders to fill the kiln, he would return home and begin turning the pieces.  Rufus Outen was prolific.  He specialized in stoneware churns, and it is claimed that he could turn 100 pieces a day. His nickname among some of the other potters was “Churn Turner.” A reporter from the Charlotte News noted that Outen had produced 300 churn lids the day of their visit. “I don’t aim to set the world on fire,” said Outen “I work as I like to.”  (Interview, Outen, 10-11-11; Gummerson, 12-16-68)

Rufus Outen’s wheel

Rufus Outen shoveling dried clay into the hammer mill at his shop in 1968.

Clay was dug locally.  Rufus Outen and his helpers would shovel the clay into the back of a truck and then unload it at the pottery.  The clay needed to be free of rocks, and thus many clay deposits could not be used.  The clay would be cleaned and worked by hand until it was ready to be fed into a pug mill.  The pug mill extruded clay that was ready to work. At some point, Rufus Outen acquired a hammer mill to process the clay before it would go to the pug mill.  A hammer mill could crush rocky deposits in the clay and thus make more clay usable.  Before being used in the hammer mill the clay had to dry.  A large shed was added to the rear of the workshop where the raw clay could be stored until it had properly dried.  After being processed in the hammer mill, water was added to the dry clay and then fed into the pug mill.  Once the clay was worked to an appropriate consistency, the helpers would make “balls” of clay that Rufus Outen would turn on a wheel.  Once turned, the pieces, known as greenware, would be carefully placed on drying shelves that literally filled the workshop.  His family recalls that their father would turn pieces for approximately one month in order to produce enough pottery to fill the kiln. (Interviews, Outen, 9-8-11, 10-11-11)

Hammer mill on right.  Pug mill center.

The next step for the stoneware was the glaze.  In the early years of his business, like his father, Rufus Outen concocted and used a Bristol glaze.  In his workshop Rufus Outen built a motorized mixing vat to mix the glaze ingredients.  Sometime in the late 1950s, Rufus Outen began to use Albany Slip, a commercially produced glazing compound that gave pottery a deep brown color.  Rufus Outen’s son, Frank Outen, believes that his father switched because the Albany Slip was simple to use and the finish was popular with the customers.  Albany slip came in a bag and was simply mixed in a trough.  Each piece would be dipped in the trough to coat the greenware with the glazing compound.  The pottery would then be set on temporary shelving to dry, and the workshop would largely fill-up with the glaze-coated-greenware.   Once dry, the pieces would be loaded into the kiln.  Filling the kiln was an art.  Rufus Outen knew exactly where different pieces should be located in the kiln.  The temperatures in the kiln varied, and different pieces needed different firing temperatures.  The fragile greenware had to be stacked one piece on top of the other.  Once the kiln was filled, Rufus Outen would seal the kiln doors with mortared brick.  The firing would begin early in the morning and last a full day.  The cool down would last several days. (Chasanoff; Interviews, Outen, 9-8-11, 10-11-11)

Rufus Outen churn glazed with Albany slip.

When the kiln had cooled enough, it would be unloaded directly into the delivery truck.  Packing the truck with the finished pieces was planned so that the pieces for the first delivery would be at the top of the load, and the deliverables for the final stop would be at the bottom of the load.  For deliveries, Outen would use the same truck that he used to haul clay.  A layer of straw was laid on the truck bed, and pieces were set in the straw.  Layers of straw were added to cushion the pieces from each other.  The entire contents from the kiln would be loaded into a single truckload.  A longtime smoker, Outen once lost a load of pottery, as well as a 1960 Chevrolet flatbed truck, in a fire when one of his discarded cigarette butts landed in the dry straw during a delivery trip.  (Interviews, Outen, 9-8-11, 10-11-11)

In the 19th century, North Carolina was full of local potteries, but during the 20th century traditional pottery nearly vanished.   For most of Rufus Outen’s career, he was an anachronism.  Most traditional pottery in North Carolina ceased by the end of World War II, just when Rufus Outen was establishing his own pottery in Matthews.  Yet Outen found a way to make a living.  According to all accounts, he worked very hard.  In a 1968 interview Outen is quoted:

It’s hard work.  But I wouldn’t want to do anything else.  There is something very satisfying about it.  You can be nervous and worried when you start, but it melts away as you work.  You use mind and muscles.  (Gummerson, 12-16-68)

Outen also adapted to the market.  His sales trips through North and South Carolina dictated what he produced.  Perhaps the collapse of traditional utilitarian pottery left him a niche to fill.  Perhaps the rural economies where he sold continued to demand the utilitarian pottery, such as churns, that he continued to produce.  Outen also turned nontraditional items demanded by the market.  These included rabbit watering bowls, heavy glazed bowls with sloping side that would allow frozen water to rise up and not crack the vessel.  Outen also produced, in addition to stoneware, earthenware strawberry planters, decorative pots and pitchers, and cooking vessels.  Outen was quoted as saying ” I like making something useful.” (Gummerson, 12-16-68)  Outen did not toil in obscurity.  His exceptionalism was recognized in the 1960s.  Local TV personality Betty Feezer featured Outen on her show, and filmed him performing his trade.  Also in the 1960s, Outen taught pottery at Winthrop College.   (Interviews, Outen, 9-8-11, 10-11-11)

Rufus Outen was also responsible for keeping traditional pottery alive in South Carolina.  Outen and Horace Ratteree acquired a pottery in Bethune, Kershaw County, South Carolina in 1959 from Guy Daugherty who had operated it since 1945.  Outen and Ratteree hired Otto Brown, a fifth generation potter from Georgia, to turn ware for them. The shop produced mostly un-glazed garden ware, but it also produced stoneware jugs and churns.  The South Carolina pottery employed an oil-burning kiln like the kiln at the R. F. Outen Pottery.  Outen and Ratteree sold the pottery around 1962. (Baldwin: 142)

Above: examples of Rufus Outen’s later decorative pottery

Below: Outen in his workshop in 1975

The process of producing traditional pottery is hard work.  Around 1975 Rufus Outen fired his last batch of pottery.  He continued to produce and sell pottery clay, with his clients including the art departments of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System.  After retiring, he began to make deliveries for the Matthews Pottery and hunted clay deposits for the Matthews Pottery and for brick manufactures.  In 1976 his wife Louise died.  In 1983 he remarried, but later that year died from pneumonia.  (Interviews, Outen, 9-8-11, 10-11-11)

Architectural Description

The R. F. Outen Pottery consists of a one-story workshop with extensive shed additions and a detached brick kiln.  The buildings are set in a line that runs north-south, and are located on a roughly triangular-shaped 1.47 acre parcel.  The pottery is located in the Town of Matthews, but the location at the end of a dead-end  residential street retains a distinctly rural character. 

Kiln in 1968

The brick kiln is essentially a barrel vault.  Segmental-arch door openings are located on the north and south elevations.  The door openings were bricked-in each time the kiln was loaded and fired. 

Rufus Outen in the kiln in 1975

The kiln originally featured six square brick chimneys, five of which have survived.  A framework of steel angle bolted into the brick walls and connected by threaded steel rods reinforces the structure.  The interiors of the kiln and chimneys was laid with high-temperature fire brick, with common brick on the exterior.  The kiln is protected by wood-framed shed roof.  The roof and wood framing were completely replaced sometime after 2007. The top of the vault is parged with a coating of mortar or other masonry compound.  This may indicate that the kiln was once exposed to the elements. The center of the barrel vault is now sagging, but it is unclear if this is long term condition or due to recent deterioration. 

The kiln is no longer functioning.  It was heated by four separate fuel oil burners located in the kiln along the east wall. The piping for the burners pass through small, low, and evenly spaced arched openings in the east elevation.  Piping includes copper fuel lines and larger iron pipes that channeled forced air to the burners.  A blower apparatus located on the north elevation is still extant.  A two thousand gallon fuel oil tank was once located to the south of the kiln.  Fuel was originally gravity fed.  Rufus Outen added a small pump, scavenged from a refrigeration system, to improve fuel delivery.

The workshop is a front-gabled masonry block building.  The building is three bay wide, with a doorway centered in the facade.  The doorway and window openings are topped with wood lintels.  The door and windows are covered with plywood. The gable is covered with siding.  The low-pitched roof is covered with asphalt shingles.  A power meter is attached to the facade to the right of the doorway.   

The east elevation is four bays wide and contains four window openings.  Originally the window openings contained a single two-vertical-light sash but are now covered with metal panels.  The entire width of the east elevation is sheltered by a low-slope shed addition.  The shed roof is supported by eight posts.  The posts are a mix of rough-sawn and round timbers.  The shed addition shelters building materials and various pieces of pottery equipment including a potter’s wheel attached to an early automobile transmission.

Pottery wheel attached to automobile transmission.

The west elevation is four bays wide and is partially below grade.  The west elevation is sheltered by a shed addition with a low-slope 5-V metal roof, supported by a row of sawn posts.  The shed additions shelters pottery moulds.  The asphalt-shingle roof  over the principal section of the workshop building is pierced west of the center ridge by a brick flue.

The rear elevation is partially below grade.  Five wall openings on the rear elevation served as windows and doors that allow for light and as pass-throughs for materials.   The masonry wall is topped with a wooden gable.  A large, tall freestanding shed was built adjacent to the rear elevation. The metal shed roof is supported by three rows of round treated poles. Once Rufus Outen acquired a hammer mill to process the clay, the rear shed was needed to shelter piles of clay as they dried to a proper consistency. 

The interior of the building has a high degree of integrity.  The interior features a dirt floor and contains much of the equipment that was used when the pottery was in operation.  This equipment includes: pug mills, hammer mill, potter’s wheel, work table, glaze mixing vat, and glazing vat.

Bibliography

Zug, Charles G. III. Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina.  Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1986.

Gummerson, Dora “Mr.Outen’s an Artist Who Works With Clay,” Charlotte News, December 16, 1968 

“Catawba Valley Pottery of North Carolina.”  Website http://www.cvpottery.com/catawba_valley_history.htm

Perry, Barbara S., Ed. North Carolina Pottery: The Collection of the Mint Museums. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2004.

Interview with Frank Outen, Elenore Outen Locke, William Locke, 9-8-11

Interview with Frank Outen, Elenore Outen Locke, William Locke, 10-11-11

Baldwin, Cinda K. Great & Noble Jar: Traditional Stoneware of South Carolina. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993

“Selections from the Allan Chasanoff Ceramic Collection,” glossary. Website (http://www.mintmuseum.org/chasanoff/process/glossary.htm)

This report was written on November 1, 1998

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the William and Cora Osborne House is located at 12445 Ramah Church Road, Huntersville, North Carolina 28070.

2. Name, address, and telephone number of the present owner of the property: The present owner of the property is:

Martin Osborne
P.O. Box 1365
Huntersville, NC 28070

Telephone: (704) 875-2105

3. Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property.

4. A map depicting the location of the property: This report contains maps that depict the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the Property: The most recent deed to Tax Parcel Number 011-181-13 is found in Deed Book 8405, page 0611.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property by Caroline Wells and Dr. Dan L. Morrill.

7. A brief architectural sketch of the property: This report contains a brief architectural sketch of the property by Dr. Dan L. Morrill.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S. 160A-400.5:

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the William and Cora Osborne House does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: 1) the William and Cora Osborne House (c. 1890) is representative of the two-story frame I-houses built in rural Mecklenburg County in the late 1800’s and is reflective of the robust cotton economy that characterized Mecklenburg County during those years, 2) the William and Cora Osborne House was erected by John Ellis McAuley (1861-1929), a local craftsman who built several structures in the Huntersville vicinity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including the sanctuary and rectory for St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and the Lindsey Parks House.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association: The Commission contends that the attached architectural description by Dr. Dan L. Morrill demonstrates that the William and Cora Osborne House meets this criterion.

9. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property that becomes a designated “historic landmark.” The current appraised tax value of the improvements on the property is $116,350. The current appraised tax value of the 2.15 acres of land is $44,100. The total appraised tax value of the property is $160,450. The property is zoned R3.

Date of Preparation of this Report: November 1, 1998

Prepared by:Caroline Wells and Dr. Dan L. Morrill
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Landmarks Commission
2100 Randolph Rd.
Charlotte, NC 28207

Telephone: (704) 376-9115

The William and Cora Osborne House, although not on its original site, possesses local historic significance in the areas of Agriculture and Architecture. Built c. 1890, the Osborne House is a manifestation of the flourishing cotton economy of Mecklenburg County during the so-called New South era of the late nineteenth century. With the establishment of the Charlotte Cotton Mills in 1881, Charlotte and Mecklenburg County began to experience rapid industrial growth, especially in textiles. Mecklenburg farmers found ready markets for cotton, both locally and regionally; and those who had the ability and the resources to take advantage of this expanding economic opportunity prospered. With rising incomes, successful farmers like William and Cora Osborne were able to build impressive vernacular farmhouses. A particularly popular house type in Mecklenburg County was the so-called I-house. The builder of the William and Cora Osborne House was John Ellis McAuley (1861-1929). A “country carpenter,” McAuley erected several structures in northern Mecklenburg County in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition to the Osborne House, these include St. Mark’s Episcopal Church (his most imposing), the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Rectory, and the Lindsey Parks House. McAuley’s buildings constitute a significant collection of vernacular rural structures dating from the New South era in northern Mecklenburg County.

The William and Cora Osborne House was built c. 1890 about 1.6 miles northeast of Huntersville, N.C. in rural Mecklenburg County. The original owner was William Eldridge Osborne (1861-1930), the husband of Cora Watts Osborne. Cora was the daughter of Thomas and Mary Cecelia Allison Watts of neighboring Iredell County; and he was the son of William Osborne, Sr., a farmer, and his wife, Lenora Beard Osborne. William Osborne participated and prospered in the expanding cotton economy of Mecklenburg County during the so-called New South era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He inherited or bought several parcels of land in the Huntersville area and built a home commensurate with his improving economic standing . Historian Thomas W. Hanchett notes that after the Civil War “the Southern attitude toward industry changed radically.” “The end of slavery crippled plantation agriculture,” he explains, “and the region’s investors began to work toward a ‘New South’ based instead on industrial development.” The expansion of the textile economy of Mecklenburg County was nothing short of spectacular. “Cotton was not an easy crop to grow in Mecklenburg County,” writes preservation consultant Sherry Joines. “In fact, only 6,112 bales were ginned in 1860. However, after the discovery of the fertilizer, Peruvian guano, the production rapidly increased to 19,129 bales in 1880. The production of cotton peaked in 1910 with 27, 466 bales.” “Thus, between 1860 and 1880,” says Joines, “the image, economy, and lifestyle of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County changed dramatically.” An additional stimulus to the local cotton economy was provided by the establishment of a substantial number of textile mills in Mecklenburg County during the New South years.

Clearly, these developments brought new challenges and opportunities to local farmers. Among them was the rapid growth of the city of Charlotte, which placed greater pressure on farmers to supply the more diversified needs of Charlotte’s increasing populace and burgeoning textile industry. Successful farmers like William Osborne learned that they had to specialize in order to maintain a profit. In addition, the growing demand for products meant that expensive machinery replaced beasts of burden; and as land also grew more costly, losses were felt more intensely. Many farmers in Mecklenburg County could not keep up with these new financial and technological demands. Those like Osborne who could, saw their incomes increase substantially.

In keeping with his improving economic circumstances, William Osborne decided to build a new and more imposing home c. 1890. The contractor was John Ellis McAuley (1861- 1929), a “country carpenter,” who had erected several similar two-story frame I-houses in northern Mecklenburg County. Among the houses McAuley fashioned were the Lindsey Parks House on Neck Road and the rectory for St. Marks Episcopal Church. William Eldridge Osborne became, as his obituary states, “one of the best-known farmers in this section of the county.” After they moved into their new home, William and Cora Osborne had three sons, Thomas Preston Osborne (1892-1968), George H. Osborne (1897- 1920), and Herman L. Osborne (1905-1975). In 1920 the Osbornes lost their second son, George, at the age of twenty-three to pneumonia. When William Osborne died in 1930, he divided his farm between his two remaining sons. Thomas Osborne received 30 acres of land on the south side of “home place,” along with a wagon and some household items. Herman Osborne acquired the home, farm, tractor, Chevrolet, and much of the farming machinery, while cattle, hogs, and other livestock were divided between the sons. Cora Osborne lived in the Osborne House until her death in 1954 at the age of 89. William Eldridge Osborne and Cora Watts Osborne are buried in Huntersville A.R.P Cemetery.

Herman Osborne married Norma Spain Gray (1907-1954) in 1928, and from 1930 the couple lived in the Osborne House for the rest of their lives. Norma Spain was the daughter of R. A. Gray and Mary Long Barnette of Huntersville. She had two children, Otis Gray Osborne and George Lee Osborne. Norma Osborne suffered from arteriosclerosis, which claimed her life in 1954 at the early age of 45. Herman Osborne then married Mary Vance (1906-1975), the daughter of John David Vance and Mary McAuley. Mary Vance Osborne brought two children from a previous marriage, William Franklin and Betty. Herman Osborne worked as a farmer until his retirement; and Mary Vance Osborne was a housewife. Herman Osborne died in 1975 and was buried with Norma Osborne in the cemetery of Huntersville A.R.P. Church. Mary Osborne died less than a month after her husband’s demise and is also buried at Huntersville A.R.P. Cemetery.

Herman and Mary Osborne bequeathed the house and one acre of land and 1/3 of the Osborne farm on the north side of Ramah Church Road to their son Otis Gray Osborne in 1975. George Lee Osborne received the remaining 2/3 of land (except the one acre homesite). In 1976, the brothers exchanged the parcels of land. The William and Cora Osborne House now stood empty. Farming operations had ceased. George Osborne and his wife, Marie Elizabeth Primrose Buxey, a native of Great Britain whom George had met while serving in the United States military, resided in Huntersville with their son, Martin Lee Osborne (b. 1963). George and Marie Osborne granted to Martin Osborne a tract of land near their own in 1995-1996. In 1996, Martin Osborne moved the two-story frame “home place,” from a wooded area approximately 500 yards south to a narrow tract of land in the open fields along Ramah Church Road. The William and Cora Osborne House, built by his great-grandfather, William Eldridge Osborne, is the home where Martin Osborne now resides.

Research Notes

Will of W. E. Osborne (Record of Wills, Book V, page 283):

To Preston Osborne: 30 acres on south side of home place, second best wagon and reversible disk plow, best broom set, one walnut table, bookcase, grandfather’s shotgun, the “note that he holds against him”.

To Herman L. Osborne: all of the remainder of home farm, tractor, the best wagon, woodsawing outfit, Chevrolet, blacksmith tools, grain drill, kitchen equipment, best iron bed, a sofa, chairs, bureau, glass, bookcase, folding walnut table, tools, grandfather’s clock, all leftover money.

Both sons should divide the rest of the farm tools and cattle, hogs and other stock equally .
Will of H. L. Osborne (Record of Wills, microfilm roll 578, frame 1468)

To Mary Vance: all personal property, bank accounts, moneys, bonds, household goods; 19 acre; home place north of Ramah Church Road

To William F. Alexander and Betty Privette: fee interest in 80 acres on property north of north of Ramah Church Road, except for 8 acres which goes to Mary Vance

To Otis Gray Osborne: House and one acre of land; 1/3 of land on north side of Ramah Church Road

To George Lee Osborne: 2/3 of land on north side of Ramah Church Road, except 1 acre to Otis as above
Death Certificates

1. William Eldridge Osborne Book 36, page 205
Born: 1-13-1861, Mecklenburg County
Died: 8-6-1930
Age: 69 years, 6 mos., 23 days
Occupation: farmer
Father: William Osborne
Mother: Lenora Beard
Informant of death: T. P. Osborne, Huntersville
Buried in Huntersville
Cause of death: Diabetes?? (Not legible)

2. Listing for the death of George H. Osborne in 1920, son of William E. Osborne (Book 14, page 215)

3. Listing for the death of Mary Cora Osborne on 4-18-54 (Reg. 534) at age 89

4. Thomas Preston Osborne
Died: 12-11-1968 (Reg. 2690) at Memorial Hospital
Age: 76
Cause of Death: cerebrovascular accident

5. Herman L. Osborne
Died: 10-17-75 Huntersville Hospital
Age: 69
Born: 12-20-1905 North Carolina
Occupation: retired farmer
Father: William E. Osborne
Mother: Cora Watts
Informant of Death: George L. Osborne
Cause of Death: Parkinson’s Disease (advanced-20 years); massive intestinal hemorrhage
Buried in Huntersville Presbyterian Church Cemetery

6. Mary Vance Osborne
Died: 11-2-75
Age: 69
Born: 4-25-1906
Occupation: housewife
Father: John David Vance
Mother: Mary McAuley
Informant of Death: George L. Osborne
Cause of Death: Acute Thrombosis (instant)
Burial in Huntersville ARP Cemetery

7. Norma Spain Osborne
Died: 3-24-54 Mercy Hospital
Age: 46 (less 5 mos. 3 days)
Born: 10-21-1907 Mecklenburg County
Married to Herman L. Osborne
Occupation: housewife
Father: R. A. Gray
Mother: Mary Long Barnette
Cause of Death: cerebral hemorrhage due to arterio sclerotic disease (10 hours)

Site Description

The William and Cora Osborne House is set well back from the northern side of Ramah Church Road on a treeless lot that rises slightly from the road to the house. A gravel driveway traverses the eastern edge of the lot and terminates at a parking area just to the right rear of the house. The Osborne House faces south toward Ramah Church Road. The only outbuilding is a spring house at the immediate left rear of the house. Every effort was made to approximate the original setting of the Osborne House and the spring house when they were moved approximately 500 yards south to their present location to prevent their being demolished.

Physical Description

The William and Cora Osborne House is a two-story, three-bay wide by two-bay deep, clapboard- sided building with a one-story kitchen ell projecting from the right rear. A one-story porch with a shed roof covers most of the southern or front facade, which contains the front entrance at the center. The front door is flanked by sidelights. The gable roofs of the house and rear ell were originally wooden shingle but are now tin. The end chimneys on the main block of the Osborne House are replacements, as are the handrails leading to the front porch, the porch balustrade, and the porch posts. The Osborne House originally sat on brick piers. Except for the front and rear porches, it now rests upon a continuous brick foundation. The predominant window type is 6/6 double hung sash, except for 4/4 sash on the side elevations of the house. An original porch with a sold wooden wall at the edge and attenuated wooden pickets supporting the roof is at the left rear of the house. The spring house is located to the immediate rear of the house in roughly its original orientation to the main house. It too is a clapboard-sided building with a gable roof covered in tin (original).

The interior of the William and Cora Osborne House has been changed. The center hallway has been closed off about half way to the rear. A new bathroom with shower and an updated kitchen have been added. Otherwise, the interior is largely in-tact. The floors are heart pine. The ceilings are beaded board. In detailing and overall feel the house reflects the lavish tastes associated with Mecklenburg County farmhouses of the late nineteenth century. The balustrade and newels of the main stairway, which rises toward the front of the house from the original center hall, have extravagant detailing, as do the mantels in the house — all original.

LEFT: Main Stairway RIGHT: Mantel

For discussions of the rise of industrialism and the concept of the New South, see C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951), hereinafter cited as Woodward, Origins of the New South; Paul M. Gaston, The New South Creed: A Study in Southern Mythmaking (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970); Holland Thompson, The New South: A Chronicle of Social and Industrial Evolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919), hereinafter cited as Thompson, The New South; Broadus Mitchell, The Rise of Cotton Mills in the South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1921).

For an account that challenges the interpretation of Woodward and others about the men who led the industrialization movement in the New South, see Dwight B. Billings, Jr., Planters and the Making of a “New South”: Class, Politics, and Development in North Carolina, 1865- 1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), hereinafter cited as Billings, Planters and the Making of a “New South. “

Southern urbanization is surveyed in David R. Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region, 1607-1980 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982).

Mecklenburg County Record of Marriage Licenses N-S.

Thomas W. Hanchett, “Charlotte’s Textile Heritage: An Introduction” (1984). Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission.

Sherry L. Joines and Dr. Dan L. Morrill, “Historic Rural Resources in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina” (1997). Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission.

“For a description of the textile mills established in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Dr. Dan L. Morrill, “A Survey of Cotton Mills In Charlotte In Charlotte And Mecklenburg County For The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission” (1997). Charlotte- Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission.

Edgar T. Thompson, Agricultural Mecklenburg and Industrial Charlotte (Chapel Hill, 1926). According to some sources, I-houses derive their name from the fact that they were prevalent in states like Iowa, Illinois and Indiana.

McAuley also built St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

Charlotte Observer, August 8, 1930, p. 10.

Index to Deaths, 1910-1926, Mecklenburg County, Book 14, p. 215.

Record of Wills, V 283.

Mecklenburg County Deed Book 1331, page 318. In 1916, he bought a 60 acre tract from G.M Riley, a salesman with Wilson Motor Company, for $2410.

Marriage Bonds of Mecklenburg County, 1924-1934.

Records of Deaths, Mecklenburg County, Reg. 2591.

Ibid.

Mecklenburg County Deed Book 3897, page 958-959; earlier deeds were granted from Herman Osborne to George L. Osborne (see Deed Book 1775, page 195) and to Herman’s nephew William E. Osborne, the son of Thomas P. (see Deed Book 1863, page 357).

Mecklenburg County Deed Book 8405, page 609-611 and 8431, page

This report was written on September 1, 2000

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Erwin-Oehler House is located at 14401 Huntersville-Concord Road, Huntersville, N.C. 28078.
2. Name, address, and telephone number of the current owner of the property:

Frances Ferrell Rogers P.O. Box 236 Huntersville, N.C. 28078

Telephone: (704) 875-6953

3. Representative photographs of the property:  This report contains representative photographs of the property.
4. A map depicting the location of the property: This report contains maps depicting the location of the property.
5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property:  The most recent deed to the property is located in Mecklenburg County Deed Book #1140, page 245.  The tax parcel number to the property is 019-401-02.
6. A brief historical sketch of the property:  This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Emily D. Ramsey.
7. A brief architectural description of the property:  This report contains a brief architectural description prepared by Emily D. Ramsey.
8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S 160A-400.5: 
9. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Erwin-Oehler House possesses special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.  The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations:  1)      The Erwin-Oehler House is a tangible reminder of the agricultural economy that shaped life in largely rural nineteenth-century Mecklenburg County. 2)      The Oehler family figured prominently in the social and religious activities around the Ramah community in northeast Mecklenburg County.  3)      The Erwin-Oehler House is a rare example of farmhouse architecture in Mecklenburg County, and reflects the melding of European building practices with local and regional vernacular architecture. 4)      The Erwin-Oehler House retains its pastoral setting, recalling the rural landscape of pre-twentieth century Mecklenburg County.
10. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association:  The Commission contends that the architectural description prepared by Emily D. Ramsey demonstrates that the Erwin-Oehler House meets this criterion.
11. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal:  The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on tall or any portion of the property which becomes a “historic landmark.”  The current appraised value of the house is 413,390.  The current appraised value of the 140.47 acres of land is $709,030.  The property is zoned OPS.

Date of Preparation of this Report: September 1, 2000

 Prepared by: Emily D. Ramsey 745 Georgia Trail Lincolnton, NC 28092

 Statement of Significance

The Erwin-Oehler House is a structure that possesses local historic significance because it is a tangible reminder of the agricultural economy that shaped life in largely rural nineteenth-century Mecklenburg County and because of its association with the Oehler family, which figured prominently in the social, religious, and business activities of the Ramah Community of northwest Mecklenburg County.  The mid-nineteenth century saw the beginning of a period of rapid development and growth in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County that would continually progress well into the twentieth century.  Although the vast majority of Charlotte-Mecklenburg was still rural, Charlotte’s economic, commercial and physical growth in the decades leading up to the Civil War created new opportunities and advantages for the area’s farmers and helped to attract farmers relocating from northern states and from abroad.

One such farmer was George Martin Oehler, who, along with many of his relatives, emigrated from Germany to northern Mecklenburg County in the early 1840s.  Oehler married a native of Mecklenburg and settled in the Ramah community in the northwestern section of the county.  In 1852, he purchased 250 acres from Caleb Erwin and built an impressive and unusual farmhouse on the property for his growing family.¹  There, the Oehler family farmed the land and became important figures within the social and religious spheres of the Ramah Community.  George Oehler became an elder of Ramah Presbyterian Church in 1856 and remained a prominent member of the congregation until the Civil War, when he was asked to leave because of his “Northern sympathies.”  George Oehler’s youngest son, James Cornelius Oehler, would continue the family’s dedication to the church by attending Princeton Theological School and becoming a Presbyterian minister.²

The Erwin-Oehler House is also significant architecturally for its unusual blending of German building practices and regional vernacular building styles.  The two-story, three-bay-wide and one-bay-deep farmhouse, or “I-house” plan, was one of the most popular forms for rural residents and farmers throughout the nineteenth century.  The Erwin-Oehler House is a rare example of this common form; while the vast majority of I-houses in Mecklenburg County (and throughout the state) were wood frame construction covered with wooded clapboards, the Erwin-Oehler House is a heavy, almost spartan brick structure and the only known brick I-house in the county.  Although the house itself is unusual, the land that surrounds the Erwin-Oehler House reflects the rural landscape as it was on countless farms in and around Charlotte- Mecklenburg.  While many nineteenth-century farm complexes have been stripped of their original rural surroundings by encroaching suburban development and subdivisions, the Erwin-Oehler House, encircled by pristine fields, woodlands, and streams, retains its rural, agricultural setting.

Historical Overview

During the decades leading up to the Civil War, Charlotte-Mecklenburg entered the beginnings of a prolonged period of growth and prosperity that would continue, in one form or another, until the Great Depression well into the twentieth century.  The discovery of gold in the area in 1799, which resulted in construction of a branch of the U.S. Mint near the center of Charlotte, along with the arrival of the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad (one of the first railroads in western North Carolina) in 1852, which prompted the completion of four railroads through Charlotte by the time of the Civil War, all helped to make Charlotte-Mecklenburg a main trading and distribution center by the mid-1800s, in addition to its already solid reputation as a leading agricultural center.³  Farmers nearby now had easy access to railroads and, consequently, to an expansive trading network for cotton, the county’s leading cash crop since the invention of the cotton gin in 1793, and other cash crops such as corn and wheat.

These new developments, coupled with Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s strong and agriculturally diverse economy, made the area an attractive location for farmers relocating from northern states and from abroad.⁴  In the mid-nineteenth century, a large group of at least six related Oehler families, descended from Johann Georg Oehler and Maria Magdalena Leonhardt of Wuerttenberg, Germany, immigrated to the United States and settled in northern Mecklenburg County and southern Cabarras County.⁵  George Martin Oehler was among them, and he wasted no time putting down roots in his new country.  By the early 1850s, George Oehler was married to Mecklenburg native Elizabeth B. Thomasson and was the father of seven young children.⁶  Since church affiliation formed the center of community life in nineteenth-century Mecklenburg, George and Elizabeth Oehler became active members of Ramah Presbyterian Church, which in turn helped establish the Oehler family in the small, closely-knit Ramah community in northeast Mecklenburg County.

In 1852, George Oehler purchased a large parcel of land (around 250 acres) from Caleb Erwin, a wealthy planter and well ­known public figure in Mecklenburg County who owned almost 800 acres in Ramah near Clarks Creek.⁷  Although there has been some debate as to whether the house was built by the Erwin family in the early 1800s and sold to George Oehler in the1852 transaction, or built by George Oehler after he bought the property, no evidence exists to suggest that the house predates George Oehler’s purchase of the property.  Furthermore, architectural features of the house examined in a 1988-1989 survey suggest a mid-nineteenth century construction date; this information, coupled with the unusual use of brick for the otherwise simple farmhouse, indicates that George Oehler was most likely the builder of the house.⁸

After completing the two-story, one-pile farmhouse, George Oehler began farming his land, eventually cultivating over ninety of the two hundred and fifty acres he owned.  The Oehlers grew corn, wheat, oats and some cotton as primary cash crops, in addition to a variety of vegetables produced in the family’s kitchen garden.  The family also raised swine for slaughter, cows for milk, cheese and butter, and sheep for wool and meat.⁹

The Oehlers, like most farming families in Mecklenburg County, did not own slaves before or during the Civil War, although they did employ two teenage boys, Martin and John, as farm hands and one young female laborer, Elizabeth, to help Elizabeth Oehler and her daughters with household chores and gardening.  Martin, John and Elizabeth lived on the farm with the Oehler family.¹⁰

Although George Oehler adjusted well to his life in the United States and in the South, his views on slavery clashed with those held by the majority of southern farmers, and these differing views created tension and division within the Ramah community when the Civil War broke out.  The Oehlers had never owned African-American slaves, and family stories depict George Oehler as a man staunchly opposed to the system of slavery that had created the wealthy plantation economy in the South.  These beliefs, even in an area where most farmers did not own slaves, were extremely controversial.  According to Ramah Presbyterian Church history, George Oehler, along with his sons, James and Milas, and his son-in-law, Thomas Brewer, divided the congregation and aggravated tensions and dissention in the church when they attempted to bring in a Northern Presbyterian minister, Reverend McFarland, to preach to the Ramah Presbyterian congregation in 1866.¹¹ Still smarting from the recent defeat of the Confederacy, the people of Ramah Presbyterian Church were determined to keep northerners, and all those with northern sympathies, out of their congregation.  What had begun as a heated debate reached a surprising climax when McFarland attempted to enter the church to preach.  Several of his more vehement opponents locked the church doors, and Thomas Brewer, whom most of the church members assumed was acting on George Oehler’s orders, responded by “jump[ing] through the window and open[ing] the door of the church by violence.”  The congregation reacted swiftly; on April 7, 1866, the elders of the church voted to suspend George Oehler, “whose sympathies were entirely with the north from the church and from his office as elder.”¹²

Despite his suspension from the church, which no doubt damaged his standing within the Ramah Community, George Oehler, his wife and his children stayed in the community and continued life on their farm.  Eventually, the family was welcomed back to Ramah Presbyterian Church, where George and Elizabeth Oehler worshipped until their deaths.¹³

George Oehler’s death in 1871 left his wife, Elizabeth, with full ownership of the farm.  She and her son, Milas, ran the farm with the help of tenants and farmhands, and after Elizabeth Oehler died in 1883, Milas took over ownership of the farm and a majority of the land.¹⁴  Although Milas continued to farm his father’s property after his mother’s death, living in the house with his wife, Susan Morrison Oehler, their five children and several relatives, his interest in farming dwindled as his interest in gold increased, until finally, in the early 1920s, Milas (then in his sixties) abandoned the farm in Mecklenburg County and headed west to look for gold.¹⁵  Other members of the Oehler family drifted into and out of the Erwin-Oehler House, until Milas returned briefly in 1926 to mortgage his family homestead to a man named Wash Davis.  The property, including the house and approximately 160 acres, was sold in 1945 to Sherrill and Georgia Ferrell of Guilford County for $5,500.00.¹⁶  The family lived in the house until Sherrill’s death in 1985.  The property is presently owned by Ferrell’s daughter, Frances Ferrell Rogers, and was occupied by her son, David Rogers, until 1999.¹⁷  Now vacant, the house remains an excellent example of a nineteenth century farmhouse, and a visible reminder of the prosperous agricultural economy that existed in Mecklenburg County before, during, and after the Civil War.

Architectural Description

Mecklenburg County was, like most areas in North Carolina, primarily a county of small farmers until well into the twentieth century.  As a result, most of the rural dwellings built in Charlotte-Mecklenburg during the 1800s tended to be modest farmhouses.  By far the most popular and widespread vernacular architectural form in Mecklenburg was the simple “I-house” ­ a two-story, three-bays-wide by one-bay-deep rectangular structure, often with a front porch and detached kitchen in the rear (many were later attached to become rear kitchen ells).  The interior was a straightforward, practical plan, most often consisting of a central hall flanked on each side by a single room.  Although Mecklenburg farmers were not entirely ignorant of national architectural trends, particularly after the arrival of the railroad in 1852, only a select few had the time or the means to erect elaborate structures.  Often, details of a particularly popular architectural style would be modified and simply integrated or “attached” to the basic I-house form.  In this way, well-to-do farmers in the first half of the 1800s could use restrained Federal ornamentation or grand Greek Revival elements to reflect their status in the community.  Only a few decades later, the mechanization of building practices and the widening network of railroads allowed even modest farmers the opportunity to transform their simple dwellings into elaborate Victorian structures, with the addition of mass-produced spindles, sawnwork, and vergeboards which could be tacked onto the exterior of any building.  Despite this continual changing of surface details, the I-house remained the most popular house form in Mecklenburg County until well into the twentieth century.  Even today, a person driving through rural portions of Mecklenburg and surrounding counties might typically encounter dozens of clapboard-covered I-houses.¹⁸

When George Oehler arrived in Mecklenburg County in 1842, he was no doubt influenced by the vernacular architecture of the area, particularly the ubiquitous I-house.  When he bought land on which to erect his house in the Ramah community in 1852, Oehler planned a house that fit perfectly into the rural built environment, but which also reflected European architectural influences.  The Erwin-Oehler House is undoubtedly an I-house form (a rectangular, two-story, one-pile structure) but several features make the house distinctive – a unique version of a rather common house type.  Oehler’s use of brick in place of the usual wooden clapboards reflects a European predilection for brick and stone structures ­ according to Virginia and Lee McAlister, authors of A Field Guide to American Houses, although structures with masonry load bearing walls were the minority in America, they were most often constructed by European immigrants who wished to continue the tradition of their homelands, where wood was scarce and brick was  considered a superior building material.¹⁹  The walls of the Erwin-Oehler House, several feet thick in places, are unusual features on a relatively small farmstead.  Oehler’s decision to build a basement kitchen instead of a detached kitchen also diverged from popular local building practices.  Basements required more time and labor than a simple frame outbuilding, and though small root or storm cellars were common in Mecklenburg farmhouses, a large kitchen basement like the one beneath the Erwin-Oehler House, complete with brick floor and two large cooking fireplaces, was an unusually elaborate element in a simple farmhouse.

The original portion of the Erwin-Oehler Houseis a two-story, side gable, rectangular brick structure done in common bond, three-bays-wide by one-bay deep with regular fenestration and two brick end chimneys.  Several family stories debate the origin of the brick used for the house ­ one story contends that the brick was shipped from England to Charleston and brought up to the homesite by a wagon train led by slaves; another contends that the bricks were made on site.²⁰  Although brick was commonly brought from Charleston to areas inland, and particularly to Charlotte, it was most often a type of brick called “pressed brick,” made and shipped to Charleston from Philadelphia.  North Carolina produced mainly common brick, both in commercial brickyards and small, on-site productions.²¹ The foundation is constructed of large slabs of granite, encasing a full kitchen basement beneath the house.  Granite was also used for the sill of the houses windows, which contain wooden muntins and frames, many held together with wooden pegs and apparently original to the house.  Oehler family history claims that, originally, two large porches flanked the front and back elevations of the house.  The present porch is not original, and was most likely constructed in the 1940s by Sherrill Ferrell, who also constructed the wooden addition on the southeast side of the house, which contained a more modern kitchen, bathroom and family room.²² Another major addition was added earlier to the rear of the house, quite possibly as a kitchen ell to replace the original basement kitchen, which may have proven impractical for the household.  The wooden ell is in a state of great disrepair and has fallen away from the original house.

Although the house itself has suffered from neglect and interior alterations, it remains an excellent and uncommon example of a nineteenth-century farmhouse. Moreover, the rural and agricultural context of the house have remained virtually intact.  The house is currently surrounded by over 140 acres of undeveloped, undisturbed land.  From the house, one can look out onto an uninterrupted view of fields and woodlands, and it is easy to imagine what life on this farm  (and in rural Mecklenburg County in general) might have been like almost 150 years ago.

Notes

¹ Auswanderungsakten, 1806-1888, Brackenheim (Wuerttemburg) Oberamt (microfilm):         record of application for permission to emigrate.  Marriage bond for George Martin Oehler and Elizabeth B. Thomasson, 5 January 1841, Mecklenburg County, NC.

² Ramah Presbyterian Church Records.  George and Elizabeth’s children were all baptized at the church.

³ Thomas Hanchett, “The Growth of Charlotte: A History” (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, 1985).

⁴ Sherry J. Joines and Dr. Dan L. Morrill, “Historic Rural Resources in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina”  (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, 1997).  An 1850 North Carolina agricultural analysis listed Mecklenburg County third in the state in cotton production, fourth in butter production, eleventh in corn production and twelfth  in wheat production.

⁵ Letter from Marilyn Brown to Emily Ramsey, dated 20 August 2000.  These six Oehler families settled around the Mecklenburg/Cabarras County line and joined Presbyterian congregations in Ramah, Mallard Creek and Poplar Tent.

⁶ Marriage Bond for George Martin Oehler and Elizabeth B. Thomasson, 5 January 1851, Mecklenburg County, NC.   Eighth Census of the United States: Population  Schedule, Mecklenburg County (1860). 

⁷ Interview with JoAnne Brown Miller, August 2000, hereafter cited as “Miller Interview.”   Seventh Census of the Unites States; Population and Agricultural Schedules, Mecklenburg County (1860). Erwin, in addition to serving two terms in the North Carolina State Legislature, was also a Deputy Sheriff, a Justice of the Peace, and an Elder at Ramah Presbyterian Church.

⁸ Joines and Morrill, www.cmhpf.org .  The Survey contends that “inspection of the property suggests the house might date from the 1860s or 1870s.”

⁹ Eighth Census of the United States: Agricultural Schedule, Mecklenburg County (1860). 

¹⁰ Eighth Census of the United States: Population  Schedule, Mecklenburg County (1860). 

¹¹ Miller Interview.  Letter to Dr. Robert D. Billinger from Marilyn Brown, dated August 17, 2000.

¹² Nell Bradford Jenkins.  They Would Call It Ramah Grove: A History of Ramah Presbyterian Church (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library ­ Main Branch, Robinson Spangler Carolina Room, 1999), p.14.

¹³ Ibid, p. 283-284.  George Oehler (who died in 1871) and Elizabeth Oehler (who died in 1883), along with a number of their children and descendents, are buried in the Ramah Presbyterian Church cemetery.

¹⁴ Will of George Oehler, Mecklenburg County, N.C., probated May 1873.

¹⁵ Miller Interview.

¹⁶ Mecklenburg County Deed Book #692  (Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds, Charlotte, N.C.), page 176.  Mecklenburg County Deed Book #1140 (Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds, Charlotte, N.C.), page 245.

¹⁷ Interview with Frances Rogers, September 2000, hereafter cited as “Rogers Interview.”

¹⁸ Catherine W. Bisher,  Charlotte V. Brown, Carl R. Lounsbury and Ernest H. Wood III,  Architects and Builders in North Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building (The University of North Carolina Press, 1990)  p.193. Joines and Morrill, www.cmhpf.org .

¹⁹ Virginia and Lee McAlester,  A Field Guide to American Houses  (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1984) p. 89-90.

²⁰ Miller Interview. Rogers Interview.

²¹ Bisher, et. al, p.235-236.

²² Miller Interview.

Special Note:   Subsequent to the preparation of this report, the Commission received an email on November 4, 2009, from Linda Long, a descendant of Caleb Erwin:

I am writing concerning the George & Elizabeth Oehler House.  I am a direct descendant of Caleb Erwin.  I recently received a box of photos that was in my mother’s attic.  In is a photo from early 1900’s of a house.  On the back it says, “Great, great grandfather Erwin built is still standing.  N.C.”  I’m attaching a copy of the front and back of the photo.  According to what I’ve read there has been a debate over whether the Oehler house was built by Caleb or by Oehler’s and that no evidence exists to support that Caleb built it but that he just sold the land to the Ohelers.  My picture appears to be the same house and apparently it was believed at the time of the picture that the house was built by Caleb.  I just thought someone might be interested in this information. 

This information proves that the house was built by Caleb Erwin, not George and Elizabeth Oehler.  Hence, the name of the house should be changed to the Erwin-Oehler House.

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Oakley House is located at 129 Main Street, Pineville, North Carolina.
2. Name and address of the present owner of the property: The present owner of the property is:

Charles R. and Frances Eubanks Yandell

PO Box 69

Pineville, NC 28134

3. Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property. Color slides are available at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission office.
4. Maps depicting the location of the property: This report contains a map depicting the location of the property.   The UTM coordinates are 17510195E  3882238N.

5. Current deed book reference to the property: The most recent deed to this property is recorded in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 03453 on page 210. The tax parcel number of the property is #22106410
6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property.
7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property.
8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets criteria for designation set forth in N. C. G. S. 160A-400.5:
9. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Oakley House does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations:

1)      The house was built by C.S. Oakley, a prominent man of commerce in Pineville, who owned the Pineville Lumber Company and was the President of the Pineville Loan and Savings Bank.

2)      The Oakley House is Pineville’s only example of an early twentieth century grand town home with meticulous attention to architectural detail and scale.

3)      The house is one of the few remaining historic homes on Main Street and one of the last vestiges of the former residential streetscape of Main Street.

4)      For over eighty years the Oakley House was home to some of Pineville’s leading citizens.  Richard Eubanks, who occupied the house from 1930 to 1971, was a community leader and served on the Mecklenburg County School Board for ten years.   His son-in-law Charles R. Yandell, who lived in the house from 1972 to 2002, has been active in Pineville local government for nearly fifty years, serving as mayor, mayor pro-tem, and several consecutive terms on the town council.

5)      The Oakley House features elements of the Prairie Style, which is extremely rare in Mecklenburg County.

1. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association: The Commission contends that the physical and architectural description which is included in this report demonstrates that the Oakley House meets this criterion.
2. Ad Valorem tax appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a designated “historic landmark.” The current total appraised value of the improvements is $3,600. The current appraised value of the lot is $561,200. The current total tax value is $564,800.
3. Portion of property recommended for designation: The exterior and interior of the House, and the property associated with the tax parcel are recommended for historic designation.

Date of preparation of this report: May 2003

Prepared by: Stewart Gray and Dr. Paula M. Stathakis

Historical Overview  

Businessman and banker C.S. Oakley built the house that bears his name on Pineville’s Main Street in the early 1920s. Pineville, a rural hamlet eleven miles south of Charlotte, was historically a cotton center. Originally named “Morrow’s Turnout,” the town changed its name to “Pineville” when the Charlotte, Columbia, and Augusta Railroad built a depot there in 1852. The name Pineville derived from the large stands of pine trees common in the area.[1] The town was incorporated in 1872, and its charter was locally famous for its  provision that prohibited the sale of “spirituous liquors” within the town limits or within one mile from town.[2] By 1903, the population was nearly 700, and the majority of these inhabitants were involved in some way with the production or processing of cotton. According to D.A. Tompkins, by 1900 the town had ten stores, [located in a commercial district of approximately two blocks] and three to six thousand bales of cotton were sold there annually. In 1890, businessmen from Charlotte established the Dover Yarn Mill. A weaving department was added to the mill in 1902 that by then employed over two hundred operatives on 9400 spindles and 400 looms.[3] The mill was purchased in 1902 by Chadwick-Hoskins Mills and acquired in 1946 by Cone Mills.[4] The cotton gin built by the Miller brothers in 1915  remained in continuous operation, in various incarnations, until the 1970s.[5]  In the autumn, farmers loaded their cotton onto mule-drawn wagons and lined up for blocks outside of the gin, some spending the night in line, anxious to gin and sell their cotton since this was the only income most of them had to show for the year.[6] Local cotton farmers plowed with mules and flocked to town on Saturdays to sell their crops, shop, pay debts, extend their credit, trade mules, and take corn to the mill.[7] The Miller family owned most of the stores on the north side of Main Street, and William Yandell owned most of the stores on the south side of Main Street. There was substantial commercial diversity crammed into this two block business district: four grocery stores, a dime store, a drug store, a doctor’s office, a hardware store, two barbershops, a pool room, a beauty shop, a radio repair shop, a livery stable and blacksmith, hotel rooms, the Post Office, and ice house, movie theatre, a gas station and a funeral home.[8]

Main Street, Pineville – 1915

The Pineville of C.S. Oakley’s day was a small cotton town on a railroad line the quiet weekdays of which were punctuated by bustling Saturdays in the mercantile and commercial shops along Main Street’s modest business corridor. The mill whistle signaled the start of the day at 5:30 am. Whistles from steam engines and trains, the sound of tractors, A and T model Fords, and the distant sounds of cows mooing formed part of  the ordinary daily experience of the Pineville resident.  Of all of the town’s inhabitants, Oakley was perhaps the most prominent of his day. He was a leading man of business in the small town and was the owner of the Pineville Lumber Company and the President of the Pineville Loan and Savings Bank. Oakley acquired the property on which the house sits, then approximately four acres, in 1919 from W.E. Younts for $1500.00.[9] Little else is know about Oakley, but this large and stylish house amply demonstrates his community status and preeminence. Of the grand houses that once lined Pineville’s Main Street, this house was certainly the most finely appointed and designed. The scale and fine millwork evident in the structure are silent testimony to a man who was, for a brief time, influential, upwardly mobile, and anxious to display this facility through the grandeur of his home. Unfortunately, according to the scant references available for Oakley in the public record, his fortunes appear to have dissipated as quickly as they were amassed. By 1922, Oakley had declared bankruptcy and had to sell the house at auction. J.M. Niven purchased the house, with the high bid of $7500.00. Oakley’s wife Gertrude received $350.00 to satisfy her claim of dower, and the house was formally transferred to Niven on January 30, 1923.[10] According to local tradition, Oakley quickly left town after this unpleasant change of fate.

The Niven family retained the house until 1935, when they sold it to Richard Gatling Eubanks.[11] Eubanks, a native of Como, North Carolina, was educated at Major Baird’s School in Charlotte and at Harvard University. During the First World War, Eubanks served in the United States Navy and after the war worked as the plant manager for the Southern Cotton Oil Company, located in Charlotte near the intersection of Tremont and South Boulevard. He also served on the Mecklenburg County School Board for ten years. He married Lila Hall, whose family was established in Pineville, and whose family home was formerly located across Main Street on the other side of the Main Street and Polk Street intersection. William Lee Hall ran a general store next door to his house and also owned a corn mill located behind the store.[12]

Tom Eubanks ca. 1950	Eubanks Grandchildren 1962

Although the Oakley House was formally located “in town,” the Eubanks family raised chickens, cows and a garden on their four-acre tract. They also rented one acre to the Miller family who used it to grow cotton. Tom Eubanks recalled several entertaining anecdotes about growing up in the house. His father always wondered if Oakley hid any money in the house, so he often looked in newel posts and other discrete locations just in case. One afternoon Tom and his older brother Dick were playing with a .22 rifle in the east-facing bedroom and shot out the window because they did not realize the gun was loaded. The windowsill is still chipped from this escapade. Tom Eubanks often hid from his music teacher, Anna Lee Younts Hoffman, [who lived to be 103], in the music room closet. [The Eubanks family designated the small room off the foyer as the music room.] Invariably Anna Hoffman thought Tom was hiding outside which gave him some reasonable opportunities to avoid or at least curtail his music lesson.[13]

Perhaps the most intriguing stories were related to Tom by their neighbor across the street, Mrs. Beulah Younts. Tom Eubanks remembered that as a boy, the ladies of Pineville put on their formal attire in the afternoons and sat on their front porches to watch the social activity and to engage their neighbors and friends in conversation. Beulah Younts sat on her porch finely dressed down to her white gloves, and would often tell young Tom interesting stories about the old days in Pineville. She related, for example, that several months after the Civil War ended, a straggler came to their home; and as they tried to chase him away, the family realized the bedraggled man was their father, who was so threadbare and disheveled as to be unrecognizable. However her most memorable and most mysterious story concerned the refugees that staggered through Pineville after the Civil War. In those days, Main Street was narrower and unpaved. The Oakley house was not yet built, and most of that lot was covered by a stand of tall pine trees, and this became a place where the refugees camped on their way through town. One evening, a little girl belonging to one of these families died and was buried in the camp. Beulah Younts told Tom that the child was buried in what is now a section of the Oakely House front yard. Tom Eubanks says that no human remains have ever been found on the property, but the family never disturbed the area where this burial was alleged to have taken place. [14]

Richard and Lila Eubanks lived in the house until the early 1970s. Richard Eubanks died on July 4, 1971, and after his death, the house was conveyed to his daughter Frances and her husband Charles R. Yandell. Charles Yandell is the son of William Yandell, both lifelong Pineville residents and civic leaders. Charles married his childhood friend Frances Eubanks in 1950, and the couple occupied the Oakley house from 1972 until 2002. The Yandells built the downstairs rear addition to the house. Charles Yandell was educated at the University of South Carolina and served in the United States Army Air Force during the Second World War. At 23 years of age he was a second lieutenant and a navigator in the 8^th Air Force. On his fifth bombing mission, he and his crew were shot down fifty miles from Dusseldorf, and he was subsequently taken prisoner, spending nine months in Stalag 1.[15] When he returned to civilian life, he had a career as a pharmacist and a pharmaceutical salesman for Eli Lily. Although Yandell traveled for his job, he devoted a considerable part of his life to local government. He was elected to his first position on the Pineville Town Council in 1946 and served continuously on that board until the 1980s when he was elected mayor pro-tem. He was elected mayor in 1988, and he remains civically active by serving on various town boards.[16]

The Oakley House has seen many changes in Pineville, the most notable of which has been the result of increased suburban land use and development in the area. As land prices rose in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, farmers began to sell their cotton fields to developers. As commercial and retail development converged on the town along the U.S. 521 and N.C. 51 corridors, the once rural area became more congested with new residents and traffic, and less isolated from Charlotte. Antiques shops have replaced the general stores that once dominated the town’s business district, and nearly all of the town’s older stately homes have been removed to accommodate new businesses along Main Street. The Oakley House is one of the few remaining residential structures that provides a snapshot of early twentieth century Pineville.

[1] The Charlotte Observer, February 28, 1950, “Pineville Has Been Important Area  of Mecklenburg Since Its Founding;” The Charlotte News,  December 27, 1975, “Depot May Become Museum,” 8A.

[2] The Charlotte News, Clippings file, Spangler Room, Public Library of Mecklenburg County no date or title.

[3] D.A. Tompkins, History Of Mecklenburg County and The City of Charlotte From 1740-1903, Vol. 2, (Charlotte, N.C.: Charlotte Printing House, 1903), p. 198.

[4] LeGette Blythe and Charles Raven Brockman, Hornets’ Nest. The Story of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, (Charlotte: McNally, 1961), p. 418.

[5] The Charlotte News,  October 12, 1972, “Pineville Braces for Era of Rapid Growth,” Tom Denton, 2C.

[6] Joe Howard Griffin, Sr., “My Hometown, Pineville. History, Hearsay, Memories, and Scrapbook of Pineville” Unpublished manuscript, property of Thomas H. Eubanks.

[7] Booklet, “Welcome to Pineville,” Clippings file; The Charlotte Observer, October 18, 1989, “Where Cotton Wagons Once Rolled, Now Cars, Antiques rule Pineville’s Main Street,” Dianne Whitacre, p. 20, Mecklenburg Neighbors.

[8] Joe Howard Griffin, Sr. “My Hometown, Pineville.”

[9] Mecklenburg County Court House, Register of Deeds, Deed 412-265, November 4, 1919. Younts acquired the property in 1885 from H. K. Reid, deed 47-1.

[10] Deed 491-127.

[11] Deed 869-316, June 25, 1935. Eubanks purchased the house for $4000.00.

[12] Obituary, Richard Gatling Eubanks, The Charlotte Observer, July 5, 1971; Interview with Thomas H. Eubanks, May 8, 2003.  Richard Eubanks was a distant relative of the inventor of the Gatling Gun.

[13] Interview, Tom Eubanks. May 8, 2003

[14] Ibid.

[15] The Charlotte Observer, July 13. 1988, “ 44 Year Old Memories revived by Pineville Mayor’s POW Medal,” Pat Borden Gubbins, Mecklenburg Neighbors.

[16] Joe Howard Griffin, Sr., “My Hometown Pineville.”

Architectural Description

The Oakley House is a substantial and impressive building.  Built around 1920, the house incorporates architectural elements associated with the Prairie and Craftsman Styles, but it shares none of the cottage aesthetic associated with many of Mecklenburg County’s early 20^th Craftsman Style-influenced homes.   Instead the house was a showplace, reflecting the status of one of Pineville’s leading businessmen, and perhaps advertising the stylish millwork available through his lumber business.  During the first half of the 20^th century, the Oakley House was considered the grandest house in the town of Pineville[1], and a survey of existing homes near the town’s historical center supports that contention.  The only extant house identified with a similar degree of stature and architectural elaboration is the 1883 Italinate-Style Younts House, which sits across Main Street from the Oakley House.

The Oakley House faces north and is situated on a large flat lot that is elevated above Main Street.  The house sits 70 feet from the road.  The massed plan two-story house features a crossed gable design, with a large gable over each elevation.  Despite this, the house is notably asymmetrical, with a great deal of effort having been taken to avoid flat exterior walls. Among the house’s many notable architectural features, perhaps the most prominent is the gabled front porch.  Supported by massive Prairie-Style square masonry piers, the large porch features boxed beams, which curve down to form capitals.  The piers were constructed with terra cotta blocks covered with stucco, and etched to resemble masonry block, and the concrete porch was covered with square tile.  The westernmost end of the porch extends beyond the house forming a cross-gabled porte-cochere, also supported by massive Prairie Style square masonry piers.  A curving drive, consisting of two narrow strips of poured concrete, begins at the northwest corner of the lot and runs through the carport.  The house’s fenestration is impressive, especially on the front elevation.  The house is three bays wide, with the front entrance and easternmost bay recessed approximately five feet.  The four-foot wide mahogany front door contains a single large beveled light, and is border by tall single-light mahogany sidelights.   The easternmost bay contains a large picture window topped by a five-light transom.  To the west of the front door an even larger picture window is topped by an eight-light transom.  On the second-story the asymmetrical fenestration continues with a prominent three-sided bay with another transom-topped picture window set between double-hung four-over-one windows.  The three-sided bay is protected by a projecting secondary gable.  To the east of the three-sided bay, three more four-over-one double-hung windows are ganged together.  All ten of the house’s principal and secondary gables are decorated with green shingle siding, and are supported by Craftsman-Style brackets.  The end of each bracket is beveled and protrudes through the house’s substantial vergeboards.  The vergeboards are topped with moulded trim.  A shed-roofed oriel is centered in the principal front gable, and contains two four-vertical-light sash.  The topmost section of the gable is a vent, covered with square lattice.

The west elevation is nearly as complex as the front, with the west gable of the porte-cochere, a square stuccoed stepped chimney, and a large bowed five-window bay.  The Chimney, like the porch piers and the house’s brick foundation, is etched to resemble masonry block, and is bordered on each side by pairs of three-lite casement windows.  On the second-story two sections of the wall cantilever over the first-story bowed bay, with a secondary gable covering the most deeply projecting section.  The extended eave of the primary gable runs down to the porch roof.

Bay on west elevation

East elevation

The east elevation is simpler, featuring one picture window with a five-light transon, and a ribbon of four three-vertical-lite casement windows.  On the second-story, the wall section directly under the east-facing gable is cantilevered out slightly and contains two pairs of four-over-one windows.

The rear of the house is covered by a single large gable.  A ribbon of three casement windows abut a shallow hipped-roof kitchen wing and screened porch, which extend from the rear of the house perhaps six feet.  Above this another hipped bump-out encloses closets for the upstairs bedroom.   Original glazed panel doors remain in place.  The second-story is pierced by more four-over-one double-hung windows.

The most notable change to the exterior of the house is the addition of vinyl siding, which obscures moulded corner boards, a wide water table band over the foundation, and the vergeboard, brackets, and rafter tails in the eaves.  The small windows in the oriel have also been covered.   A large two-car garage has been added to the southwest corner of the house, along with a one-story gabled rear bedroom addition.  The ribbon of casements windows on the rear of the house have been incorporated into a new interior hallway.

The interior of the house is largely intact.  Plaster wall are found throughout, along with tall baseboards and simple but pronounced door and window trim.  Craftsman-Style interior features include tapered interior posts, a corbelled brick fireplace, and numerous built-in cabinets and window seats.  I appears that all of the home’s French and paneled interior doors remain in place with their original hardware.  Narrow strip oak floors are covered by carpet.  The upstairs bedrooms appear to be unaltered and feature original wall sconces.  The upstairs bath features the original tub and fixtures.

The condition of the house appears to be good, and the integrity of the building is high due to the large amount of original material.