This report was written on 30 October 1990

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Murkland Presbyterian Church is located at Old Providence Road in Charlotte, NC.

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

Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church
7001 Old Providence Road
Charlotte, North Carolina

Telephone: (704) 365-5032

Tax Parcel Number: 211-021-01

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

4. A man depicting the location of the property: This report contains maps which depict the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent deed to this property is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 312 at page 315. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is 211-021-01.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Paula Stathakis.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Nora M. Black.

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

 

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Murkland Presbyterian Church does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following consideration:
1) the Murkland Presbyterian Church was founded by ex-slaves and freedmen who left the Providence Presbyterian Church about 1866;
2) the Murkland Presbyterian Church was named for its first pastor, Rev. Sidney Murkland;
3) the ca.1912 structure that formerly housed the Murkland Presbyterian Church is architecturally significant as an early 20th century vernacular interpretation of the carpenter Gothic style;
4) the two entry towers of the west facade serve as focal points of the Old Providence Road landmark;
5) interior details such as the curved ceiling are examples of a high level of local craftsmanship; and
6) the property is a visual reminder of the varied contributions made by all aspects of religious life to the black community of Mecklenburg County.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural description by Nora M. Black which is included in this report demonstrates that the Murkland Presbyterian Church 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 which becomes a designated “historic landmark.” The current appraised value of the improvements is $263,670. The current appraised value of the 6.540 acres is $163,500. The total appraised value of the property is $427,170. The property is zoned R-15.

Date of Preparation of this Report: 30 October 1990

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill in conjunction with Nora M. Black
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission
1225 South Caldwell Street, Box D
Charlotte, North Carolina 28203

Telephone: (704) 376-9115

 

Historical Overview  

Paula M. Stathakis

The Murkland Presbyterian Church (now the Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church) was organized under the director of the Reverends Samuel G. Alexander, Sidney Murkland, and Willis L Miller. These men organized three other black Presbyterian congregations: The McClintock Church, the Seventh Street Church, and the Woodland Church. They were also instrumental in the development of the Biddle Institute (1867), a school for the education of black ministers. In addition to their work in Mecklenburg County, they also secured the organization Catawba Presbytery, the first all black Presbytery in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., which was authorized in 1887 Murkland Church was included in this Presbytery.¹

The date of the actual organization of the Murkland Church was never recorded. An informal church history claims that the church was founded as early as 1864, but taking the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation into consideration, the year of organization was probably 1865 if not later. The majority of the first members of Murkland Church were ex-slaves, who were formerly compelled to attend the dominantly white Providence Presbyterian Church. Slave members of Providence Presbyterian Church were allowed to attend church services from the upstairs gallery built especially for this purpose. Providence Church historian Louise Barber Matthews found that the slave members wished to have their own prayer meetings on Sunday afternoons. By 1862, they were given permission to do so only if two or more white men were present for fear of insurrection. By 1864, the rigors and the stress of war had a dispiriting effect on the Providence congregation. The session books record that “servants” were disinclined to take communion and were prone to drunkenness and fighting. These problems were also prevalent among the white members of the church.

Beginning in 1865, the Providence Presbyterian Church Session minutes indicate the elders’ concern about the “irregularities with the Colored people” which seemed in some way connected with their new freedom. In May of that year, many black members of the church formed a Sunday School under the supervision of William Rea. They met for one hour starting at 10:00 a.m. devoting one-half hour to teaching letters, spelling, and reading. The other half hour was devoted to catechism lessons. By October of 1887, the Rev. Willis L Miller of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. intervened to advise the black members or Providence to form their own church. This rankled the session of the Providence Church because many black members left without asking permission to organize into a church “separate and distinct from ours.” The session decided to “omit from the roll of members of this church without censure” those ex-slaves who chose to leave. According to Matthews, former black members of the Providence Presbyterian Church have “name erased, April 29, 1866” on the church rolls when they withdrew from the church. Many left to go to Murkland. ³

Little is known about the original members of Murkland church. Murkland does not have any extant records from this period. According to the Rev. D. G. Burke, who grew up in the Murkland Church, and who wrote a general history of the Catawba Presbytery, most black churches from this period have few or no records from the period of their organization.⁴ What is known is that the Rev. Sidney Murkland was the first pastor of the church. The next pastors Rev. Matthew Ijams was the first black to minister to the Murkland congregation. The first elders were G. W. Grier, M. W. Peoples, James Porter, and Henry Porter. The first deacons were John Burke, William Hines, and Aron Stitt. There is also a list of fifteen original members; however, it is probably safe to assume that these fifteen represent only a portion of the total original membership.⁵

The original church building is no longer standing. No one remembers what it looked like, but some members vaguely recollect that it resembled the Providence Presbyterian Church. Mr. Adolphus Jones, oldest living member of the church at age 102, remembers that this church was called “Little Providence” and Providence Presbyterian was called “Big Providence.” He also remembers a session house was built behind the church.⁶ Rev. Burke believes that the church was constructed according to plans provided by the Presbytery, and paid for with a loan from the national church. This structure burned in the first decade of this century. The precise date of the destruction of the old church and the construction of the second structure were never recorded and are long-forgotten. One may estimate the date of the fire by the memories of some of the long-time church remembers. Mr. John McGrant vividly remembers the fire; he thinks he was either six or eight at the time. Mrs. Rosa Bell Cuthberson remembers hearing the bell that signaled the fire at age four. Mrs. Cuthberson was born in 1907, Mr. McGrant was born in 1903; this would put the date of the fire c. 1911.⁷

A brush fire that burned out of control caused the fire. Mr. Jones, who owns a farm across the road from the church, says that the fire came from behind his property. The church, which was built of wood, burned quickly. Somebody managed to get inside and worked in their fields. When it was apparent that it was impossible to save the building, Mrs. Alexander White and Mrs. Maggie Grier ran into the church and managed to haul out some of the pews. Some Bibles were saved as well. Benches, Bibles, and the church bell were the only objects to survive the blaze.⁸

A new church was built on the same site as the old church. The date of construction is uncertain, but it was probably c. 1912. The style of the church, Carpenter’s Gothic, is not common in this area, but a few other churches in the area that exhibit this design were built between 1911 and 1915.⁹

This church was built by Mr. Billy Stewart and Mr. Charlie Jarman (Yarmouth?). They were assisted by any members of the congregation who were able to contribute time or materials. Mr. McGrant helped Stewart and Jarman by doing odd jobs, such as carrying water. This church is an impressive structure for a community volunteer effort. There were professional carpenters in the church membership, and as one member has pointed out, the people were able to lay straight rows in their fields without surveyors. That they could build a solid church is not so surprising. It is not known if they were assisted with any details, such as the installation of the windows.¹⁰ The stained glass windows in the new church were a gift from the Matthews Presbyterian Church, which was in the process of building a new church. Two women from the Murkland Church, Jennie Morrison, and Nancy Grier, worked for a physician who was a member of Matthews Presbyterian Church, and who arranged this donation.¹¹

The bell was saved from the first church, and in addition to signaling Sunday morning services, was a vehicle that relayed news to the surrounding community. If the bell rang fast, it announced an emergency, such as a fire. If it rang slowly, it tolled someone’s death.¹²

A cemetery is situated behind the church. The majority of graves there are unmarked, which makes it difficult if not impossible to know how many people are buried there and who is there. Most of the churchyard is cleared land, but the lot is very deep and some graves are now hidden in the overgrowth of trees in the furthest reaches. The graves that are marked are oriented with the feet facing east. The oldest marked graves belong to Eliza Peoples, May 1, 1848-October 1, 1866-January 31, 1905; Harriet Ann Stitt, November 6, 1848-December 19, 1895; Lucinda Peoples, 1848-1908.

The church has played a central role in the lives of its members. Going to church on Sundays was the culminating event of the week. Those who lived close to church walked to Sunday services; those who had to travel long distances arrived in surreys, mule carts, and ox carts. It was common for families to travel well over three miles for Sunday services.¹³

Sunday School began at 9:00 a.m. Every child brought an offering to Sunday School, usually a penny or a nickel, which Miss Elnora Stitt remembers taking tied to a handkerchief for safekeeping. Church services followed Sunday School and lasted until 1:00 p.m.¹⁴ The Church had no piano, and singing was accompanied by clapping. A lead singer would “pitch” the melody and the rest of the congregation would follow.¹⁵

Seating was arranged by sex; men sat on one side, the women opposite them, and children and visitors sat in the rear. Before the church had electricity, gas lamps lit the interior and a large wood stove sat in the middle of the sanctuary. This spatial arrangement meant that when it was time to give the weekly offering, each person walked up to the altar to present their money as their name and amount given was recorded in a ledger. The return trip to their seat entailed continuing from the altar and around the stove. This process took each individual on a complete trip around the sanctuary.¹⁶ On special occasions, such as Homecoming, Children’s Day, or Communion, the congregation stayed after church for a picnic. Everyone contributed food for these events.¹⁷

The ministers of Murkland were paid a salary that was provided out of the offerings of the members. When money was scarce, the congregation took care of their preacher by paying in fatback, ham, butter, chickens, eggs, and milk: Visiting preachers frequently participated in homecomings and the revivals that were part of these events. To accommodate the visiting clergy, a different family fed him each day of the week. The preacher and the adults ate before the children of the house, whose duty was to shoo flies, since no one had screened windows and doors. Mrs. Rosa Bell Cuthberson recalled tending to a visiting preacher in her parents’ home: “we didn’t eat–we just shooing flies.” The children ate after the adults finished and there was always enough food left, but as Mrs. Cuthberson remembers, it took too long to get it.¹⁸

In addition to revivals, the Murkland community met on Saturdays for baseball games, the premier activity to “let your hair down.” Baseball was clearly serious business. Team pitcher John McGrant, could hardly wait for Saturday noon, to put up the mule and go play ball. The church sponsored a men’s baseball team and a women’s softball team. Not all team members were part of the church community, but an effort was made to recruit good ball players from the area as ammunition against the opposition. Both teams had uniforms with “Murkland Team” on them. These uniforms were described by John McGrant as first class, similar to those worn by professional teams.¹⁹

The ballfield was located on Alexander Road, approximately one mile from the church. Ballgames were invariably accompanied by picnics; refreshments were available across the road from the ballfield. Lemonade, made in a tin washtub with a block of ice to cool it, sold for five cents for all you could drink. Watermelon and home-made ice cream were also available, as well as fish that sold for ten to twenty-five cents. Additional entertainment at ball games in the 1920s was provided by a band organized by eight men from Murkland who played at picnics and ball games.²⁰

Spectators sat under the trees at the fringe of the field where they offered words of encouragement to the team, or advice when necessary. “Get an apron!” was the phrase best-remembered for players who let balls slip through their legs. The games usually lasted until 9:00 p.m. If a game lasted into darkness, those how brought cars would turn their headlights on the field so the players could see to finish the game.

Saturday nights, when not taken up with ball games, were the time for fish frys or chitterlings dinners, with lemonade and home brew. These events were held at home, and the evening was not complete without square dancing. There was no music for dancing, just a caller, usually Walter Harrison.²²

The membership of the Murkland Church came from the outlying farming community. Their weekdays were spent hard at work in the fields, and their meager leisure time was reserved for church, baseball, and fish frys. These were self-sufficient people who raised everything they needed except coffee and sugar. Cotton was their cash crop. Church members now in their seventies and eighties remember picking cotton to earn enough money buy candy on Saturdays. A cotton gin was located in the vicinity operated by a Mr. Funderburke. Mr. Jones remembers two other cotton gins: one in Matthews owned by John Crittendon and one in Pineville owned by the Miller brothers.

Corn and wheat were ground at a mill in Monroe, or some had small, hand-crank mills at home. Two general stores in the neighborhood, Roger’s store (located the fork of Providence Road and Old Providence Road where an Exxon station stands today) and Hunter store provided these families with equipment, fertilizer, and other supplies that they could not grow or manufacture for themselves. ²⁴

The second Murkland Church served the congregation until a third church was built in the adjoining lot in 1976. The Matthews Chapel, also organized in the Catawba Presbytery in 1876 merged with Murkland in 1969. The reason for the merger was that Murkland pastor Dr. Daniel O. Hennigan was responsible for both congregations since 1963, and as a result each church had services every other Sunday. The consolidation of the churches seemed the best solution to the problem. The new church was called the Matthews-Murkland Church, and a new building was constructed on “neutral” to accommodate the congregation.²⁵ The second church was used for an arts and crafts building until 1983. It is not currently used.

The membership of the church is now scattered throughout Charlotte, but Sundays bring them all together again. This is a significant testimony of the enduring tradition of a community whose origins go back to a small group of freedmen and a handful of free blacks who founded the church. The second Murkland Presbyterian Church is significant. First, it is an important historical link to the community’s past, and there are many people who are able to personally identify with this structure as the place of Sunday School in their youth, where they married, or where they buried friends and family. Second, the church is a significant part of the greater Mecklenburg community. It is noteworthy as a country church, as a post-war southern church established outside the jurisdiction of the then Presbyterian Church in the United States (the southern church), and as the focus of a rural black farming community.

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NOTES

¹ Reverend D.G. Burke, The Catawba Story, 1886-1980. Historical Committee of the Catawba Presbytery, 1981, p. 1.

² Louise Barber Matthews, A History of the Providence Presbyterian Church. Charlotte, NC: Books-Litho, 1967, pp. 138, 147, 143.

³ Matthews, History of Providence, pp. 145,146. The session minutes of the Providence Presbyterian Church were not made available to verify this. There is no reason to assume that Matthews omitted any detail from the minutes in her church history. The Rev. D. G. Burke has seen the records at Providence Presbyterian Church, and confirms that the details concerning the names of black members who withdrew from the church at this time are virtually non-existent.

⁴ In his research for the Catawba Story, 1886-1930. Rev. Burke was unable to find any records for the Murkland church during the period of its organization. Rev. Burke has conducted thorough search in the Presbytery records and in the Assembly Records located in Philadelphia. He believes that this church probably kept records of members, but that this information was probably discarded by the church every time a new session was installed and began a new series of records that were simply more pertinent for their purposes at the time.

⁵ This information was taken from a History of the Murkland Presbyterian Church, submitted by C.A. Burke, clerk of session. This is an unpublished report to the session which is the property of the church and has no date.

⁶ Interview with Mr. Adolphus Jones, 8-1-90.

⁷ Interview with Mr. Adolphus Jones 8-1-90. Interview with long-time members of the Murkland Presbyterian Church, 8-5-90.

⁸ Interview with Mr. Adolphus Jones, 8-1-90; Interview with long-time members of Murkland Church, 8-12-90.

¹³ Interview with Mr. Adolphus Jones; Interview with long-time members of Murkland Church, 8-5-90, 8-12-90. Mr. Jones recalls some people using dog carts as another variety of travel.

¹⁴ Interview with long-time members of Murkland Church, 8-1-90. Mr. Walter Cuthberson managed to save six ledger books from the second Murkland Church. Some of these ledgers are the Sunday School records which show for the lessons read each Sunday, who was in attendance and the amount collected in offerings. Other ledgers are accounts of what individuals gave in church offerings.

¹⁵ Interview, 8-12-90.

¹⁶ Explained by Mr. Walter Cuthberson, 8-5-90.

¹⁷ Interview 8-12-90.

¹⁸ Interview, 8-12-90.

¹⁹ Interview, 9-2-90. The uniforms were purchased from Sears and Roebuck, the ever popular purveyor of material goods in the early twentieth century.

²⁰ Interview, 9-2-90. The members of the band were: Walter Harrison (lead horn), Jim Hood (bass drum), Tom Down (kettle drum), Bridey Morrison (alto horn), Ed Dunn (bass horn), Tom Barber (drum), Ed Massey, and William Weathers.

²¹ Interview, 9-2-90.

²² Interview, 8-12-90.

²³ Interview with Mr. Adolphus Jones, 8-1-90; Interview, 8-12-90.

²⁴ Interview, 8-12-90.

²⁵. From a historical sketch in the Homecoming Service Bulletin, 11-14-82. Access kindly provided by Mr. Harvey Boyd.

 

 

Architectural Description  

Nora M. Black

Murkland Presbyterian Church, located on the east side of Old Providence Road, presents a facade virtually unchanged since it was constructed during the early 20th Century. Sited on a low hilltop in a curve of Old Providence Road, the structure’s entry facade fares approximately west. Small additions on the northwest and southwest corners are in keeping with the original building.

The design is that of a carpenter Gothic building. It should be noted that carpenter Gothic buildings usually had very steeply pitched roofs. The pitch of the Murkland Presbyterian Church is not as steep as many buildings constructed in this style. Additionally, the weatherboarding is placed horizontally rather than vertically as might be seen in this style. Both the roof pitch and the horizontal cladding add to the vernacular interpretation of the style. The bold cross gables are indicative of the “Greek cross” plan featuring four arms of the building of equal length.

Facing Old Providence Road, the symmetrical one-story entry facade features twin recessed towers, one to each side of the centered gable wing. This breaks the entry facade into three vertical sections. The gable wing has two centered double-hung wooden sash with stained glass. Above the windows there is a pointed arch which has been infilled with weatherboarding. The arch extends into the wall surface of the gable, a feature typical of the carpenter Gothic style.

The twin towers provide distinction to the church and clearly mark the location of the doors. Since the vestibules and sanctuary are built over a crawl space, a flight of five steps leads up to the double doors at the base of each tower. The towers provide space for a vestibule on each side of the sanctuary. Above each set of double doors there is a pointed arch with tracery and stained glass. The six panel wooden doors have a single doorknob and lock; at the eave there are two electric lights above the doors. Each tower protrudes from the roof of the vestibule providing some of the most intricate detailing on the exterior of the building. The spire of each tower is topped with a metal finial. The roof of the sawer slopes down, then curves gently outward to the cave. On the two outside faces of each tower, there is a very steep gable cut into the curving roofline. There is a diamond shaped wooden vent directly beneath each gable.

The church was originally supported on brick piers; however, the brick piers have been infilled with concrete blocks. Both the piers and the infill have been painted white. The weatherboarding and trim have been painted white as well. The moderately steep pitch of the roof makes it a dominant feature. The black hexagonal-shaped shingles, with a pattern of French-method shingles, add visual interest to the building and the twin towers.

A small shed addition was added beside each tower/vestibule. The additions house restrooms; prior to their construction, church members had to use outhouses located some distance from the building. Although convenient for members, the location diminishes the power of the tower corners that were such a marked feature of the original facade.

Both the north and south (side) elevations of the building have three double-hung wooden sash that originally held stained glass. Each of the three windows has a pointed arch with tracery and stained glass above the double-hung sash. Some glass was broken by vandals; other glass has been removed and stored until the building is in use again. Clear glass and plywood cover some openings; other window openings are unprotected from the weather. A small square opening on each addition provided natural light in the restrooms. Originally the stained glass windows would be opened for ventilation during warm summer days.

A single side door on the south elevation at the rear of the building is approached by a set of six steps. A Lyle door gives access to the stage.

The two vestibules of the church may be entered through one of the two sets of double doors facing Old Providence Road. The church bell was rung using a rope that extends from the southwest tower into the southwest vestibule. The bell is visible through a square hole in the vestibule ceiling. In each vestibule, the exterior double doors may be locked by placing a heavy wooden bar across the center of the doors. Plaster in the vestibules has suffered some water damage.

The interior of the Murkland Presbyterian Church has a “Greek cross” plan. The original hardwood floor slopes down toward the building’s center from the west, north and south arms of the “Greek cross” plan. The east arm of the cross has a large wood-framed arched opening with a raised stage that was used by the minister and the choir. Stairs at the northeast corner of the stage lead to a small conference room above the stage. The original wooden doors between the vestibule and the sanctuary are still in place. The wooden ceiling, painted ivory, curves down to meet the walls. Metal hooks which are visible in the ceiling were used to hold gas lamps. At this time, electric lighting is provided by translucent globes hanging from the ceiling. The original wainscoting encircles the sanctuary.

A renovation after the construction of the new Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church turned the older building into a crafts, center. Wood paneling was used to construct walls across three arms of the “Greek cross” plan. The walls, which do not extend to the ceiling, separated the sanctuary into four separate activity areas. The paneling is not permanently attached; it is to be removed in the near future.

Murkland Presbyterian Church is no longer in regular use. The future may hold a rental of the structure to an emerging congregation. That will preserve many of the building’s fine features while providing an enduring landmark in the rapidly changing southern part of Charlotte.

 

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House is located at 800 Mt. Vernon Avenue, Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

2. Name, address, and telephone number of the present owners of the property: The owners of the property are:

Charles Thomas and Nancy E. Humphries
800 Mt. Vernon Avenue
Charlotte, North Carolina 28203

Telephone: (704) 372-8010

Tax Parcel Number: 123-093-01

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 which depict the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent deed to Tax Parcel Number 123-093-01 is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 5491 on page 0077.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Dr. William H. Huffman.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Nora M. Black.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets 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 Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations
1) Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon, born in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1869, began his service as a Methodist minister in 1889 in the Texas conference;
2) Bishop Mouzon was elected to the office of bishop in May, 1910;
3) Bishop Mouzon presided over most of the conferences of the church in the United States, as well as those of Mexico and South America;
4) Bishop Mouzon served as a delegate to the ecumenical conferences of the world in Toronto (1911), London (1921), and Atlanta (1931);
5) Bishop Mouzon set up the Methodist church of Brazil in 1930;
6) Bishop Mouzon was a widely known and respected preacher and author;
7) Bishop Mouzon and his second wife, Mary Pearl Langdon Mouzon, moved to Charlotte in 1927;
8) Bishop Mouzon was one of the country’s most prominent churchmen and the senior bishop of the Southern Methodist Church at the time of his death in 1937;
9) the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House was designed by the Charlotte architect, Marvin W. Helms;
10) Helms, a Mecklenburg County native who was associated with C. C. Hook, learned architecture by apprenticeship;
11) Helms designed hundreds of Methodist rural churches funded by the Duke Foundation;
12) Helms was particularly adept at Gothic detail and designed the 1926 sanctuary for the Dilworth Methodist Church;
13) the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House, completed in 1927, is architecturally significant as an Eclectic House built in the Tudor style;
14) the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House has many exterior features, such as the Tudor false half-timbering with stucco infill, that are intact and in good condition;
15) the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House has many interior appointments, such as the fireplaces and the woodwork, that are intact and in very good condition; and
16) the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House can provide valuable insight into “life in the streetcar suburb” of Dilworth.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural description by Nora M. Black included in this report demonstrates that the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon 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 which becomes a designated “historic landmark.” The current appraised value of the improvement is $207,860. The current appraised value of the auxiliary improvement is $2,890. The current appraised value of the 0.347 acres of Tax Parcel 123-093-01 is $100,000. The total appraised value of the property is $310,750. The property is zoned R4.

Date of Preparation of this Report: 28 December 1992

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill & Nora M. Black
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission
The Law Building, Suite 100, 730 East Trade Street
P. O. Box 35434
Charlotte, North Carolina

Telephone: (704) 376-9115

 

 

Historical Overview  

Dr. William H. Huffman

The Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House is historically significant because of its association with the Methodist bishop, and its design by Charlotte architect Marvin Helms, who executed plans for hundreds of churches during his long career.

Bishop Mouzon (1869-1937) was born in Spartanburg, SC, the son of Samuel Cogswell and Harriet Peurifoy Mouzon just four years after the close of the Civil War. Following service in the Confederate army, the elder Mouzon ran a photography and artist studio, in which the young Edwin began work at the age of eleven. Years later, the Bishop recalled that at the age of fifteen he “got religion” and was called to preach. In 1889, he graduated from Wofford College in Spartanburg, and in 1905 received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Southwestern University in Texas. He also received honorary doctor of laws degrees from Southwestern University in 1911, Duke University in 1930 and Southern Methodist University in 1935.¹

After graduation in 1889, his first ministerial assignment was in the Texas conference, and he subsequently pastured churches in Bryan, Austin, Caldwell, Galveston, Flatonia, Abilene, Fort Worth and San Antonio, as well as in Kansas City, MO. In 1908 he was appointed a professor of theology at Southwestern University, and two years later, in May, 1910, he was elected to the office of bishop, and was consecrated in Asheville, NC. In the succeeding years, Bishop Mouzon presided over most of the conferences of the church in the United States, as well as that of Mexico and South America. He was a delegate to the ecumenical conference of the world in Toronto, 1911; London, 1921; and Atlanta, 1931; and set up the Methodist church of Brazil in 1930. From his position of chairman of the Southern commission to unite American Methodism, he aggressively, but unsuccessfully, campaigned for that goal. A widely known and respected preacher and author, Bishop Mouzon was continually in demand as a speaker. Indeed, a newspaper article from the early Thirties reports that, “In a referendum among its readers by a widely read non-sectarian religious journal to find the 25 greatest preachers in America, the name of Mouzon was high up in the brackets.”²

He became nationally known for his “strongly pronounced” opposition to the election of the Democratic Governor of New York, Alfred E. Smith, for president in 1928 because of Smith’s opposition to Prohibition and his religion (Catholic). At the time, the bishop was given much of the credit for the defeat of Smith in several of the Southern states, including North Carolina. Bishop Mouzon in fact had strong views about Prohibition; he was a “consistent and vigorous opponent” of the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and any changes to the prohibition laws.³

While serving in his first ministerial assignment, Bishop Mouzon met Mary Elizabeth Mike of Bryan, Texas; they were married on his birthday, May 19, 1890. Mary Mike Mouzon died November 19, 1917 and was survived by two sons and three daughters. On August 21, 1919, the bishop married Mrs. Mary Pearl Langdon of Dallas, Texas. The Mouzons moved to Charlotte in 1927, when the bishop was assigned the episcopacy of the Carolinas, and in 1935, he was assigned the territory that included Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. At the time of his death on February 10, 1937, he was one of the country’s most prominent churchmen and the senior bishop of the Southern Methodist Church.⁴

In 1926, Bishop Mouzon commissioned a Charlotte architect, Marvin Helms, to design his new home.⁵ Marvin W. Helms (1883-1960) was a Mecklenburg County native, the son of Henry Jackson and Matilda Marze Helms. Starting as an office boy, Helms learned architecture by apprenticeship, and was licensed about 1916. For a number of years, he was associated with the well-known Charlotte architect C. C. Hook. After Hook’s death in 1938, he practiced on his own until 1958, when he joined with his grandson, Marvin H. Saline, to form Helms and Saline. Bishop Mouzon’s choice of Helms as the architect for his Charlotte residence is not surprising: he designed the new sanctuary for the Dilworth Methodist Church (where he was a lifelong member), which had just been completed in 1926; and for many years he designed hundreds of Methodist rural churches in the area that were funded by the Duke Foundation. He was particularly adept at Gothic detail, and helped work on the Baltimore Cathedral with Father McMichael, an architect and monk at Belmont Abbey.⁶

The Bishop Mouzon House was completed in early 1927.⁷ In March of that year, the bishop purchased the lot from the Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company (locally known as the 4 C’s) for $1,000. Deed restrictions required a house costing at least $7,500 to be built on the property.⁸ The 4 C’s was the company formed by Edward Dilworth Latta and others to develop the city’s first streetcar suburb, Dilworth, starting in 1890. The first phase of the development of Dilworth started in 1891, with a grid of streets off South and East Boulevards and centered around Latta Park, originally a large amusement park with a lake, pavilion and ball fields. The main boulevards had grand homes, and the side streets more modest homes for the middle-class and factory workers (including those of the Atherton Mill, built 1892-1893 by New South entrepreneur D. A. Tompkins). The first phase ended about 1912, when Latta Park was reduced to its present size, and work began on the new section designed by the Olmsted Brothers, “the most prestigious landscape architecture and city planning firm in the United States.”⁹ It was in this new section that Bishop Mouzon chose to build his house. The Mouzons enjoyed their Dilworth house for ten years before the bishop’s death in 1937. Mrs. Mouzon sold the house in 1939 to Evylyn Wrenn, who owned it until 1950, when she sold it to M. Sydney Alverson and his wife Mabel T. Alverson.¹⁰ The Alverson heirs conveyed the Mount Vernon property to William E. Eastridge in 1985, who sold it two years later to the present owners, Dr. Charles Thomas Humphries and his wife, Nancy E. Humphries.¹¹

 

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NOTES

¹ Charlotte Observer. February 11,1937. p.1; undated newspaper article (cM933). “Portrait of a Tar Heel Bishop,” vertical files. Carolina Room. Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Thomas W. Hanchett. “Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods,” Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission, 1986, “Dilworth,” p.18.

⁶ Charlotte Observer. December 4, 1960, p. 9F; interview with Marvin H. Saline, grandson of Marvin Helms, 2 November 1992.

⁷ Records of Charlotte Mecklenburg Utility Department.

⁸ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 660, p.23, 11 March 1927.

⁹ Dan L. Morrill, “Edward Dilworth Latta and the Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company (1890-1925): Builders of a New South City,” The North Carolina Historical Review. LXII (July, 1985),293-316.

¹⁰ Mecklenburg County Deed Books 972, p. 9; 1426, p.603.

¹¹ Ibid., Books 5123,p. 190; 5491, p.77.

 

 

Architectural Description  

Nora M. Black

The Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House is located at 800 Mt. Vernon Avenue in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte. The house occupies a corner lot on the south side of Mt. Vernon Avenue at its intersection with Lafayette Avenue. The front or north facade of the house is parallel with Mt. Vernon Avenue. The west facade is parallel with Lafayette Avenue. The rear or south facade overlooks the back yard; the frame garage is located on the southeast corner of the lot. The land on the south side of Mt. Vernon Avenue has a much higher elevation than that of the north side of the street. Consequently, the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House is set high above street level and commands an excellent view of the skyline of Charlotte. The Mecklenburg County Tax Office lists the house as having 4,539 square feet of heated area. The house is located on a rectangular-shaped lot of 0.347 acres and is owned by Charles Thomas Humphries and Nancy E. Humphries.

The Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House is an Eclectic House built in the Tudor style. The Eclectic movement ran from approximately 1880 to 1940. After World War I, American housing was dominated by period revivals such as Italian Renaissance, Chateauesque, Beaux Arts, Tudor, or Colonial Revival during the 1920’s and 1930’s. “The resulting burst of period fashions drew on the complete historical spectrum of European and Colonial American housing styles…”² The expression “Tudor style” is misleading since most houses grouped under this type do not resemble early 16th century, Tudor English houses. The style more closely mimics late Medieval English prototypes. In the American Eclectic expression, the Tudor style is characterized by steeply pitched, front-facing gables and ornamental false half-timbering. In fact, ornamental false half-timbering occurs on approximately half of all Tudor style houses.

Masonry veneering techniques were not perfected until the early 1920s. The new masonry veneer allowed American Tudor style houses to imitate Medieval English brick and stone prototypes. The Tudor style became very popular and spread throughout the United States. In the late 1930s, the Tudor style became unfashionable and was not revived until the Neoeclectic movement started in the 1970s.³

The Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House has a simple rectangular massed plan with irregular (less than room-sized) projections from the principal mass. The house presents an asymmetrical front elevation with a cross-gabled roof. The front view is dominated by the front-facing gabled section of the large house. A one-story, projecting entry with a round-arched doorway draws attention to the front of the house. Painted brick clads the exterior to the second floor level. The second floor walls are clad with Tudor false half-timbering.

Exterior

The Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House has two types of exterior wall cladding: Tudor false half-timbering above painted brick laid in running bond. Brick wall cladding distinguishes the most common subtype of Tudor houses. Tudor false half-timbering was a common secondary influence; the treatment of stucco infill between non-structural timbers arranged in decorative patterns mimics Medieval infilled timber framing.⁴ The bricks and false half-timbering are painted steel gray; the stucco infill is white. The colors of the stone trim are mostly warm tans and light browns with contrasting dark grays. The cast concrete lintels and sills have not been painted.

The slate roof lacks the steep pitch of most Tudor style houses. It does, however, have the prominent cross gables associated with the style. Additionally, the points of the gables are clipped to form a hip-gable roof. This treatment is also called a jerkinhead. At the gable ends, the attic story projects beyond the second story to form a jetty. Small curved brackets support each jetty. Larger carved brackets are located at each corner of each jetty. The three-dimensional brackets add weight and interest to the cross gable ends. The roof of the front facade is interrupted by a gabled dormer. The dormer has curved vergeboards supported by extended decorative roof beams. Metal ridge and hip caps add a finishing touch to the roof. Copper gutters have been installed at the eaves; the downspouts are also copper. Although the open eaves are not visible since they are concealed by the gutters, closer inspection of the eaves reveals that the rafter ends are exposed.

The single massive chimney, a favorite Tudor detail, is located on the west side of the house. The base of the chimney is enclosed by the side porch. The balance of the exterior chimney, with its single shoulder, reaches high above the roof. The top of the chimney has three round, fluted chimney pots.

Most of the windows in the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House consist of double hung wooden sash. The windows have a variety of glazing patterns ranging from 3/1 to 12/1. The majority of the first floor windows are glazed in a 9/1 pattern while the majority of the second floor windows are glazed in a 6/1 pattern. All elevations have asymmetrical window arrangements. Windows occur singularly, in pairs, and in groups of three or four. The first floor windows on the front and sides of the house have decorative cast stone lintels and sills. The first floor windows on the back of the house have lintels constructed of a soldier course of brick and sills of a header course of brick.

The asymmetrical front elevation is three units wide. The elaborate front entry is set slightly off-center. The front entry is flanked by window groups of three 9/1 double hung wooden sash. All but one of the windows of the second floor front elevation have window boxes.

Projecting toward Mt. Vernon Avenue, the front entry is one-story high with a hip-gable roof. Curved vergeboards, supported by extended rafter ends, frame the round arched doorway. Cantilevered cast concrete pieces support the arch above the door. The arch encloses an elliptical fanlight. The walls of the front entry are made of stone, in predominantly warm tans and browns. Six steps, faced with brick, lead to the terrace in front of the entry. The terrace continues on the east side of the front entry. The terrace floor is made of quarry tiles with white mortar joints. Black wrought iron rails have been installed on either side of the steps.

The front entry has a single batten door with six lights of glazing in the top half and a recessed panel of narrow battens in the bottom half. The hardware consists of black wrought iron strap hinges and entrance handle. The door casing consists of a simple arrangement of boards with a curved and molded top. The top of the casing supports an unusual fanlight divided into 6 vertical panel of glass. A doorbell, decorated with black wrought iron trim, is located on the door casing.

A side porch, another characteristic feature of the Tudor style, forms a one-story extension on the west side of the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House. The porch is almost completely concealed by shrubbery. The two west corner piers of the porch are constructed of tan and brown stone; they are continuous from the ground level to the height of the eaves. The cast concrete trim on the west side of the porch is similar to that of the front entry. The opening on the south side of the porch has been infilled with a 12-light glass and wood door set in a heavy door surround. The other porch openings have been infilled with narrow vertical windows. The once open porch now serves as an enclosed sun room. Additionally, the house has a hip-roofed, one-story porch on the south facade. It has a steel gray and white wall treatment that matches the second floor wall treatment.

Both the east and west sides of the house have cross gables forming hip-gable roofs and attic-story jetties as described for the front elevation. Both sides have the same brick, stucco and false half-timbering wall cladding described previously. The south or back side of the house is more utilitarian in appearance. Although the same materials are used, the false half-timbering lacks the diagonal half-timbers found on the other facades. The south side also has a semi-hexagonal, one-story bay with three windows. A soldier course of brick encircles the house at the second floor level.

Interior

The interior of the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House has been changed and modernized some over the life of the house. The current owners made repairs and did some remodeling in 1988. Much of the work was necessary to restore the house from damage it received while being used as a rooming house. The current owners returned the house to its original function, that of a single family residence. Most of the historic fabric, however, is not only intact but visible. The space provided by the large rooms has not been altered by creating smaller rooms. The house features 11-1/2″ ceilings on the first floor level and 9-1/2″ ceilings on the second. Most of the rooms have original wooden moldings and original hardware on the wooden interior doors. The original hardware includes glass door knobs and brass keyholes. Lighting fixtures, including sconces, were installed in original locations. Some rooms contain original plaster moldings. The current owners have added wooden crown moldings in some rooms. Most walls and ceilings throughout the house are of plaster. The current owners carefully restored and repaired damaged plaster themselves. Sheetrock was used only when the plaster was beyond repair. Hardwood flooring is used throughout the house with the exception of the bathrooms, the kitchen and the breakfast area. Original hardwood flooring was replaced only if it had been damaged beyond repair. The kitchen and the breakfast area have new black and white tile flooring.

The front door opens to an arched foyer. The small foyer has an arched window on the east wall. The foyer opens to a central hall that separates the living room (located to the west side) and a sitting room (on the east). At the back or south end of the central hall, an arched opening leads to the stair hall. The arched opening is flanked by Corinthian columns set on built-in cabinets. Each cabinet has a patterned glass door.

The stair hall contains a U-shaped stairway leading to the second floor. Beneath that stairway, a steep, narrow stairway leads to the basement. There is a closet and a half-bath at the east end of the stair hall. The half-bath contains new fixtures. It does, however, retain one original and unusual feature. The door to the half-bath is a narrow door constructed of six clear glass lights over a wooden panel; a curtain provides privacy. The deeply carved newel in the stair hall is topped with a realistic human figure of metal that is wired to be a lamp. The stair rail is curved and molded to fit the hand while the balusters are simple rectangular pieces of wood. Some balusters do not extend from step to handrail and form a repeating pattern of voids.

There is a small sitting room located on the east side of the central hall. French doors, each composed of ten lights over a single wooden panel, can be closed to provide privacy. Located on the west side of the central hall, the large living room (approximately 24′ by 16′) fills the northwest corner of the first floor. The living room has a fireplace on the west wall. The classically-inspired fire surround features a raised and carved oval ornament set on a raised center block. The bottom of the fire shelf is trimmed with a large dentil molding. Fluted columns, raised on plinth blocks, flank the fire opening. Most of the original fire tiles were broken or missing; the current owners covered the remaining tiles with marble. A door on the west wall leads to the enclosed side porch. French doors on the south wall of the living room open to the dining room.

The rectangular dining room occupies the southwest corner of the first floor. It has a single door on the east wall leading to the breakfast area; this area is brightened by the windows surrounding its semi-hexagonal bay. Original pantry cabinets and drawers occupy most of the North wall of the breakfast area. Two original, narrow swinging doors, leading to the stair hall, complete the north wall. A door on the east side of the breakfast area leads to the kitchen. The kitchen cabinets were installed by the current owner. The design for the cabinets is copied from an original cabinet now stored in the basement. The old-style, glass-paneled doors of the cabinets provide a reminder of early kitchens. Fixtures in the kitchen are new. A door on the south wall of the kitchen leads to the enclosed back porch. This area has been converted to a laundry area and mud room. The beveled board ceiling is original although the beaded board used on the walls is new.

The enclosed side porch, located on the west or Lafayette Avenue side of the house, is floored with quarry tiles like those found on the front terrace. The ceiling is covered with beveled boards. Thresholds to the porch are made of copper. Modern double glazing, with simulated divided lights, has been added to convert the room for year-round use and to make the house more secure.

The Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House has only one stairway to the second floor. That open staircase climbs in a U-shape from the previously-described stair hall to the second floor. A large window has been installed on the level of the stair landing to replace an earlier exit. The stairway ends in a center hall on the second floor. Doors to the four bedrooms, the bathroom, the linen closet, and the attic open from the center hall.

The largest bedroom is located in the northwest corner of the second floor. It has a fireplace with a classical fire surround similar to the one in the living room. The fire surround lends an air of formality to the room. It lacks the carved oval ornament and columns of the one in the living room. This fire surround does have fine molding, engaged pilasters and a fire shelf with dentils. As in the living room, the current owners covered the broken and missing fire tiles with marble. This bedroom has an unusual storage area. A horizontal cedar storage unit, shaped like a rectangle, slides through the wall into an open space under the stairs to the attic. This bedroom ceiling was damaged so badly that sheetrock had to be used to replace the plaster. The current owners added wooden crown molding as well. A door on the east wall leads to a full bath; it has been remodeled and has new plumbing fixtures.

A door on the south wall of the largest bedroom opens to a bedroom that occupies the southwest corner of the second floor. This smaller bedroom is filled with light from the groups of windows that line the south and west walls of the room. It has a cedar lined closet. This room also has a door on the east wall leading to the center hall.

The southeast corner of the house has the smallest bedroom. This small room has the original plaster walls; however, the ceiling is covered with sheetrock. Like the other bedrooms, it has original flooring, hardware and windows.

The northeast corner of the second floor has a large bedroom. The entry to the bedroom has an arched opening to the door swing area. A window seat that opens to reveal a storage area is located beneath the corner window on the south wall. The painted wood is curved and decorated with recessed panels.

The center room on the south side of the second floor is a bathroom. It has a single window on the south wall. The fixtures, including the rolled-top bathtub, are period pieces installed when the room was remodeled. A door on the north wall of the center hall opens directly to a steep flight of stairs to the attic. The bottom of the door has been shaped to receive the bottom step. The attic retains its original shape; however, it has been converted to a bedroom and a bathroom. Walls of sheetrock cover the rafters. The columns in the attic replace the original wooden support posts.

The basement of the house is divided into several small rooms. Walls of the basement are constructed of smoothfaced brick. The windows that provided light have been bricked up for security. The stair to the basement is a steep rough wooden affair. In the southeast corner of the basement, there is a small half-bath. Although the door is missing, the basic plumbing is still in place. Apparently, it was the servant’s facility. A gas-fired unit has replaced the coal-fired furnace. The original doorbell system is still in place in the basement.

Conclusion

The Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House is an intact example of an Eclectic House built in the Tudor style. The interior finishes and decorative details of the Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon House are well-conceived and constructed of good materials. The exterior has survived with original materials and few changes other than the application of paint. The house can provide valuable insight into one style of house that became popular in Charlotte’s first streetcar suburb, Dilworth.

 

NOTES

¹ Virginia & Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses (New York, 1986), 355.

² Ibid., 319.

³ Ibid., 354-371.

⁴ Ibid., 356.

This report was written on September 5, 1989

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church is located at 1605 Luther Street, Charlotte, NC.

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

Mt. Zion Church of God Holiness
2634 Marlboro Ave.
Norfolk, VA 23504

Telephone: None listed

The occupant of the property is:

Mt. Zion Church of God Holiness
1605 Luther Street
Charlotte, NC 28204

Telephone: None listed

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 a map which depicts the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent deed to this property is recorded in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 3869, page 854. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is: 125-115-24.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Dr. William H. Huffman, Ph.D.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Joseph Schuchman.

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

 

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: l) the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church, erected about 1896, has continuously served as a religious center for the Cherry community, a black residential district developed in the 1890s and early 1900s by John Springs Myers and Mary Rawlinson Myers; 2) the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church was organized by William Philo Phifer ( ? -1911), a leader in establishing black Lutheran churches in Charlotte and its environs; 3) the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church is the oldest structure still standing which has been used as a house of worship in the Cherry community; and 4) the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church is a compelling local example of a simple Gothic Revival style church structure.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural description by Joseph Schuchman which is included in this report demonstrates that the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church 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 which becomes “historic property.” The current appraised value of the improvement is $9,630. The current appraised value of the .91 acres of land is $11,880. The property is presently exempted from the payment of Ad Valorem taxes. The property is zoned B1.

Date of preparation of this report: September 5, 1989

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
1225 S. Caldwell St.
Charlotte, NC 28203

Telephone: (704) 376-9115

 

 

Historical Overview  

Dr. William H. Huffman

For fifty years, the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church was an important part of Charlotte’s Cherry neighborhood, and its successor continues to serve the community from the same building. Built about 1896, Mt. Zion served its parishioners until 1946, when it merged with another Lutheran church, but its original building still calls worshipers to service on Sundays.

Although it is often assumed that the Cherry neighborhood was built as a housing area for servants of affluent Myers Park residents, it was in fact laid out as a “model Negro housing development” by John Springs Myers and Mary Rawlinson Myers in the 1890s and early 1900s. Its purpose was to provide good, low-cost housing for black laborers and craft workers well before construction began on Myers Park in 1912 as one of the city’s fashionable streetcar suburbs). Located about a mile from the center of town, Cherry (in the early days also called Cherryton or Cherrytown) is situated between The Elizabeth neighborhood on the north and Myers Park to the south.

The land that became Cherry and Myers Park was part of a 306-acre inheritance that John Springs Myers received in 1869 from his father. Over the next twenty years, Myers built his holdings to over one thousand acres in the area south of town. He built a country house on the Providence Road about two miles south of town, and began to entertain the idea that his land could someday be used for a residential area with park-like landscaping. An influential factor for the development of Cherry on part of this land was the Myers’ active membership in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. The church had a strong record of ministry to blacks in the city that included the founding of churches, a school and a hospital. In addition, the Myers family itself was known for its interest in the welfare of the town’s black citizens (J. S. Myers’ father, NV. R. Myers, had donated the land for Johnson C. Smith University after the Civil War).² In 1891, Cherry began when Jack Myers recorded a plat with house lots along three new streets located halfway between the city center and his farm cottage. They were part of what is now Main, Cherry and Luther Streets, and the name “Cherry” apparently came from the cherry trees that used to grow on the surrounding hillsides. During the next thirty-odd years, Myers continued to add tree-lined streets with small house lots, churches, a park and a school to the Cherry development, and it was carried on after the mid-1920s by their children. It was quite successful in its purpose of providing good, low-cost rental or owner housing for the city’s black unskilled or semi-skilled workers. Lots were sold for fifty dollars on easy terms, and by 1925, 198 of the 305 Cherry households, about sixty-five percent, were resident-owned. The modern misconception about the neighborhood being a servants’ quarter arose after Myers Park was built starting in 1912, when indeed a number of servants of those families moved into Cherry.³

The story of Mt. Zion Lutheran Church in Cherry is closely connected to its founding pastor, William Philo Phifer ( ? – 1911). After the Civil War, a number of Protestant denominations took steps to establish churches among freed blacks and to train black preachers and teachers to staff them and the schools that were often part of the church. In 1868, the North Carolina Synod of the Lutheran Church licensed the first black Lutheran preacher in the state, Michael Coble of Alamance County, but he left to join the Methodist church in the 1870s. Four more blacks were ordained during the 1880s to serve congregations in Concord, Charlotte, Burlington and Lexington. Among these was William Philo Phifer, who is thought to have grown up on a Phifer plantation near Concord, NC. Possibly educated in Baltimore, he was first licensed by the Maryland Synod October 7,1888. The following year, he was received into the North Carolina Synod on August 28, which was followed by his ordination in Charlotte on April 20,1890.⁴

During the 1880s and early 90s, there was only one Lutheran Church in Charlotte belonging to the North Carolina Synod, St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church on Tryon Street. Shortly after Phifer took up his work in Charlotte, ministry to black congregations in North Carolina was taken over by the Missionary Board of the Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, which was headquartered in St. Louis. Within three years of his ordination in Charlotte, Rev. Phifer had built a congregation of sufficient size that the Missionary Board bought property at “E” and 2nd Streets (now Alexander and 2nd, in the former black community of Brooklyn in Second Ward) in 1893, on which was built St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and school.⁵

Three years later, in January, 1896, Phifer organized Mt. Zion Lutheran Church in the new black community of Cherry, and in November of that year the Missionary Board of the Lutheran Synodical Conference bought a lot on Davidson Street (later changed to Luther Street) for fifty dollars from the Myers, and built the present church building.⁶ Since there were only thirty heads of household listed in Cherry by 1898, the church membership was small, and remained so throughout its subsequent years. As was usually the case, a small school was also conducted by the church.⁷ Mt. Lion was actually the second church in Cherry, the first being the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, which bought the third lot sold in the neighborhood in 1892. It was located on Luther Street near Providence Road, and still operates today from a new building at Banter and Baldwin Streets.⁸

In October, 1900, Rev. Phifer appears to have organized another congregation, the St. Mark’s (Colored) Lutheran Church in the Brooklyn area of Second Ward. In a dispute with the Mission Board, Phifer left Mt. Zion to take over St. Mark’s, and the latter bought property for a new church building at Davidson and 3rd Streets with the backing of the North Carolina Synod in 1901. Phifer gave up this post in 1904, when he took up a pastorale in Baltimore, Maryland, where he served until his death in 1911.⁹

Mt. Zion continued to operate under the Mission Board until 1946, when it merged with the St. Paul’s Church to form St. Andrews, which was located on the site of the present downtown post offices. At that time the Mt. Zion building was sold to a descendent of the Myers, Mrs. Harriette C. Dwelle. After thirty years of ownership, Mrs. Dwelle sold it to the present owners, the Mt. Zion Church of God, Holiness, in 1976.¹¹

Since its construction around ninety years ago in the fledgling Cherry community, the Mt. Zion Church on Luther Street has been an intimate part of a unique Charlotte neighborhood, one that reflects the determination of both black and white leaders in the late nineteenth century to build a better world for its citizens.

 

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NOTES

¹ Thomas Hanchett, Charlotte Neighborhood Survey, Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission, 1984.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Richard Perry, “William Philo Phifer,” undated typescript, Office of Inclusive Ministry, North Carolina Synod of the Lutheran Church in America, Charlotte, NC; Christopher Drewes, Half a Century of Lutheranism Among Our Colored People. 1877-1927 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1927), p. 50; Robert Moore, Jr., “A Brief History of Black Lutherans in North Carolina,” undated typescript (c. 1975) in Lutheran Archives, Salisbury, NC, pp. 5-7.

⁵Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.; Mecklenburg County Deed Book 116, p.122,18 Nov. 1896.

⁷ Hanchett, cited above; Interview with Laura Kirkpatrick, 1701 Luther Street, Charlotte, NC, 30 August 1985.

⁸ Hanchett, cited above.

⁹ See note 4.

¹⁰ Interview with Richard Perry, Office of Inclusive Ministry, North Carolina Synod of the Lutheran Church in America, Charlotte, NC, 21 August 1985.

¹¹ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 1222, p.567, 11 Sept. 1946; Ibid., 3869, p.854, 6 Aug. 1976.

 

 

Architectural Description  

Joseph Schuchman

The Mt. Zion Lutheran Church (now the Mt. Zion Church of God Holiness) is a simple Gothic Revival structure which was built in 1896. The church is one of the oldest buildings in Cherry, an early black community, and one of the oldest surviving frame churches within the city of Charlotte. Although simply executed, the structure is clearly influenced by the Gothic motifs popular at the turn of the century.

Gothic architecture, characterized by the pointed arch and, to a lesser extent, the flying buttress, vaulting rib and moulding, first evidenced itself in the rebuilding of St. Denis Abbey Church in France in the early twelfth century. The style came to dominate medieval architecture, particularly religious building, from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. The widespread use of the Gothic began to wane, partially in response to the popularity of the Renaissance style and also from the social and aesthetic effects of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. But by the mid-eighteenth century, the seeds of the Gothic Revival were being sown in England; the movement achieved widespread popularity in Europe and the United States throughout the mid to late nineteenth century and into the early decades of the present century. While the style was typically associated with ecclesiological architecture, Gothic Revival motifs were widely adapted to public buildings and even residential construction, from the humblest cottage to the grandest of mansions.¹

Charlotte’s First Presbyterian Church (begun ca. 1842) is Gothic Revival at its most high style. The popularity of the style endured for many years in the Queen City. Gothic motifs are strongly evident in three of the city’s finest late nineteenth century houses of worship, St. Peter’s Episcopal (1892) on North Tryon Street, St. Peter’s Roman Catholic(1893) on South Tryon Street and St. Mary’s Chapel (1893) on Kings Drive. In Dilworth, the sanctuary (ca. 1952) and flanking buildings of Covenant Presbyterian Church are arranged around a medieval-inspired courtyard. Gothic arches are even prominently displayed in many of the area’s more modern church structures. The style’s longstanding popularity was, in no small measure, due to its widespread adaptability. Even less substantial congregations could incorporate Gothic motifs into the most simple meeting place. Modest frame structures incorporating Gothic arched opening are to be found throughout black and white churches in both urban and rural areas of the Piedmont. ²

Mt. Zion Lutheran Church is a well-preserved example of a simply executed structure incorporating Gothic Revival motifs. The one story structure is of frame construction and rises to a gabled roof. Elevations are weatherboarded; plain cornerboards rise from the base. Fenestration on the rectangular main block is symmetrically arranged. Four/four sash, surmounted by a lances cap, are the primary glazing material. Exterior openings are framed by plain surrounds. A diminutive one-story entrance pavilion is centered on the front elevation and flanked on either side by a single lancet window. Physical evidence indicates that the gable-roofed pavilion is a later addition although it is known to have been in existence by 1929. Concrete stairs with wrought iron handrails lead to the double leaf six-panel entrance doors. Rectangular wood cut shingles cover the entrance gable.³

Side elevations are each three bays deep and were originally arranged identically. In 1976, the rear opening on the west side was converted into a side entrance; a six panel door was installed although an upper portion of the window sash and the lancet arch remain. The rear elevation is blind. A Gothic arched ventilator covering is centrally located on the front gable. A tripped belfry sits atop the ridge line above the entrance; Gothic arched ventilator covers are set within the front and side elevations. The church originally rested upon brick piers; the cement block underpinning was installed in 1976. Asphalt shingle is the primary roofing material.

The interior of the entrance pavilion is wood paneled; the original tongue and groove sheathing remains visible beneath. The rear wall of the vestibule is weatherboarded, indicating the exterior wall of the original structure. The roof is ceiled in tongue and groove sheathing. Ten panel double leaf doors lead from the tiny entrance vestibule into the small, simply detailed sanctuary. The original tongue and groove wainscot, which encircles the room, has been covered by wood paneling. Above the wainscot, the wall is sheathed in stucco, possibly a later addition. The original tongue and groove ceiling, which rises to the structure’s full height, has been hidden by the installation of a drop ceiling. Rhythmically placed window openings are set in simple two-part surrounds. The nave terminates at the raised pulpit, above which is placed a simple wood cross. To the right of the pulpit is a small pastor’s study, which is wood paneled. To the pulpit’s left are two restrooms, indicated by the words “Brothers” and Sisters” respectively. Both rooms are partially encircled by a tongue and groove wainscot and may have either been one room or served as part of the pulpit area.

The Mt. Zion Church is a monument to the Christian faith of the early Cherry residents and to the congregation’s present members, many of whom live outside the neighborhood but come together to worship their creator. In many ways, the church is also a monument to the existence and survival of Cherry itself.

 

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NOTES

¹ P. Furneaux Jordan, A Concise History of Western Architecture. (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. 1959), pages 130, 280-281

² Information based upon work previously done by investigator in Union and Mecklenburg Counties, North Carolina.

³ Sanborn Insurance Company, Charlotte, 1929. (New York, Sanborn Insurance Company, 1929). On microfilm at main branch, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library. The Cherry neighborhood was not included on any previous Sanborn Maps of Charlotte, so it was not possible to make a comparison between the 1929 building and earlier representations.

This report was written on May 4, 1983

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Old Mount Carmel Baptist Church is located at 408-416 Campus Street, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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

Mount Carmel Baptist Church
3201 Tuckaseegee Road
Charlotte, NC 28208

Telephone: (704) 394-3525

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 a map which depicts the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent deed to this property is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 4040 at page 404. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is: 069-011-04.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Dr. William H. Huffman.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains an architectural description of the property prepared by Thomas W. Hanchett, architectural historian.

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

 

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Old Mount Carmel Baptist Church does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: 1) the oldest portion of the building, dedicated on May 8, 1921, was built according to plans prepared by Louis Asbury, an architect of local and regional importance; 2) the building served as the location of Mount Carmel Baptist Church from 1921 until 1977 and, therefore, was a cultural centerpiece of the Biddleville community for more than fifty years; 3) the oldest portion of the building is one of the finer local examples of the Victorian Gothic style.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the attached architectural description by Mr. Thomas W. Hanchett demonstrates that the Old Mount Carmel Baptist Church 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 which becomes “historic property.” The current appraised value of the .317 acres of land is $4,000. The current appraised value of the improvements is $112,240. The total current appraised value is $116,240. The property is zoned R6MF.

Date of Preparation of this Report: May 4, 1983

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill, Director
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
218 N. Tryon Street
Charlotte, North Carolina 28202

Telephone: (704) 376-9115

 

 

Historical Overview  

Dr. William H. Huffman

The Mount Carmel Baptist Church is integrally a part of the history of the Biddleville community, located about a mile and a half to the northwest of the Square in downtown Charlotte. Biddleville was, before its incorporation into the city, the village which grew up next to the present Johnson C. Smith University, and was named after the schools former title, Biddle Memorial Institute (1867-1876), later Biddle University (1876-1923). The school, which was started by the Presbyterian church after the Civil War to educate young black freedmen to become teachers and preachers in the South, was itself named in honor of Major Henry J. Biddle, a Union Army soldier who fell in battle in 1862, and whose widow, Mary D. Biddle of Philadelphia, PA, donated sufficient funds to give the institution a real start.

Biddle Institute’s first president, Dr. Stephen Mattoon (1815-1886), a native of New York State with an outstanding missionary record, served from 1870 to 1884, and in 1885-6. Under his able leadership, the school became firmly established as an educational institution of quality, and became one of the leading schools of its kind in the region, and eventually, in the nation. In addition to insuring the survival and growth of Biddle Institute, Reverend Mattoon was largely responsible for the establishment of the village itself. The original eight acres of land for the Institute was donated by Colonel William R. Meyers about 1869, and eventually a total of 95 acres of hilltop farmland were purchased from this famous Charlotte leader for the campus. The original Biddleville was mostly the result of Mattoon’s personal acquisition of land next to the school, which he resold to ex-slaves on very modest, affordable terms.

As the school grew in numbers, so did the Biddleville community with its residents, whose religious needs also expanded. In 1878, two years after Biddle University had been chartered by the state legislature with the authority to grant degrees, a small prayer group, which met in various member’s homes or under a large oak tree in the village on nice days, resolved to form a Missionary Baptist Church in Biddleville. The decision was undertaken at a meeting held at the home of Mrs. Amanda McClure, and included Cary Etheridge and his wife, W. M. Parks and Mrs. Parks, Mrs. Rachel Ross and Mrs. Winnie Phifer. Since nine members were required to start a new church, the group found it necessary to “borrow” two other Baptists, one of whom was William Davidson of the First Baptist Church of Charlotte. Mr. Davidson was the father of Reverend W. H. Davidson, who was to pastor the Mount Carmel Church for most of the first half of the twentieth century, and was also the great-uncle of the present interim president of Johnson C. Smith University, Mack L. Davidson, Jr.²

A site had also been found for the new church: an old shop, formerly a barroom, in the 600 block of Beatties Ford Road, which the owner allowed them to use free of charge. It was here, sometime during the year 1878, that Reverend Elder Eagle, the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Charlotte, formally prefected the Mount Carmel Baptist Church. They continued to meet as a Sunday prayer group until about the end of the year, when, at a meeting presided over by Cary Etheridge, the decision was made to call a pastor. Thus the Reverend Albert Lewis, a student at Biddle University was called to officiate at worship services which could then include singing, reading of Scripture, prayer, a sermon, offering and benediction.³

Reverend Lewis led the Mount Carmel Baptist Church for twenty years, and during his tenure, he organized a board of deacons, a women’s missionary society, and a Sunday school. The deacon’s board was responsible for the material as well as the spiritual welfare of the church. In some of its earliest decisions, the following rules were adopted: All members were required to live in harmony with one another, and, “if any were found guilty of not speaking to another member, dancing, attending a dance (even without dancing), use of profanity, fornication, adultery, non-attendance of church services and non-attendance of three church meetings without satisfactory excuse, the right hand of fellowship was withdrawn.”⁴ The women’s missionary society, organized in 1883, raised money for the church and provided clothing for children who could not otherwise attend Sunday school. Worship service during this time was held on the second and fourth Sundays of the month, and on the first and third Sundays, prayer services were held with a deacon or missionary member in charge. At the latter meetings, money collected went for the upkeep of the church, but the offerings on preaching Sundays all went to pay the pastor.⁵

As the membership increased, it became increasingly desirable to locate in the church’s own quarters, and so in 1883, Cary Etheridge, acting as sole trustee of the church, purchased a one-hundred-foot square lot on Church ( now Campus) Street in Biddleville for $32.00. After six months labor, the congregation was able to move into the new frame building, which had cost about $250.00 to build. The pews and the pulpit furniture were made by the men of Mount Carmel, but the new building did not have a baptismal pool, and so a nearby creek branch was used for the purpose. Under the subsequent pastorale of Reverend Samuel S. Person (1902-1906), a student at Shaw University in Raleigh, the membership grew to seventy-eight. His other major accomplishment was to attempt to bring some harmony in the relations with the other two churches of Biddleville, the Gethsemene A.M.E. Zion and Biddleville Presbyterian churches through pulpit exchanges and social meetings. At the time, there was an intense rivalry among the three to keep their own members and recruit newcomers to the community in addition to doctrinal differences of opinion. The minister’s efforts apparently achieved some modest success which paved the way for further progress in the future. ⁸

It was during the fifty-year pastorale of Reverend William H. Davidson (1914-1964), however, that the church made giant strides in growth and programs. When he answered the call, while still a student at Friendship College in Rock Hill, South Carolina, the congregation numbered one hundred-twenty members, and, under his enthusiastic leadership, it began to grow rapidly.⁹ Near the end of World War I, in March, 1918, the church engaged a well-known local architect, Louis Asbury, to draw up plans for a new brick building.

Louis Asbury (1877-1975), in his fifty-some year career in Charlotte, starting in 1908, designed an impressive variety of structures in the city and surrounding area. He was a Charlotte native, the son of S. J. and Martha Moody Asbury, and helped his father build houses in Charlotte in the 1890s. After graduation from Trinity College (now Duke University), Asbury attended architecture school at MIT, and was first employed by two firms in New York City, Rossiter & Wright, then Cram, Goodhese and Ferguson. As Charlotte’s first professionally trained architect, Louis Asbury has hundreds of buildings to his credit: churches, schools, hotels, stores, institutions, and residences for many of the area’s prominent citizens. These include the old county courthouse (1926), the Charles P. Moody house on Providence Road (1913), Myers Park Methodist Church (1928), the Law Building (1926), and the Hawthorne Lane Methodist Church (1915).

According to the minutes of Mount Carmel, there was a meeting in October, 1918, of the congregation, where Reverend Davidson submitted his ideas for a new church to those assembled. He indicated that rather than having new plans for a building drawn at considerable expense, already existing plans could be purchased for seventy-five dollars, and the building could be constructed by day labor, instead of a contractor, on a “pay-as-you-build plan,” if they could eventually raise $5,000.00 for the work. His suggestions were immediately accepted, and on October 4, 1918, a building permit was taken out, which showed that a structure of three rooms, with a ground plan of 36 x 50 feet,was to be built according to a Louis Asbury design, and it was estimated to cost $2,500.00.¹²

In order to raise money for the enterprise, the members were divided into ten teams which were to make progress reports the following February, 1919. They held “mock weddings, fish fries, imaginary trips around the world, chicken dinners, “chittlin’ struts,” and other imaginative programs to generate funds. By the latter part of the year over $5,000.00 had been raised, and the groundbreaking took place. Construction of the church was carried out by men volunteers of the church, under the direction of Erastus Hairston, a deacon, while the women prepared meals for the workers.

While construction was under way, it became clear that more money would be needed to complete the project, and three trustees, Robert McClure, J. C. Watt and Wade Chambers volunteered to mortgage their homes to raise the needed funds. Arrangements were made to borrow eleven hundred dollars from a Mrs. O’Neil of Charlotte for a period of twelve months. When her attorney, a Peter Z. Young, discovered that the mortgaged property had a value of nine thousand dollars, he urged her to call in the note after six months, probably forcing preclosure. When this news became known, the pastor ordered construction to halt, and called a meeting of the congregation to plan a money-raising rally to last for sixty days. During that time, $1,953.50 was successfully collected, the mortgage was paid, and work resumed.

Soon another problem was encountered in putting up the new building: a shortage of bricks available for purchase. The pastor spent many days walking all over Charlotte from dawn to dusk searching for bricks with no success. Finally, a solution presented itself when the home of a wealthy resident of Myers Park burned beyond repair, and the bricks were bought for twelve dollars a thousand. Although they were bought with the intention of using them for filler, it was soon discovered, after cleaning, that they were pressed brick in good condition, and so were laid as the main structure. ¹³

Although it is a Presbyterian-related school, much money was raised for the construction of the church by President Henry L. McCrorey, Dr. Thomas Long and students at Biddle University. Mrs. Davidson, the pastor’s wife, told Mr. James R. Webb, Jr., that “…the glee club and band from Biddle will always have a warm spot in the hearts of the members of Carmel because of the impressive concerts rendered at our church which brought in hundreds of dollars.”¹⁴ Final completion of the church was financed through a $2,000.00, six-year loan from the First National Bank of Charlotte, which was paid three years early.

In April, 1921, the great effort put forth by many dedicated members and friends finally bore fruit; the building was finished. It was dedicated on Sunday, May 8, 1921, complete with new pews, pulpit furnishings and rugs, and the sermon on that day was given by Reverend B. K. Mason, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charlotte. Just under three years later, in January, 1924, the church held a mortgage-burning ceremony, and their celebration was complete. The old frame building was sold to Reverend William Barbour, who used the materials to construct his own home.

In 1925, the surplus building materials from the original construction were used to build on two new rooms as a wing for a combination choir and classrooms at a cost of seventeen hundred dollars. In spite of the subsequent depression of the 1930s, the church membership continued to rise, and rallies were again held to raise money for a Sunday school annex in 1933. Their efforts were once again successful, and by the third Sunday in June, 1935, the new annex was dedicated. It contained an assembly room, two classrooms, and a basement divided into classrooms and a kitchen.

As a result of subsequent membership drives, enrollment increased to 979 by 1947, and another drive was set in motion for an education building. Relying on their previously successful pay-as-you-build method, the church was able to put up a building of thirteen classrooms, a clerk’s office, library and basement, at a cost of about $25,000, without going into debt. It was completed in 1948.

Thirty years later, however, the community and the church had grown to the point where even larger facilities were justified, and, on April 3, 1977, under the direction of the present pastor, Dr. Leon Riddick, Mount Carmel Baptist moved to a much larger, previously constructed church complex at 3201 Tuckaseegee Road, with an auditorium that seats 825, and a chapel with close to 200 places. The church had come a long way since its original seven prayer-group members in Biddleville in 1878. Presently, the old building is leased to another church denomination but still owned by Mount Carmel.

As the first brick structure in the Biddleville community²¹ (aside from the Johnson C. Smith campus), situated squarely in the heart of the surrounding wood frame buildings, Mount Carmel stands as a monument to the joys, sorrows and struggles of the community of which it is so much a part. Its success represents a triumph over the many obstacles facing the residents of the post-Civil War village, and is a symbol of their determination to grow spiritually, socially and economically.

 

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NOTES

¹ Arthur A. George, 100 Years, 1867-1967: Salient Factors in the Growth and Development of Johnson C. Smith University (Charlotte: Johnson C. Smith University, 1968); Jack Claiborne, Jack Claiborne’s Charlotte (Charlotte: Charlotte Publishing, 1974), pp.50-52; “The New South Neighborhoods: Biddleville,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission, 1981.

² James R. Webb, Jr., “A History of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina,” unpublished Bachelor of Divinity Thesis, Johnson C. Smith University, 1951, pp. 3-6; Centennial Souvenir Journal Mount Carmel Through the Years. 1878-1978 “Charlotte: Mount Carmel Baptist Church, 1978), p.7.

³ Webb, pp. 5-6, Journal, p.7.

⁴ Webb, p.7.

⁵ Ibid., pp.8-9.

⁶ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 39, p.536, 29 December 1883.

⁷ Webb, pp.7-8.

⁸ Ibid., pp.l4-21; Journal, p.8.

⁹ Webb, p.34; Journal, p.8.

¹⁰ Louis Asbury’s Job List, Louis Asbury Papers #4237, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Job Number 284, 16 March 1918.

¹¹ Ibid.; and information on file at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission.

¹² Webb, p.36; Journal, p.9; City of Charlotte Building Permit No. 2532, 14 October 1918.

¹³ Webb, pp.36-39.

¹⁴ Ibid., p.40.

¹⁵ Ibid., pp.40-41.

¹⁶ Ibid., p.4

¹⁷ Ibid., p.4

¹⁸ Ibid., pp.44-45.

¹⁹ Journal, p.l0.

²⁰ Interview with Ione Jones, Charlotte, NC, 1982.

²¹ Journal, p.9.

²² December 1982.

 

Architectural Description  

Thomas W. Hanchett

The red brick Old Mount Carmel Baptist Church is an example of Victorian Gothic architecture. It was erected 1918-1921 from plans by Louis Asbury, one of Charlotte’s foremost early architects. It has been added to several time over the decades as its congregation has increased, but these additions have left the original sanctuary largely intact, inside and out.

The earliest section of the church is the sanctuary, a gable-roofed block five bays deep. The roof is tall and steep-pitched in the Gothic tradition. A pair of triangular vents penetrate the sides. The roof has very shallow eaves along the sides of the building, while at the ends the walls rise above the roofline to form parapet gables.

The front of the church is dominated by a tower at one corner. The tower is visible for some distance up and down the street, marking Old Mount Carmel’s unusual mid-block location. The tower is two stories tall with a crenellated top, corbelled cornice, and brick buttressed sides, all hallmarks of the Victorian Gothic style. At the second story there is a long pointed-arched opening on each side, filled with wooden louvering. At the first story of the tower are small, paired, rectangular windows with wooden tracery. These window units are similar to those used in Asbury’s Advent Christian Church built on McDowell Street near downtown Charlotte at the same time, and may have been stock lumberyard items. Next to the tower is a recessed front porch in a brick arched opening. A pair of large doors, one at the left, the other at the right, lead into the church vestibules.

The north side of the sanctuary continues the Gothic mode. Brick buttresses divide the facade into five bays. Each bay has a big Gothic pointed arch. The arches are laid up of two courses of brick darker than the body of the building, for decorative effect. Each opening holds a pair of pointed-arched windows with simple tracery.

Inside the high-ceilinged sanctuary, Asbury left part of the roof framing exposed in the Gothic manner. Beams with curved struts span the space, aided by slender tie-beams. Electric lights in Art Deco style milk-glass enclosers, possibly dating from the 1940s, hang from the centers of the tie-beams. The ceiling is of double-beaded tongue-and-groove boards, and similar woodwork is used for a wainscot around the room.

The congregation enters this space at the east end, through the two vestibules. At the west end is the raised altar and choir platform, with a small bandstand off to one side. Doors from the sanctuary lead to two small ante-chambers, one on each side of the platform. Originally one was the pastor’s study, with a fireplace and handsome mantel, and the other was perhaps a choir room. With the growth of the building, these rooms are now used as hallways between the sanctuary and the new wings, and as staging areas during services.

The original building received substantial additions in 1925, 1935, and 1947. They reflect the growth of the congregation as the suburbs of Western Heights, Washington Heights, McCrorey Heights, and others were built on the former farmland surrounding the original Biddleville village.

The first addition came only four years after completion of the original structure. The church was extended two bays southward to include office rooms and additional sanctuary space. The new seating area has a sloping floor with pews set perpendicularly to those on the main floor. Under the wing is a full basement containing a kitchen and fellowship hall. Current Mt. Carmel treasurer and thirty-five year member William Simmons remembers “lots of good meals in this place.” The exterior brickwork and windows of the wing blend perfectly with the original church. A new, larger pastor’s study was probably the next addition in 1935. It is tacked on to the north side of the sanctuary near the rear and opens off the old pastor’s study inside. 1947 saw the church’s largest addition, a two story classroom wing behind the sanctuary. From the outside it is an awkward-looking brick box with a shallow parapet-gable roof. Inside, classrooms, a library, business office, and a pair of bathrooms flank a central stair hall. As in the other additions, there is no trim beyond a chair rail in most rooms. The most interesting feature of the classroom annex is a second floor trap-door that opens to reveal stairs down to the baptism “pool” located behind the altar. In early days baptisms were held outdoors in a nearby creek. Mr. Simmons remembers that they were later held in a tank below the pulpit. The present tank is located so that all members of the congregation in the sanctuary have a good view of the ceremony.

 

This report was written on October 3, 1979

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as Morrocroft is located at 2525 Richardson Drive in Charlotte, NC.

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

The present owner of the property is:
James J. Harris & Angelia M. Hazels
Box 220427
Charlotte, NC 28222

Telephone: (704) 366-0925

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

4. A map depicting the location of the property: This report contains a map which depicts the location of the property.

5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent reference to this property is recorded in Mecklenburg County Will Book 7, page 552. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is 177-078-04.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property:

Morrocroft was completed in 1927 as the home of Governor Cameron Morrison (1869-1953) and his second wife, Sara Eckerd Watts Morrson.¹ A native of Richmond County, North Carolina, Morrison was an adroit and flamboyant politician. His initial forays into the public arena occurred in the 1890’s, when as a young attorney he headed the Red Shirt movement in Richmond County, a collection of citizens dedicated to the principles of white supremacy as a prerequisite for the progressive development of North Carolina. The only elective office which Morrison held during these years was as Mayor of Rockingham, NC, in 1893.²

Morrison moved his law practice to Charlotte, NC, in 1905. The Charlotte Observer described him as a young man of ability who possessed a clear, musical voice. On December 6, 1905, Morrison married Lottie May Tomlinson of Durham, NC, who was to be the mother of an only child, Aphelia Lawrence Morrison. Mrs. Morrison died in Presbyterian Hospital on November 12, 1919. A graduate of the Women’s College of Baltimore, MD, and Peace Institute in Raleigh, NC, Mrs. Morrison had been active in local civic affairs. During World War I, she had served as captain of a Red Cross canteen team at Camp Greene, a large military training facility in Charlotte.⁴ In 1920, Morrison opposed O. Max Gardner, Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, in the Democratic primary for Governor. A principal ally of Morrison’s in this campaign was Senator Furnifold Simmons. Morrison was victorious, and in January, 1921, he became the Governor of North Carolina.⁵ In an address which he delivered on January 28, 1921, Governor Morrison emanated the progressive and assertive spirit which was to characterize his administration:

 

“We do not want to move and have our being as a crippled, weak and halting State, but we want to stand up like a mighty giant of progress and go forward in the upbuilding of our State and the glorification of our God.”⁶

It was customary for the chief executives of North Carolina to make bold promises at the outset of their terms, but Cameron Morrison did a better than average job in fulfilling his pledge to the people. He is remembered best as the “Good Roads Governor.” To bring North Carolina “out of the mud,” Morrison secured funds for a massive road building program. His objective was to construct paved highways to every county seat in the state. Governor Morrison also labored to upgrade the educational system throughout North Carolina. Allocations to the public institutions of higher learning were increased substantially during his administration. For example, fourteen buildings were erected on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill between 1921 and 1925, the years during which he served as Governor. Moreover, Morrison committed financial resources to the establishment of excellent primary and secondary schools at the local level. Another of Morrison’s major accomplishments was the improvement of medical facilities, especially those involved in the treatment of the mentally and emotionally infirm.⁷

That Governor Morrison placed education high on a list of priorities is not surprising. It is reasonable to infer that two considerations prompted him to do so. First, as a child in Richmond County, he had experienced the consequence of an inadequate public school system. Indeed, the school at Rockingham was open for only two months each year. Consequently, Morrison was compelled to obtain instruction from private teachers, from M. C. McCaskill at Orbs Springs, NC, and from William Carroll at Rockingham. Moreover, financial considerations prevented his matriculation at the University of North Carolina. He received his legal training in the office of Robert P. Dick in Greensboro, NC. Second, Morrison regarded himself as a student and admirer of Thomas Jefferson. “Democracy rests upon the principle of exact and equal justice to all, and regardless of class or station in life,” he proclaimed in a speech in New York City in 1924.⁹

In keeping with his Jeffersonian proclivities, Morrison believed that the existence of an educated citizenry was indispensable to the survival of the American republic. Indeed, he believed that those black citizens who could demonstrate their ability to grasp and appreciate public issues should be permitted to exercise the full rights of citizenship. Illustrative of Governor Morrison’s position on this matter was the fact that he channeled substantial resources to the improvement of the black colleges of North Carolina.¹⁰ Also noteworthy is the fact that the poll tax was unpolled during his administration.¹¹ Governor Morrison’s personal life changed abruptly on April 2, 1924, when he journeyed to Durham, NC, and married Sara Eckerd Watts, millionairess and widow of George W. Regatta. A native of Syracuse, N.Y., and a trained nurse, she had married Watts, a noted financier and philanthropist, on October 25, 1917.¹² Following the termination of Morrison’s tenure as Governor, the Morrisons moved to Charlotte and undertook the establishment of Morrocroft, an elegant residence and experiment farm of approximately three thousand acres just outside of the city. Completed in 1927, the house and attendant outbuildings were designed by Harrie Thomas Lindeberg, a prominent New York architect who specialized in the delineation of baronial country houses. Governor Morrison became known locally as the “Esquire of Morrocroft.”^l4

Consistent with the New South philosophy which undergirded his system of values, Morrison labored to make his estate a model farm which would reflect the most advanced principles of scientific agriculture and thereby encourage the farmers of North Carolina to do likewise. He raised chickens, turkeys, hogs, and established one of the finest herds of Jersey cattle in the United States. Morrocroft also possessed large fields of grain, vegetables, and fruits.^l5 The significance of his agricultural pursuits notwithstanding, Morrison continued to participate actively in the affairs of the Democratic Party. On December 13, 1930, Governor O. Max Gardner surprised many political pundits by appointing Morrison to the United States Senate to serve out the term of Senator Lee S. Overman, who had recently died.¹⁶ In 1932, however, Morrison was unsuccessful in his campaign against Robert R. Reynolds, an Asheville attorney.¹⁷ Reynolds used his opponent’s wealth as an effective political and oratorical weapon, accusing Governor Morrison of eating caviar and using a gold spittoon.¹⁸ In 1942, the voters of the Tenth Congressional District elected Morrison to the House of Representatives. He did not run for reelection. Instead, he campaigned in 1944 to return to the United States Senate. Again, he was unsuccessful, this time losing to Clyde R. Hoey of Shelby, NC.¹⁹ Governor Morrison did not run for public office again. His involvement in politics did not abate, however. He headed the North Carolina delegation to the National Convention of the Democratic Party in Chicago in 1952. His speech urging the delegates to preserve party unity appeared on national television.²⁰ That Governor Morrison practiced what he preached was affirmed by the fact that he supported enthusiastically the candidacy of Adlai Stevenson for the Presidency. Indeed, the last political speech of his career, presented in Freedom Park in Charlotte, echoed his devotion to the Democratic Party which he had advocated as a young attorney in Richmond County in the 1890’s.

 

“Of course there have been actions taken by Democratic Administrations of which I have not wholly approved. Of course, there have been, and still are, individuals within the Democratic Party whom I would much rather have seen elsewhere. But we must never let anything swerve us from the only honorable course, and that is the true loyalty to the Democratic Party, now, as in the past, and forever.”^2l

Governor Cameron Morrison died on August 21, 1953, of a heart attack at the age of eighty-three. His death occurred in Quebec, Canada, while on a trip with his grandson, James J. Harris, Jr. Mrs. Morrison predeceased her husband, having expired in 1950.²² Mrs. Morrison was a talented and exceptional human being. She was a member of Second Presbyterian Church.²³ “Mrs. Morrison fights the devil through the Presbyterian church, and I try to give him a few good licks through the Democratic Party,” Governor Morrison once remarked.²⁴ Mrs. Morrison served on the Board of the Charlotte YWCA and the Stonewall Jackson Training School. Moreover, she was generous in her support of Queens College in Charlotte, where Morrison Hall was named in her honor.²⁵ Mrs. Morrison bequeathed Morrocroft to her step-daughter, Angelia Lawrence Morrison Harris, and to her step-daughter’s husband, James J. Harris.²⁶ Mr. Harris, an insurance executive, was born in Athens, GA, on May 13, 1907. He and Mrs. Harris were married on October 6, 1934. Over the years, Mr. and Mr. Harris have disposed of the majority of Morrocroft Estate. The house now constitutes the centerpiece of a tract of 16.5 acres.²⁷

 

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NOTES

¹ The Charlotte News (September 14, 1979), p. 3C. The Charlotte Observer (April 3, 1924), p. 1.

² Beth G. Crabtree, North Carolina Governors 1885-1968 (State Department of Archive and History, Raleigh, 2nd printing rev.) pp. 120-121. Hereafter cited as Crabtree. The Charlotte Observer (March 3, 1920), p. 13.

³ The Charlotte Observer (February 27, 1905), p. 5.

⁴ The Charlotte Observer (November 13, 1919), p. 2.

⁵ Cameron Morrison, An address delivered by the Honorable Frank P. Graham to a Joint Session of the North Carolina General Assembly, March 31, 1955. Hereafter cited as Graham.

⁶ William H. Richardson & D. L. Corbitt, comp. & ed., Public Papers And Letters Of Cameron Morrison. Governor of North Carolina. l92l-1925 (Edwards & Broughton Co., Raleigh, 1927), pp. 17-18.

⁷ Crabtree. Graham. William S. Powell, North Carolina: A Bicentennial History (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, for the American Association of State and Local History, 1977), p. 184, 193, 196.

⁸ Graham. The Charlotte Observer (March 3, 1920), p. 13.

⁹ Graham. “Morrison, Cameron Family,” a folder in the vertica1 files of the Carolina Room of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library. Hereafter cited as Family.

¹⁰ Crabtree.

¹¹ Graham.

¹² The Charlotte Observer (April 3, 1924), p. 1.

¹³ “Morrocroft, An Architectural Description” (August 18, 1979) by Carolina Mesrobian for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission.

¹⁴ Family.

¹⁵ Graham.

¹⁶ Family.

¹⁷ The Charlotte News (August 21, 1953), p. 10A.

¹⁸ Orison, Cameron. Old Clippings, a folder in the vertical files of the Carolina Room of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg-Public Library.

¹⁹ The Charlotte Observer (August 21, 1953), p. 1.

²⁰ The Charlotte News (August 21, 1953), p. ICE.

²¹ Ibid.

²² The Charlotte Observer (August 21, 1953), p. 1.

²³ Family.

²⁴ Ibid. Governor Morrison characterized his own career in the following manner: “The Lord has just used a knotty-headed old Scotchman who uses his fists, instead of the standard kind of statesman.” The Charlotte News (August 21, 1953), p. 10b.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Mecklenburg County Will Book 7, page 552. 27. History of North Carolina, Volume III, Family and Personal History (Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc.)

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains an architectural description of the property prepared by Carolina Mesrobian, architectural historian.

8. Documentation of way and in what ways the em Perth meets the criteria set forth in N. C. G. S. 160A-399.4:

 

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance: Special historic significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg and North Carolina. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations 1) Morrocroft was the home of Cameron Morrison, Governor of North Carolina from 1921 until 1925, 2) the house and attendant outbuildings were designed by Harris Thomas Lindeberg, and 3) the house formed the centerpiece of an experimental farm.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials. feeling and/or association: The Commission judges that the architectural description included herein demonstrated that the property known as Morrocroft meets this criterion.

9. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply annually for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes “historic property.” The current tax appraisal on the 16.5 acres of land is $330,000. The current tax appraisal on the improvements is $311,030. The most recent tax bill on the property was $10,737.25.

 

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Bibliography

The Charlotte News.

The Charlotte Observer.

Beth G. Crabtree, North Carolina Governors 1585-1968 (State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh.

Frank P. Graham, “Cameron Morrison, An Address by the Honorable Frank P. Graham.” “Morrison, Cameron Family,” a folder in the vertical files of the Carolina Room of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library.

“Morrison Cameron: Old Clippings” a folder in the vertical files of the Carolina Room of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public library.

William S. Powell, North Carolina. A Bicentennial History (W. W. Norton & Co., New York, for The American Association of State and Local History, 1977).

Records of the Mecklenburg County Clerk of Superior Court.

Records of the Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office.

Records of the Mecklenburg County Tax Office.

William H. Richardson & D. B. Corbett, comp. & ed., Public Papers And Letters of Cameron Morrison, Governor of North Carolina, 1921-1925 Edwards & Broughton Co., Raleigh, 1927).

 

Date of preparation of this report: October 3, 1979

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill, Director
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
139 Middleton Dr.
Charlotte, NC 28207

Telephone: (704) 332-2726

 

 

Architectural Description  

Morrocroft was designed by the New York architect Harrie Thomas Lindeberg (1881? – 1959) for former North Carolina governor Cameron Morrison (served 1921 – 1925) in 1927. Lindeberg, who published a book on his domestic architecture in 1940, designed a number of baronial country houses in the United States for such clients as the Doubleday, Pillsbury, Dupont and Vanderbilt families. Clients in North Carolina included Martin L. Cannon of Charlotte, Mrs. L. J. Morehead of Salem, the Asheville Country Club, and several residents of Biltmore Forest.¹

Lindeberg’s prevalent modes of domestic architecture were the Colonial and Tudor country manor house styles. Morrocroft (a combination of the family surname Morrison and the Scottish word for house)² was built in the Tudor style. The asymmetry, picturesque massing, rhythmic spacing of mullioned, multi-paned grouped windows, and numerous multi-stack chimneys rising from steeply pitched gable roofs are tangible manifestations of the credo on domestic architecture compiled by Lindeberg and his senior partner, Lewis Colt Albro, in 1912.³ Harmony between house and environment was also of the utmost importance to Lindeberg’s total concept of design for Morrocroft, set on the rise of a gradually sloping tract of land, at one time surveyed at 3000 acres of farmland. Portions of the estate were developed from the 1950’s on for residential communities, Cotswold , Sharon Road, and Southpark Shopping Centers and an industrial park on Fairview Road. Although the house is surrounded at present by approximately 15 acres, much of the carefully planned landscaping is still intact.

The present grounds contain the main house and service court, garage, a brick garden house to the south of the house, the brick floor of a summerhouse located to the northwest of the house and a large frame grounds facility. According to the resident caretaker, Mr. Harkey, the latter building was moved to its present site northwest of the house in the early 1970s. The entrance to the grounds from Richardson Drive is bounded by brick walls carrying large decorative lead turkeys with full spread tails. These birds originally faced Sharon Road and were moved as civilization encroached on the estate. The drive, as illustrated in a 1927 house and partial grounds plan, divides into two paths, one leading to a walled service court attached to the right side of the house and a free standing garage standing to the north of the main complex; the other terminating in an oval drive in front of the main entrance, the front being oriented to the northeast.

Landscaping consists of a large number of English boxwood of several sizes and varieties. Small boxwood line the drives and a garden wall extending from the right side of the house, while the front of the house is lined with formal massings of large boxwood. A flagstone terrace leads from the southeast facade to a boxwood and brick lined lawn which terminates in a shallow-basined fountain with four spouts. What appears to have been a rose garden with brick paths radiating from a central nucleus lies due south of the house. The terraced rear (southwest) looks over a vast expanse of lawn to Sharon Road. Symmetrical, curved boxwood hedges line the grassy path and steps leading to the terrace and the main entrance of this facade. A shallow-basined pool with one spout formally defines each side of the lower entrance path. The northwest side of the house faces a dogwood forest. A wide variety of veteran trees shade the house and gardens. Trees include the magnolia, yellow poplar, American holly, ginkgo, Carolina hickory, black locust, white ash, flowering fruits and white willow and live oak.

Exterior, The Manor House (excluding the Service Court)

Morrocroft is characterized by a main two story block (two and-one half stories on the rear facade) with rambling one and one half story side wings which extend either parallel or at a right angle to the main block. Breaks in the wall surfaces which create solids and voids, diverse roof lines and projections from the central block such as the front entrance bay, an oriel window, and a one story office complete with its own roof and chimney provide asymmetrical and picturesque qualities. The house is comprised of narrow ochre and earth colored bricks said to have been made in Holland.⁵ Bondwork is a random, running type, stretchers being the more prevalent, with occasional headers. The steep, gable roofs which provide a vertical accent to the house have terracotta shingles. Heavy metal gutters with ornamental down spout clasps surround the house. The sprawling, horizontal massing of Morrocroft is further balanced by seven brick chimneys, six of which define the end walls of the wings, the seventh being centrally located in the main wing. The majority of the chimneys has three octagonal brick stacks with corbeled caps. Two chimneys on the service yard side have three clay pot stacks. Fenestration, while diverse in size and placement, is made homogeneous by the use of subtlety-tinted English leaded glass. Large sandstone or wooden mullions divide the windows into a number of lights; each light is divided into a number of small, diamond or rectangular shared panes by numerous cames. The glazing is thin and irregular, qualities which help diffract the colors of the stained glass windows and are basically of French, wall-faced pedimented dormer, or the standard Grouped casement type. Frames are either of sandstone or wood painted brown.

Front Facade (northeast)

The front facade may be divided into several sections: the two story main block comprised of five bays; a one and one half story, two bay wing projecting at a right angle from the northwest side of the main block; a one story two bay wide by one bay deep office which projects from the right angle formed by the wings; and a one and one half story, three bay wing continuing from the main section to the southeast.

The front entrance of Morrocroft (facing to the northeast) is articulated by a two story, gabled bay projecting from the central wing of the house. Walls are slightly battered. The vestibule is entered by a central doorless opening with a wide sandstone frame and sandstone Tudor arch with flared sides. Wrought iron and glass lantern with supporting bracket hangs over the entrance. The second story is pierced by a four light, leaded casement window, each light containing diamond shaped panes formed by cames. The southeast side of the entrance porch contains a similar window with two lights centrally placed on the first story and a small casement window on the second story near where the vestibule and main wing intersect. The interior of the vestibule is faced with large well-dressed sandstone blocks, has a wooden ceiling with exposed beams from which a lantern is suspended, and a slate floor. The northwest interior side contains a shallow niche with lintel. The door, with outer screen, is of wrought iron and glass and bears a stylized peacock framed by a leafy spiral vine pattern. Frame is of metal which forms a cable pattern; sill is of bronze.

A long wrought iron bell handle is located on the left side of the interior entranceway. The bay to the southeast of the projecting porch is pierced by a ground story sandstone frame window with four lights and transom while the second story contains a window with three lights. The southeast wing of Morrocroft is set back from the front wall of the main block, allowing room for a French window with transom on the first story, a window with two lights on the second story and a small casement window on the third story, all having sandstone mullions and surrounds. The bay northwest of the entrance projects slightly from the main block and is articulated by an oriel window situated between the first and second stories. A frieze running above the window’s twelve lights with diamond shaded panes bears grapevines whose fruit is being enjoyed by birds and animals. Below the glazing a larger four panel frieze contains harvest scenes and the daily activities of the country folk. These panels are enhanced by a molding of twisted cable and three rosettes. Below and to the right of the oriel window is a decorative diamond shaped grille bearing a squirrel surrounded by leafy vines and set into brick cut into a diaper pattern. The northwest side of this projecting bay is pierced by a casement window with two lights on the ground story.

The remaining bays in the main block consist of a bay pierced by a four light casement window with transom on the ground story and a three light window on the second story; a double light casement window is located on both stories of the end bay. The one and one half story wing which is at a right angle to the main block is marked by a narrow single casement window and a double light casement window on the first story, each with wood surrounds. A three light, wall face dormer window with wood surrounds and soldier course is centrally located above the first story fenestration. A high, wide garden wall extends from this wing; the brick is thin but is of a slightly darker color than the brick used for the house. Two brick steps lead to a centrally placed archway capped by a decorative brick keystone. The wood door has four panels and a wrought iron unglazed fan light with tracery. Low brick borders define the boxwood beds in front of the wall. A single story office with a steeply sloping gable roof and an end wall chimney projects from the intersection of the main block and the side wing. Its entrance facade, which faces southeast, contains a three panel frame door with upper glazed lights and a three light casement window with wood surrounds. The one and one half story wing on the southeast side of the main sections of the house is symmetrically articulated, it having three evenly spaced French windows with stationary transoms, interior screens and sandstone surrounds. Two double light, brick faced dormer windows with wood surrounds and soldier course are situated above the first and third ground story bays.

Southeast (Terrace and Garden) Facade

Two glazed floor length windows with sandstone frames, overhead wall lanterns, and exterior screen doors comprise the first story. The second story is pierced by two single casement windows with sandstone surrounds. An end-wall chimney with three brick stacks courses through the central section of this facade.

Southwest (Rear) Facade, facing Sharon Rd.

This facade may be divided into three sections. The main block’s (four bays) and southeast wing’s (three bays) bay and fenestration arrangement correspond roughly to that of the front facade. A one and one half story northwest wing contains two bays. The southeast wing of this facade contains three French windows with fixed transom, sandstone frames and interior screen doors. The attic floor is articulated by a double light dormer window with wood surrounds on the first and third bays. These flank a tiny wood frame casement window located directly under the eaves. The southeastern most bay of the main block contains a first story four light casement window with transom and a three light casement window with double transom on the second floor. frames and mullions are sandstone. This bay projects from the common wall line of the main block to include a first story French window with transom and a second story double light casement window on its northwest side. A French window with transom and narrow glazed side doors with transoms and inner screen doors corresponds in placement to the entrance bay on the front facade. The adjoining bay contains a first story five light casement window with transom. A bracketed lantern extends from the wall between these bays. Metal rollers placed at intervals between the first and second story indicate an awning covered the terrace in this section at one time.

The second story portion over these two bays is sheathed in shingle siding and is pierced by a two light casement window, and a narrow casement window situated near the projection of a bay on the northwest end of the main block. The attic story of the shingle-sided section contains three evenly spaced true dormer windows. Wood surrounds and mullions characterize the fenestration of the second and attic stories. A six-sectioned ground story bay window with transom comprises the final bay of the main block. This bay projects slightly from the main block. Fenestration has sandstone frame and mullions. The northwest one and one half story wing of Morrocroft is set back from the main block. The right angle formed by the intersection of these sections contains a side entrance porch formed by one free standing and two engaged wooden piers with brick pier bases. Pegged wooden braces extend from these piers to support a second story balcony with turned balusters and three piers with perched, wood stylized vultures. The entrance from this porch is located on the northwest end of the main block of the house and consists of a wooden door with six panels and an exterior screen door. A two light casement window is located on the second story, directly over the entrance, while a smaller two light casement window defines the third story. Both have sandstone mullions and surrounds. The wing northwest of the main block of the house contains a pedimented door set into the roof leading onto the second story balcony. The lower half of the door with exterior screen door is frame, the upper portion being glazed. The remaining bays in this wing are pierced by a three light casement window and a four light casement window on the ground story and two pedimented dormer windows with two and three lights respectively. Fenestration in these bays has wood surrounds and mullions. The northwest end of this wing is one bay deep and contains a first story double light casement window which has been boarded over and a narrow casement window on the second story. A wide end wall chimney with three clay pots also articulates this end.

Service Wing Complex

A rectangular walled service court forms the extreme northwest side of the manor house and may be entered from the grounds both on the northeast (driveway) side and through a small pedestrian arched entrance (with exaggerated brick keystone) on its northwest side. The interior of the court contains a central paved area. The southeast side (rear side of the front brick garden wall) contains a shingle roof carport which is not original to the house. The 1927 plan of the residence allocated this area to a drying yard. Steps to a large full basement are located on the northeast end of the service building. The building complex itself is composed of the rear facade of the wing which extends at a right angle from the main block, a servants’ hall which projects from the joining of the two wings at their northwest side, and an added laundry facility extension which completes the southwest side of the court. The right angle one and one half story wing (southeast side of the court) contains three bays. The first is pierced by a ground story four light casement window and an attic three light dormer window, both with wood surrounds and mullions. This bay was originally designated as a laundry room as shown by the plan. A rectangular screened porch comprises the area in front of the second and third bays, filling in the area formed by the junction of the southeast and southwest sides of the court. A screen door, facing northwest, leads into the porch. The house proper is entered by a three panel, upper glazed door in the second bay of this wing. A double light casement window comprises the third bay of this window. A small four light casement attic window is located above this area. The southwest one story facade of the court consists of two bays: an entrance door end a double light casement window.

Wood frames are employed consistently. This section of the court (southwest) was extended at a later date to include a nine bay laundry facility which has a lower, shingle gable roof. The laundry section is built of wood painted dark brown to match the trim of the main house and is half timbered with wood insets (to simulate true half timber construction) on the lower section. Seven of the bays are pierced by casement windows; two contain entrances. The third and seventh bays contain a tri-paneled frame door with upper glazed section and an exterior screen door. These entrances are reached by two brick steps and side rails and have bracketed gabled overdoors with simulated half timbered pediments. Windows have double lights with the exception of the sixth bay which is articulated by a three light casement window. Wood mullions are painted brown. The northwest, exterior end wall of the court has been altered to contain a small casement window with brick header to illuminate the laundry room. The southwest exterior side of the court consists of the rear of the laundry and the servants’ hall. The rear of the laundry contains a louvered vent; a three light casement window comprises the rear bay of this servants’ hall.

Interior of the Manor House

The exterior of Morrocroft, as would befit a manor house, is stately and imposing. Its interior, while fitted with dignified and rich detailing, possesses a human-scale quality which survives the house a true domestic character. Lindeberg purposefully sought to include the domestic element in the design of his large country houses. In the introduction to Lindeberg’s and Albro’s publication, Domestic Architecture, the large dwelling and the cottage are compared: “Even the large house in the country should not merely be a place for the reception of visitors; it should be a dwelling for a family, and it should express the domestic feeling, as surely and straightforwardly as the cottage.”⁶ The first floor of the residence contains an entrance hall, living room, sun-room, library, stairhall, powder room, and dining room. The kitchen complete with pantry and cold room, a servants’ hall, laundry, and office are also located on this floor. No staircases lead to a second story comprised of six bedrooms with baths, a boudoir, linen room, and pressing room. There is an extraordinary amount of closet and shelf space or this floor. A staircase leads from the second floor hall to a third story located in the central block of the house. It contains a bedroom with bath and two large cedar lined storage rooms.

First Floor

A large rectangular hall may be entered both from the front vestibule and the rear terrace side of the house. The most singular feature of this room is the front entrance wall, two thirds of which is paneled in Norwegian pine; the upper portion is plaster as are the other walls and ceiling. The door is trimmed with pine, has cable trim surround, and is framed by fluted pilasters carrying an entablature with broken pediment. The frieze is decorated by a central, fluted keystone flanked by carved swans; the pediment is enriched with a shell pattern and leaf and tongue. A pine mantel fireplace with rectangular opening and a carved over mantel with carved volutes and a broken pediment is located in the northwest wall. The frieze is comprised of cross-banded sheaths of wheat and a central swag. The dentil work and triglyphs and metope decorate the cornice. The shouldered architrave is framed with bead and reel borders, while the inner surround and hearth are of black-green marble. The interior of the fireplace is terracotta molded into the shape of shamrocks. The hall’s plaster cornice bears a floral decoration. The baseboard is pine. Wide oak pegged boards comprise the floor.

A large, rectangular living room may be entered from two six panel doors in the southeast wall of the hall. Door hardware consists of polished steel box locks engraved with a floral motif, melon shaped knob (pull on opposite side of door), and a long key and chain. A white marble mantel is centrally located in the southeast wall of this room. Its rectangular opening is framed by pilasters with garlands and acanthus decorated capitals. The center tablet of the frieze is in fairly high relief and is decorated with an allegorical depiction of Cupid bound. A nymph holding Cupid’s bow and two figures running toward them with garlands complete this panel. It is flanked by foliated scrolls and small panels bearing love birds. The hearth is of black slate, while the interior of the fireplace is comprised of thin bricks set in a herring bone pattern with thick bands of mortar. The room has a deep cornice which includes a band of acanthus leaves and high relief daisy heads, cable pattern with rosettes, and molding of leaf and tongue. The paneled walls are wood painted to resemble plasterwork; baseboard has a stylized foliated border. The oak floor is parquet. A French window with stationary transom and sandstone surrounds in the living room’s southeast wall opens into a rectangular sun-room. The 1927 plan shows part of this area was to be used as a flower room; in actuality the room was never realized. The most distinctive feature of the sunroom is the large, multi-tinted glass, leaded trench windows which instill the room with a soft, muted light. A white and earthy red marble fireplace, in projecting chimney breast is located in the center of the southeast wall. The frieze is comprised of a central oval tablet of white marble trimmed in red marble which bears the head of Bacchus flanked with horns of plenty. Enriched ovolo (egg and dart), and stylized leafy borders and wheat ear drops also decorate the frieze. The hearth is black slate; the interior of the fireplace is incised black metal. The sunroom’s cornice contains decorative brackets with soffits bearings rosettes and a molding of enriched ovolo. The floor is of wide pegged oak planks.

The hall with spiral staircase is entered from the northwest side of the entrance hall. A slender, polished steel rail with delicate ornamented balusters set into the sides of the wood steps leads to the second floor hall. The stairwell is illuminated by a large, tinted-and-diamond panel oriel window which is flanked by heating grilles bearing highly decorative ironwork. The cornice in the first floor hall bears the cable motif. The floor is pegged plank. The Norwegian pine paneled library leads from the southwest wall of the stairhall. Walls are lined with cable trimmed bookcases and lower storage areas (over door shelves as well). The southwest wall contains a large window with transom, and sandstone mullions and frame. Window screens, as found throughout the house, can be hidden in the frames. A pine mantel, which is similar to the mantel in the entrance hall, is located in the southeast wall. The mantel has a rectangular opening with a black-green marble surround, shouldered architrave, carved foliated frieze and cornice, and a simple overmantel panel. Hearth is of marble slab, while the interior of the fireplace is constructed in the brick herring-bone pattern. The library’s cornice work consists of pronounced dentil work, and enriched ovolo. Plank floor is pegged. The rectangular dining room with southwest wall bay window is reached from the northwest wall of the stairhall. Walls are paneled wood painted to simulate plasterwork, as found in the living room. The wall finish consists of gold leaf enriched ovolo, enriched cyma reversa, and foliated cornice, a gold leaf chair rail with a leafy border bearing rosettes, and gold leaf panel trim with the cable motif. The floor is parquet. Hardware on the six panel doors is similar to the living room doors. A white marble mantel with rectangular opening and ochre and tan marble surround framed by pilasters bearing a ribbon and garland decoration is located in the northwest wall. The frieze bears a center tablet in relief with a scene of putti letting a bird escape from a box; this is flanked by swans, putti with birds, and a lower, fluted border. The paneled overmantel with ovolo and floral cold leaf trims has a broken pediment which terminates in volutes flanking a decorative shell; both are painted in gold leaf. The kitchen complex spans a substantial area of the first floor and includes a “large pantry and cold room.” The kitchen and pantry counter tops are red, while floors are fashioned in black and white linoleum squares. Remodeling would appear to date from the 1960s.

A one room office may be entered from either hall or an exterior door; the 1927 plan does not show the opening in the office’s northwest wall, although it appears original to the house. The door hardware consists of metal plates in the shape of a frontier man with coonskin cap, musket and powder horn, and a cabled handle. The paneled wall cabinets and simple wood cornice and baseboard line the office. The floor is pegged plank. The northeast wall contains a fireplace flanked by open shelves and under cabinets. The simple wood mantel has a rectangular opening, dentil work trim, a black slate hearth and trick herring, bone pattern interior.

Second Floor

The southeast section of this floor contains the master bedrooms and a boudoir which locks offer the formal gardens. The boudoir was converted into an “ideal dressing room” by the Morrisons’ daughter, Mrs. James J. Harris.⁷ The only feature that the 1927 plan does not show is the large, double folding door bath alcove located in the northwest wall. The tub and alcove walls are sheathed in pink marble with gray veining. A small chandelier hangs overhead. Smaller window alcoves in the southwest and northeast walls contain respectively a pink, gray-veined marble sink with ornamental gold sea creature fixtures and a mirrored dressing table held by stylized floral brackets. Wall cabinets, shelves, and closets line the walls. A projecting gray marble mantel with white veining and curved opening comprises the center of the southeast wall. Pilasters are cable fluted with upper cartouche, while the center of the frieze bears a decorative shell. The hearth is gray and white marble with a white marble inset.

A hall from the boudoir leads into what was originally Mrs. Morrison’s bedroom. This room overlooks the spacious lawn on the southwest side of the house. Its dominant feature is a white marble fireplace with rectangular opening, bead and reel surround, and pilasters with terms on high pedestals. The frieze contains a center relief panel with seated allegorical figures. This tablet is flanked by fluting and end love birds. Other decorative molding includes acanthus and beading. The hearth is black slate, and the fireplace interior is black incised metal. What was originally Mrs. Morrison’s bedroom is located at the front of the house. Its floor has been left uncarpeted and consists of small hardwood boards. This flooring is probably standard to the second floor. The bathroom with parquet veneer floor lies directly over the front vestibule. Its white marble sink with metal and Lucite fixtures is employed in the remaining bathrooms on this floor.

A hall which runs the length of the northwest half of Morrocroft links the remaining four bedrooms, linen room and pressing room. Plaster cornice work in the cart of the hall reached directly from the spiral staircase is elaborate and consists of a border of various flowers such as the rose and fleur de lis. This molding is sandwiched by the cable motif. Trim continues on the ceiling which bears a foliated scroll pattern. Noteworthy features in the remaining bedrooms include marble or wooden fireplaces The bedroom which faces the spiral staircase landing has a southeast wall pine mantel with rectangular opening and black slate surround. Pilasters are decorated with wheat ear drops and upper acanthus consoles; the frieze bears a central carved shell flanked by foliated scrolls and bead and reel. The cornice work has the egg, and dart and stylized leaf motifs. The hearth is black slate, while the fireplace interior is composed of tricks laid in the herring bone pattern. The bedroom, located beside a staircase leading to the third floor, contains a northwest mantel of white marble panel of the gray and green marble panel inserts. She center, white marble panel of the frieze is decorated with crossed flaming torches and twisted ribbon; the frieze ends bears the same motif on a smaller scale. The hearth is black slate. The fireplace interior is brick laid in the herring bone pattern.

The northwest wings of this story are reached by a two step down break in the main hallway at the point where the third floor staircase rises; the hall ceiling becomes lower. This section of the house may also be reached from the ground floor by a single flight back staircase. The pine balustrade on the second floor consists of turned balusters, simple handrail and turned acorn posts. The west corner bedroom has a northwest wall mantel of variegated gray, red, and white marble with rectangular opening, pilasters with cabled fluting, and frieze adorned with interlocked circles. The same type marble comprises the hearth. The northeast corner bedroom has a mantel in the northeast wall, which consists of a similar multi-colored marble and shape as the above mantel. Pilasters bear wheat ear drops, while the central panel of the frieze contains a stylized flower. The hearth is white marble, bordered by gray, red; white veined marble panels. Ceilings shapes and heights in the manor house are varied. While the first floor has traditional flat ceiling, the second floor master bedroom, boudoir, and the northeast end bedroom have plaster barrel vault ceilings. A section of the second floor hall is also barrel vaulted. Ceiling heights in the main rooms and hall or the first floor are 10’9”; kitchen and office ceilings are 9′ and 8’7″ respectively. Second floor ceiling heights are: boudoir, 9’2″; master bedroom, 12’6″; central southeast side bedroom, 9’2″; remaining three bedrooms and linen room, all 9′, and pressing room, 8’11”. Bathroom ceiling heights are 8’11”, while the halls range from 9’8″ to 8’6″ to 7’10”.

Third Floor

Admittance to the third floor could not be obtained from the owners for this report.

Utility Buildings

Garage
A one and one half story brick garage with steep gable located on the grounds to the north of the house. A central, one story bay with gable roof projects at a right angle from the southeast side of the main block. The brick, terracotta shingles and gutters are similar to the manor house: the structure appears to have been built at the same time as the house. The land rises to the southeast.

The garage door side of the building (northwest) contains three bays. The wide middle bay on the ground story is comprised of a set of hinged doors flanked by two side doors; the smaller end bays also contain hinged doors. Each section of the doors has three wood panels painted brown with an upper glazed portion. Three evenly spaced double light dormer windows and a small dormer window located between the second and third bays characterize the attic story. Window frames and mullions are wood painted brown.

The northeast facade is marked by an exterior single flight brick staircase with brick side. A three panel, upper glazed door is located in an opening in the side of the stairs on ground level. The remaining bay on this story has a double light casement window. A small flight of stairs with metal rail leads to a basement door. The attic story contains a centrally-located door flanked on each side by a casement window. The main block roof on the rear (southeast) facade slopes and flares to a point 4’9″ from the ground level. A single stack chimney with corbel cap is located in the main block to the right of the projecting bay. The right end bay of the main block (under the chimney) is pierced by a round level double light casement basement window. The left end bay of this block contains a small ground level casement window placed near the junction of the main block and projecting bay. The central, projecting bay contains a low set, six light casement window with wood mullions and surround. The southwest, one and one half story facade has two bays. The left bay is pierced by a four light casement window on the ground floor and an attic double light casement window. A double light casement window is situated near ground level in the right bay.

Summerhouse

The red brick raised floor of a summerhouse is located on the northwest side of the manor house. Small metal post holes are found at intervals alone the edge of the cruciform shared floor. According to the caretaker the structure had a terracotta roof supported by wooden posts and was screened. Large awnings could be rolled down for shelter from the sun or inclement weather.

Gardenhouse

A single bay, square sided brick garden house with composition shingle, hip roof stands on the grounds due south of the main house. The brick, although similar to that of the manor house, is not identical and is laid in running (stretcher) bond. The brickwork, symmetrical design and detailing indicate the structure is not original to the property. The entrance facade (north) contains a centrally-placed archway with four panel wood door. The east facade contains an arched window which has been boarded over. A three light window with stationary center light and side casements pierces the south wall, while the west wall is blank. The red brick interior has a ceiling with exposed beams which radiate to a circular boss.

 

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NOTES

¹ Harrie T. Lindeberg, Domestic Architecture of H. T. Lindeberg, with an Introduction by Royal Cortissoz, New York: William Helburn, Inc., 1940. See the list of clients, pp. 305-310, Morrocroft is illustrated on page 71.

² Barbara McAden, “Family’s English Manor Gains Lighter Look”, The Charlotte Observer, September 29, 1963, Section D, p. 1.

³ L, C. Albro and H. B. Lindeberg, Domestic Architecture, Cambridge, MA: University Press, for private distribution by the authors, 1912, Introduction, Albro and Lindeberg were partners from 1906 to 1914. See the acknowledgement in Lindeberg Domestic Architecture.

⁴ Lindeberg, p. 70.

⁵ Camden.

⁶ Albro and Lindeberg, Introduction.

⁷ McAden, p.1.