This photo was taken before the house was under restoration. It now houses a restaurant.

This is a more recent photo of the house after restoration was complete.

This report was written on 31 August 1992

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House is located at 1601 East Seventh Street, Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

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

Judith Chipley Hudson
2908 Park Road
Charlotte, North Carolina 28209

Telephone: (704) 373-1215

Tax Parcel Number: 080-205-01

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 080-205-01 is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 5955 on page 942.

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 Ms. 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 John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations:
1) the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House was constructed in Charlotte’s second streetcar suburb, Elizabeth, in 1913;
2) the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House was purchased by John Paul Lucas, a managing editor of the Charlotte Evening Chronicle, for $8,500 in 1913;
3) Mr. Lucas deeded the house to his wife, Alice Craft Lucas;
4) Mr. Lucas was publicity manager for the Southern Public Utilities Company by 1920 and later became a vice-president of Duke Power Company;
5) Mr. Lucas was active in civic affairs of both Charlotte and North Carolina;
6) Mr. Lucas, always interested in farming and agriculture, served as executive assistant state food administrator under the United States Food Administration;
7) Mrs. Lucas graduated from Trinity College, now Duke University, in 1905;
8) Mrs. Lucas served as the southern correspondent for the Boston Transcript newspaper;
9) the Lucas family moved to Eastover in 1930 but retained the Seventh Street house as a rental property;
10) the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House passed to the mortgage holder in a 1936 foreclosure;
11) Mr. William Calhoun McIntire, who bought the house in 1938, lived there with his family for about thirty years;
12) the house was purchased by the Chipley family in 1969;
13) the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House is architecturally significant as Craftsman house constructed in the bungalow style;
14) the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House has many exterior features, such as the Tudor false half-timbering and wood shingle siding, that are intact and in good condition;
15) the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House has many interior appointments, such as the massive fireplaces, the woodwork, and the pocket doors, that are intact and in very good condition; and
16) the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House can provide valuable insight into the era when Charlotte’s citizens were adjusting to “life in the suburbs.”

b. Integrity of design setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural description by Ms. Nora M. Black included in this report demonstrates that the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas 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 $17,140. The current appraised value of the 0.20 acres of Tax Parcel 080-205-01 is $60,900. The total appraised value of the property is $78,040. The property is zoned B2.

Date of Preparation of this Report: 31 August 1992

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill
in conjunction with
Ms. 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

Dr. William H. Huffman

Built in 1913, the Lucas House is representative of suburban development for middle-class residents in the Elizabeth neighborhood that took place prior to World War I. Located about one and one-third miles southeast of the Square at the intersections of Seventh Street and Louise Avenue, it is also associated with Charlotte’s first public park, Independence Park, and a prominent resident, John Paul Lucas (1885-1940). Following the successful 1890s opening of suburban development in Dilworth and the establishment of an electric trolley line to take residents to work by Edward Dilworth Latta (1851-1925), other developers began to follow suit. What is now the Elizabeth neighborhood was the city’s second streetcar-related suburb and was built in sections by different developers. It began with development by the Highland Park Company along Elizabeth Avenue in the 1890s, but was given a boost by the 1903 extension of the trolley line up Elizabeth Avenue to Elizabeth College, now the site of Presbyterian Hospital (the neighborhood gets its name from the College, which was named for Ann R Macbeth Watts, wife of college benefactor Gerard S. Watts).

In 1900, Piedmont Park was laid out on land purchased from Col. W. R. Myers (who also owned the land where Myers Park would be built later), and the Oakhurst section was platted shortly thereafter. The last two sections to be laid out were Elizabeth Heights in 1904 and Rosemont in 1913. As in Dilworth, in the early twentieth century the wealthy built grand houses on the major boulevards in Elizabeth, and the side streets contained mostly modest middle-class bungalows and rectilinear-style houses.¹ As an amenity to attract buyers to the suburbs, Latta had included Latta Park as part of his development, and the Elizabeth developers recognized the value of doing the same. Thus when Piedmont Park was designed in 1900, six acres were set aside for that purpose. When Elizabeth Heights was laid out, it also provided for parkland, and the two developments donated both areas to the city for Independence Park, which was dedicated as the city’s first public park on August 4,1904. The city formed the Charlotte Park and Tree Commission to oversee construction of the park, which, in 1905, hired John Nolen, a newly-graduated Harvard landscape architect, to do his first major project. After designing Independence Park, Nolen later laid out Myers Park, did city plans for the cities of Asheville and Charlotte, and executed a number of other North Carolina and nationwide projects, some four hundred in all. He probably provided the biggest influence on the look of much of Charlotte outside the center city today, with its curving, tree-lined streets.²

The lots at the corner of Seventh Street and Louise Avenue were still undeveloped when they were bought by the Carolina Realty Company in 1912 and further subdivided into four pie-shaped build lots, which were called Independence Circle, since they faced the park.³ After the house on the wedge-shaped parcel on the corner was completed in late spring or early summer, 1913, it was bought in July by John Paul Lucas for $8,500, who shortly thereafter deeded it to his wife, Alice Craft Lucas l884-1962) (a common practice to avoid the loss of the house if the husband suffered business reverses).⁴ John Paul Lucas was a native of Black Creek, NC and moved with his parents to Charlotte while he was still in school. At the age of seventeen, he became a cub reporter for the Charlotte Observer. Later he became the editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, and returned to Charlotte as the managing editor of the Charlotte Evening Chronicle. He held the latter position in 1913 when be bought the house on East Seventh Street. By 1920, he became the publicity manager for the Southern Public Utilities Company, which was later incorporated into Duke Power Company. After Duke Power was formed, Lucas became a vice-president and manager of merchandise and publicity. In addition to being active in Charlotte’s civic affairs (the Chamber of Commerce and Rotary club) and his church, he maintained a great interest in agriculture. Lucas operated a large farm of his own, and was elected president of the North Carolina Farmer’s Convention in 1916 and 1917. With the U.S. entry into the war, he was appointed executive secretary of the North Carolina State Food Conservation Commission, and later became executive assistant state food administrator under the United States Food Administration. For many years, he was chairman of the agricultural and rural affairs departments of the Chamber of Commerce, and he actively campaigned for the establishment in Charlotte of various food packaging plants, particularly for poultry and beef. He was also active in extending rural electrification throughout Duke Power’s operating area, and traveled the state to address farmer’s groups and others about agricultural advancement and rural development.⁵

Alice Craft Lucas was a Wilmington native, and graduated from Trinity College, now Duke University, in 1905. In 1907, she and John Paul Lucas, then the editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, wed and moved to Charlotte the following year. At one time, she was the southern correspondent for the old Boston Transcript newspaper. A member of Myers Park Methodist Church, she was also active in the Charlotte Woman’s Club and the Research Book Club. The Lucases had three children: a daughter, Mrs. Douglas H. Sprunt of Memphis, Tenn., and two sons, John Paul Lucas, Jr. (who also became a vice-president of Duke Power), and Charles L. Lucas.⁶ In 1930, the Lucas family moved to a bigger house on Cherokee Road in a newer suburb, Eastover, but retained ownership of the Elizabeth house and rented it out.⁷ In 1936, it passed to the mortgageholder in a foreclosure, and in 1938 was bought by William Calhoun McIntire, who lived there with his family for some thirty years.⁸ In 1969, Francis Gilbert Chipley bought the house from McIntire’s daughter and deeded it to his wife, Leola Plyler Chipley, the following year.⁹ Mr. Chipley has maintained his real estate offices, Chipley Realty Company, next door at 406 Louise Avenue, and Mrs. Chipley operated Lee’s Antiques from the house until about five years ago.¹⁰ In 1989, ownership of the house passed to the Chipleys’ daughter, Judith Chipley Hudson, and it is presently being used for storage.¹¹

NOTES

¹ Thomas B. Hanchett, “Charlotte and Its Neighborhoods: The Growth of a New South City,” unpublished, unpaginated manuscript, copyright 1986 by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission.

² Ibid.

³ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 283, p. 513, 2 Jan.1912; Map Book 230, p.167.

⁴ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 314, p. 478, 3 July 1913; ibid., Book 314, p.654, 29 Sept. 1913.

⁵ Charlotte Observer 29 September 1940, Sect.2, p.1; Charlotte City Directory, 1913, p. 277.

⁶ Ibid., 20 March 1962, p. ?

⁷ Charlotte City Directory 1930, pp.548 & 1199.

⁸ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 876, p. 154, 20 Jan.1936; ibid., Book 941, p.207, 2 Feb. 1938; Charlotte City Directories 1938-1969.

⁹ Mecklenburg County Deed Book; 3136, p. 344, 20 Oct. 1969; ibid., Book 3224, p.585, 18 Sept. 1970.

¹⁰ Interview with Francis G. Chipley by William H. Huffman, 3 September 1992; interview with Judy Chipley Hudson by William H. Huffman, 9 September 1992.

¹¹ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 5955, p. 942, 29 January 1989.

Ms. Nora M. Black

The John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House is located at 1601 East Seventh Street in the Elizabeth neighborhood of Charlotte. The house occupies a corner lot on the northwest side of East Seventh Street at its intersection with Louise Avenue. The front or southwest facade of the house is not parallel with either street. Instead, that facade faces the corner. The rear or northeast facade overlooks a small back yard bordered on the southeast by an asphalt parking lot. The house is located on a wedge-shaped lot of 0.20 acres owned by Judith Chipley Hudson. Although it was last used as an antique shop, it is currently vacant. The John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House is an Eclectic House built in the Craftsman style. The house is a subtype of the Craftsman style called the Bungalow. At the end of the 19th century, American housing was dominated by period styles such as Italian Renaissance, Chateauesque, Beaux Arts, Tudor, or Colonial Revival. “This early emphasis on period styles was interrupted and almost overwhelmed by the first wave of architectural modernism which, in the form of the Craftsman and Prairie styles, dominated American houses built during the first two decades…”² of the 20th century. The work of two brothers, Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene, practicing architecture in California, inspired the Craftsman-type bungalow. Their clients included many wealthy Midwesterners of liberal Protestant or Quaker background who favored national parks, woman’s suffrage, progressive education and factory reform. At a symbolic level, these values were expressed in the openness and comfort of their homes and by the lack of pretension often seen in the late Victorian houses. Homes designed by the Greene brothers lacked the “usual upper-class iconography of caste and status…” defined by family portraits and coats of arms.³

The Craftsman-type bungalow of the Greene brothers was influenced by the English Arts and Craft Movement, oriental wood architecture, and their early training in manual arts. The origins of the bungalow, however, are found in the one-story, informal cottages built for British administrators in India. The word “bungalow” is derived from the Hindustani term, bangla. Builders found that bungalows were well suited to North Carolina’s climate, and they were cheap and easy to build. No space was wasted on entrance halls. Kitchens equipped with new appliances were smaller and more compact. The bungalow was a good response to new patterns in family life for the emerging middle-class.⁴ The smaller houses of the early 20th century were part of an architectural response to the home economics movement. Changes, like those listed below, were an integral part of the movement. Women of the American middle-class wanted to revamp their homes to allow more time for club and civic duties as well as for jobs in offices and department stores. Fewer families employed live-in servants or domestic help; cornices and niches that collected dust and germs were rejected as too time consuming. The average number of children per family decreased to three and a half by 1900. Improved food distribution systems relieved the housewife of the need to can and store food to see the family through winter. Dining habits became more relaxed with families eating simpler meals with fewer courses as slim figures became the fashion of the day. The home was no longer the training and production center of the family. In short, the home economics movement changed the style and size of the American home.⁵ The bungalow proved to be a mass mode of housing the new American family. It was spread not by architects, but largely by builder’s books and popular magazines. It borrowed motifs from other styles (like the Shingle and Stick styles) and spread quickly throughout the United States.⁶ The bungalow purchased by John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas has a compound, rear-facing T-plan with an irregular projection from the principal mass. The house presents an asymmetrical front elevation with side-gabled roof. The front-view is dominated by the roof with the centered shed dormer on the second floor. A one-story, engaged porch runs across the front of the house. Wood shingles clad the exterior to the second floor window sills. Above the second floor window sills, the walls are clad with Tudor false half-timbering.

Exterior

The John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House has two types of exterior wall cladding: Tudor false half-timbering above wood shingles. Wood shingles rank as the second most common wall cladding (after wood clapboard) on Craftsman houses. Tudor false half-timbering was a common secondary influence derived from the Eclectic Tudor houses built between 1890 and 1940 throughout the United States. The treatment of stucco infill between timbers arranged in decorative patterns mimics Medieval infilled timber framing.⁷ The wood shingles are painted dark brown; the stucco is ivory. The paint on the false half-timbering has weathered off in most areas. Other trim is painted barn red. The roof frames the house with wide eave overhangs. White aluminum gutters have been installed at most overhangs. Exposed rafter ends, a common Craftsman detail, are seen behind the aluminum gutters. At each rake (sloping gable end), beams extend through the wall to the roof edge; each beam is supported by a triangular knee brace. A centered shed dormer at the front of the house adds headroom to the three front rooms while providing a splendid light well. The light well extends the full width of the dormer and is above the front porch. Although it gives the appearance of a second-floor porch from the street, no doors open to the area. Two interior brick chimneys clad in stucco pierce the roof.

The chimney on the northwest side of the house is in disrepair; bricks litter the nearby roof. The roof is covered with two layers of asphalt shingles over one layer of wood shingles. A two-story cross gable, not visible from the front of the house, extends to the northeast, providing second floor space not usually found in the typical bungalow. Many of the windows in the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House contain the original leaded glass. Most are double hung wooden sash. The majority of the windows are glazed in an 8/1 pattern. One set of windows on the northwest side is glazed in a pattern of four vertical panes of glass over one large pane. The windows overlooking the front porch are 12/1 and 24/1. The enclosed back porch has eight panes of glass in each casement window. All elevations have asymmetrical window arrangements. Windows occur singularly, in pairs, and in groups of three or four. The asymmetrical front elevation is three units wide with the wall seeming to disappear in the shadows of the engaged front porch and the dark brown of the shingles. The front entry forms the center unit. To the right of the front entry, there is a very large wall opening that is actually large enough to hold two windows. Instead it holds a narrow strip of twenty-four panes over a very large single rectangular pane of glass. The window to the left of the front entry has a narrow strip of twelve panes over one large pane. Both of the large panes are beveled, leaded glass. The windows of the second floor are recessed under the protection of the centered shed dormer. A single centered window is flanked by double windows. The engaged, one-story porch extends across the front of the house.

The roof of the porch is pierced by four square brick pillars. The two pillars that flank the steps have flat tops finished with contrasting cast concrete caps. The two corner pillars have triangular tops finished with contrasting gabled cast concrete caps. Each side of the four brick pillars is approximately 24″ wide. Recessed mortar joints with mortar colored to match the bricks add texture and shadow detail. Although the floor level of the porch is approximately 42″ above ground level, there is no balustrade. The porch is floored with tongue and groove boards; it has a ceiling of beaded boards. Both floor and ceiling have deteriorated in some areas. Five concrete steps lead to the porch. Smooth stucco covers the utility brick that forms bulkheads on either side of the steps. At some places, the stucco is cracked. The front entry has two wood and glass paneled doors. Each door has a single vertical panel of beveled, leaded glass. The hardware, with the exception of the dead bolt, appears to be original. The door surround consists of a simple arrangement of boards topped with a single narrow molding. A doorbell is located to the right of the double doors. A wood and glass paneled door on the southeast side of the house opens to the former driveway. A portion of the driveway is still evident in the grass on that side of the house. The steps leading to the southeast door have been removed. The door shares a surround with a window. Due to the height of the shrubbery, the door and window are concealed from those passing on Seventh Street. Both the southeast and northwest elevations of the house have small, lower gables extending from the larger gable of the primary roof. The two small gables hold the rooms that form the top of the T-plan. On each of the sides of the house, a wide molded trim board bands the house at the level of the second floor window sills. It separates the dark brown wood shingles from the Tudor false half-timbering on the upper portion of the second floor walls. The Tudor false half-timbering is composed of lathe attached to the frame of the house with boards to mimic the half-timbering of Medieval English prototypes. Stucco was applied to the lathe between the boards to complete the look. The boards are painted a dark color to provide a vivid contrast with the light-colored stucco. Other examples of Tudor false half-timbering are found on several bungalows in the immediate Elizabeth neighborhood; it is also found on some Queen Anne houses in Fourth Ward. The John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House has a shed-roofed, one-story porch on the northeast facade. It is enclosed with dark brown shingles and casement windows. It appears that the back porch was extended early in the life of the house. The back or northeast end of the house has the same Tudor false half-timbering and wood shingle treatment that is found on the two side walls.

Interior

The interior of the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House has not been modernized. Most of the historic fabric is not only intact but visible. The rooms have original wooden moldings and original hardware on the wooden interior doors. Walls and ceilings throughout the house are of plaster; unfortunately, some of the plaster has water damage, especially that on the ceilings. Wallpaper and ceiling paper are peeling in several rooms. The unpainted woodwork and doors are stained a warm, honey color. Oak flooring is used throughout the first floor of the house; maple flooring is used throughout most of the second floor. The front doors open to an approximately 15′ by 22′ living room that extends to the southeast wall of the house. Tall, sliding wooden pocket doors open to allow this room to become a much larger open area that includes the three adjacent rooms. The living room has a massive corbeled gray brick fireplace that extends into the room. The fireplace dominates the southeast side of the room. A wooden shelf, supported by wide matching brackets, extends around the chimney-breast. Small inglenooks are created by the use of the interior fireplace and chimney. The ceiling has an x-shaped pattern of false beams; the false beams enclose the electrical wiring for the chandelier. The room located to the left of the front door can be separated from the living room by sliding pocket doors. If the pocket doors are not closed, the opening is so large that the two rooms flow together. Along the back or northeast wall of the living room, there are two pairs of pocket doors separated only by a narrow segment of wall. The pair of pocket doors to the left opens to the dining room while those on the right open to a large stair hall. The rounded stair treads cascade down to the stair hall from a landing on the northeast wall.

The banister rail curves with the stair treads; it spirals to form the newel. The newel is anchored in a small bench beside the stair. The seat of the bench lifts to reveal a small storage area. A door on the southeast wall opens to the former driveway. The landing on the northeast wall has a door to a small half-bath, the only such facility on the first floor. Paired pocket doors on the northwest wall open to the dining room. The dining room has a massive fireplace on the back or northeast wall. The mortar joints between the rough, textured bricks are colored to match the brick (as are those on the front porch). The shelf above the opening is supported by four header columns of corbeled brick. The walls of the room are surrounded by a high plate rail supported by honey-colored wooden trim applied to the plaster walls. The recessed areas of plaster between the trim boards are covered with thick wallpaper. When all four pairs of pocket doors are open, the four front rooms of the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House flow together as one large open, light-filled space. Simply closing the pocket doors gives each room a feeling of intimacy. A door beside the dining room fireplace leads to a room that could have served as a breakfast nook or a pantry. This small room has two built-in corner cupboards on the northeast end. A door on the southeast wall of this room leads to the kitchen. The kitchen is contained in the north corner of the two-story, cross-gabled section of the house. One built-in cupboard remains; the other cabinets, sink, and appliances have been removed over the years. The kitchen has a doorway on the southwest wall leading to a small storage pantry or closet. The door to the enclosed back porch is on the northeast wall; a window on that wall opens to the porch. The enclosed back porch is a one-story shed-roofed extension from the northeast wall of the house. The back porch is divided into two small utilitarian rooms. The north room of the porch has casement windows overlooking the back and side yards.

A door to a narrow hallway is located on the southwest wall of the kitchen. The hallway connects the kitchen to the stair hall. The second landing of the U-shaped stairway takes much headroom from the hallway. A door on the southeast wall of the narrow hallway leads to the basement. The stair to the basement is a rough wooden affair with no handrail. On the northeast wall of the landing, there is a small half-bath. Some fixtures are missing, but the basic plumbing is still in place. Apparently, it was the servant’s facility. An oil furnace, located in the basement, has arms of aluminum ductwork to carry heat to the floor vents above. The John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House has only one stairway to the second floor. That partially open staircase climbs in a U-shape from the previously-described stair hall to the second floor. The balustrade in the hallway, typical of those found in Craftsman houses, consists of wide, flat balusters topped by a rail. The newel, like that of the first floor, spirals to its own center. At the southwest end of the hallway, there is an area of the hallway that is recessed to meet the wall of the bathroom. Doors in this small area open into the bathroom, the south corner room, and the west corner room. In a rather unusual arrangement, rooms on the second floor open into the hallway, but they may open into each other as well. Most of the rooms are floored with maple; exceptions will be described below. The woodwork of the second floor has been painted. The doors have the same warm, honey-colored finish found on the first floor doors. On the front or southwest side of the house, there are three rooms; they are the south corner room, the west corner room, and the bathroom between those two rooms. All three of the rooms on the southwest side open to the light well located over the front porch. The use of the porch-like light well allows the use of full size windows rather than the small windows found in most shed dormers. This gives a measure of light to the three front rooms not usually found in bungalows. The light well, however, has collected water and organic material; it has been the source of much of the water damage.

The room in the south corner of the house is the most formal room of the second floor. It has a fireplace that shares a chimney with the fireplace in the living room. The fire surround is not Craftsman in character. On either side of the fire surround, a Tuscan column sits on a molded plinth block. A molded block on top of each column supports the heavily-molded shelf. The entire fire surround is painted white. Ivory fire tiles surround a cast iron insert. The white hooded top and sides of the insert hold a black removable panel. An abstract floral motif decorates the panel. The room has one closet in the south corner of the room. A portion of the room’s ceiling and the ceiling of that maple-floored closet follow the slope of the roofline. This room has a water-damaged oak floor that is laid in the opposite direction of the most of the other rooms on the second floor. With a window on either side of the chimney-breast and a pair of windows on the southwest wall, the room is filled with light. The windows on the front or southwest wall give a view of Independence Park. A door on the northeast wall of the south corner room connects to a narrow, rectangular room that runs along the southeast side of the house. The small room has a closet on the northeast wall with a raised floor. The raised closet floor provides headroom for the stairway below it. A pair of windows on the southeast wall provide abundant light. A door on the northwest wall leads to the hallway. The center room on the southwest side of the house is a bathroom. It has a single window on the southwest wall. The fixtures, including the rolled-top bathtub and medicine cabinet, are still in place. The maple floor has been covered with linoleum. Items stored in the bathroom obscure the fixtures and prevent further description at this time. The west corner room has two doors on the southeast wall. One connects to the bathroom just mentioned. The other door opens into the hallway. The room has one closet in the north corner of the room. A portion of the room’s ceiling and the closet ceiling follow the slope of the roofline. A pair of windows on the southwest wall would have a view of Independence Park if it were not for foliage on the trees. A door on the northeast wall of this rooms opens to a rectangular room that runs along the northwest side of the house. The northwest side room was used as a kitchen during the time the house was separated into apartments. A sink is still fastened to the southwest wall.

A narrow closet is located on the northeast side of the room. The room can be reached from the main hallway by a door on the southeast wall. The hallway runs to the back or northeast side of the house. A door to a linen closet is located on the northwest side of the hallway. Above the linen closet, a small utility closet holds a fuse box. The hallway extends through a doorway near the north end of the house to give access to the two back rooms. An access door to the attic is located in the ceiling of this section of the hallway. Looking into the attic, one can see the common rafter with tie beams. Electrical wiring, protected by white porcelain insulators, pierces the tie beams. The bottom layer of roofing material – wood shingles – are also visible. The room on the right of the hallway (in the east corner of the house) is a narrow rectangular bathroom. Fixtures, including a roll-top claw footed tub, are still in place. There is no evidence of a medicine cabinet. The wood flooring in this bathroom is not covered with linoleum. The room on the left at the northeast end of the hallway (in the north corner of the house) is a vivid reminder of the public-health movement of the early 20th century. Acceptance of the germ theory of disease in the United States had given way to the theory that dust and dark corners promoted disease. As builders rushed to fill the demand for “sanitary houses” (as they were known), sleeping porches and glazed sun parlors, which provided for year round use, were added to residential designs.⁸ The sun parlor on the north corner of the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House has windows covering both the northwest (side) and northeast (back) walls. Although the sills are level around the room, the windows on the back wall are larger. Even though this room is on the side of the house generally considered darkest, it is filled with light. Early 20th century domestic scientists would have been well pleased with the amount of fresh air and sunshine available in this room.

Conclusion

The John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House is an intact example of a Craftsman house constructed in the bungalow style from the early years of the 20th century. The interior finishes and decorative details of the John Paul and Alice Craft Lucas House are well-conceived and constructed of fine materials. The exterior has survived with original materials and few changes. The bungalow can provide valuable insight into one type of house that many families inhabited during the days when Charlotte’s citizens were adjusting to “life in the suburbs.”

NOTES

¹ Virginia & Lee McAlester, A Field Guide to American Houses (New York, 1986), 453-454.

² Ibid., 319.

³ James Marston Fitch, American Building: The Historical Forces That Shaped It (New York, 1987 ed.), 232.

⁴ Spiro Kostof, America by Design (New York, 1987), 38-39. Also, Catherine W. Bishir, with photography by Tim Buchman, North Carolina Architecture (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1990), 426-432.

⁵ Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America, “The Progressive Housewife and the Bungalow” (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1983), 158-176.

⁶ Carole Rifkind, A Field Guide to American Architecture (New York, 1980), 98.

⁷ McAlester, 454, 356.

⁸ Wright, 161-162.

louise-cotton-mill-survey-and-research-report

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Long Creek Mill Ruin  is located approximately 1,000 feet southeast of the intersection of Mt. Holly-Huntersville Road and Beatties Ford Road in northern Mecklenburg County.
2. Name, address, and telephone number of the current owner of the property: Mecklenburg County
3. Representative photographs of the property:  This report contains representative photographs of the property.
4. A map depicting the location of the property:
5. Current Tax Parcel Reference and Deed to the property:    The tax parcel numbers of the property are 02516106, 02516108.  The most recent deeds for the property are recorded in Mecklenburg County Deed Books 08939 page 452, and 07165 page 291.
6. A brief historical sketch of the property:  This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Stewart Gray.
7. A brief architectural description of the property:  This report contains a brief architectural description prepared by Stewart Gray.
8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S 160A-400.5. 
9. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture and/or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the Long Creek Mill Ruin possesses special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.  The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations:

1) The Long Creek Mill Ruin is significant as the site of an earlier mill that was prominent in the Colonial era of Mecklenburg County.

2) The Long Creek Mill Ruin is significant in terms of the local community.  The mill was a commercial, social, and civic center of the community during the 19th century.  The mill was associated with prominent families associated with Hopewell Presbyterian Church and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

3) The Long Creek Mill, later known as Whitley’s Mill, was the last operating grist mill in north Mecklenburg.

4) As an abandoned commercial hub, the Long Creek Mill Ruin may possess significant archeological resources.

1. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural description prepared by Stewart Gray demonstrates that the property known as the Long Creek Mill Ruin  meets this criterion.
2. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal:  The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a “historic landmark.”   The property is exempt from the payment of Ad Valorem Taxes.
3. Portion of the Property Recommended for Designation: The land and all features associated with tax parcels 02516106 and 02516108. 

Historical Essay

Long Creek Mill, ca. 1900

The Long Creek Mill was a grist mill built around 1820.  Its ruin is located adjacent to Long Creek in northern Mecklenburg County, approximately 1,000 feet southeast of  the intersection of Beatties Ford Road and Huntersville-Mt. Holly Road.  The mill ruin consists of a stone foundation,  stone walls that channeled water leaving the mill, and a remarkably intact millrace of about 1,000 feet in length.  Remnants of the dam or dams are scattered along the creek, but topography would dictate that the dam, or dams, were located 320’ to 450’ due east of the mill ruin. The Long Creek Mill was the second mill built on the property.  The property has also been known as  the Long Creek Mills, Long Creek Mill Farm, and Whitley’s Mill. The first mill was built by Captain John Long sometime before the Revolutionary War.  Long Creek is named for Long who was a Revolutionary War patriot.  Long died in 1799 at age fifty-five and is buried in the Hopewell Cemetery. 1 His tracts along Long Creek were sold in 1804 and 1809. 2  Long’s mill was located about 150 yards upstream from the Long Creek Mill Ruin. 3

Long’s mill would have been a significant landmark in the colonial world of Mecklenburg County.  Located on the Great Road (Beatties Ford Road) approximately nine miles north of the crossroads town of Charlotte, the mill would have served the settlers of the area as they transformed the backwoods frontier into agricultural land.   Long’s mill likely would have been the only commercial institutions in the area. The ca. 1760 log Hopewell Church building (non-extant), located along the Great Road 1.5 miles to the north, and Long’s mill may have been the only non-farm buildings in the community’s landscape. While wheat and corn could be ground by hand or by hand or animal powered mills, a water powered mill operated by an experienced miller was much faster and more efficient.  Other grist mills that operated in colonial-era Mecklenburg included the Park’s Mill,  Mitchell’s Mill, and Tomas Polk’s mill in Charlotte. 4 The proliferation of grist mills throughout the backcountry demonstrates that the grist mills, even with a one-tenth payment going to the miller, were virtually essential for successful farming.

During the Revolutionary War Lord Charles Cornwallis was attracted to Charlotte and Mecklenburg County because the numerous mills along the county’s many creeks gave the promise of grain for his army.  Indeed, Long’s Mill was the object of British troops advancing out of Charlotte up Beatties Ford Road in October 1780, when they were set upon by patriots at the McIntyre Farm in the skirmish known as the “Battle of the Hornets’ Nest.” 5  After Long’s death the land including Long’s mill and farm was acquired by Colonel John “Jacky” H. Davidson in 1815-1818. 6  In about 1820 Davidson replaced Long’s mill with the Long Creek Mill.  7  It is likely that Davidson used The Young Mill Wright and Miller’s Guide.  The technical manual was written by Oliver Evans of Newport Delaware in 1795 and was updated in fifteen editions. 8 It was sold widely in America and revolutionized milling by separating and fully mechanizing the different functions of the mill on separate floors. 9  Davidson’s Mill was built during the height of the book’s popularity, and the tall Long Creek Mill resembled illustrations in the book. 

The illustration (left) from The Young Mill Wright resembles the drawings of the Long Creek Mill (center and right)

It is known that the builder of the Torance Mill (1825 and rebuilt in 1844) located a few miles north of the Long Creek Mill used The Young Mill Wright and Miller’s Guide to design that mill.  One remarkable element of the Long Creek Mill is the nearly 1,000’ millrace that extends roughly east from the mill site.  It is possible that Davidson reused the dam from Long’s mill which may have been more than 450’ upstream.  Also, The Young Mill Wright and Miller’s Guide recommends long mill races.  The long mill race and separation from the dam supposedly protected the mill from being washed away during flooding.  The long mill race may also have mechanical advantages in terms of capacity and consistent flow.  10

In his history of the Hopewell Community written in 1907, J. B. Alexander relates that before the Civil War the Long Creek Mill was a center of the community.  Taxes were collected at the mill.  Voting took place there with politicians literally speaking while standing on stumps.  According to Alexander, political campaigning at the Long Creek Mill involved fighting, and “Whiskey, cider, watermelons, and ginger cakes,” being passed out.  The mill was also the location of militia drills which Alexander described as “laughable burlesque.” 11

In 1835 Davidson moved to Maringo County, Alabama where he became very wealthy.  Through an agent he sold his Long Creek property in 1838, and in 1839 the land including the “Grist Mill and dwelling house,” was purchased by Major John H. Caldwell. 12 Caldwell was apparently successful in business.  A substantial farmer in northern Mecklenburg, he manufactured brick for the Davidson College campus buildings and for the federal mint building in Charlotte.  Caldwell also contracted his slaves to work for the North Carolina Railroad.   In 1860 Caldwell sold the property to Robert Davidson Whitley.

Robert Davidson “R. D.” Whitley was born in 1820 and was reared at Holly Bend, the plantation of Robert “Robin” Davidson.   Robin Davidson was at one time the wealthiest planter in Mecklenburg County.  Davidson owned nearly 3,000 acres and 109 slaves in Mecklenburg County in 1850, and he owned another plantation in Alabama. 13   R. D. Whitley’s mother, Jane Price Whitley, was Robin Davidson’s niece.  At some point, Whitley and his mother moved to Alabama.  They returned to North Carolina, and in 1860 R. D. Whitley purchased the land containing the Long Creek Mill. 14  We do not know if R. D. Whitley made any significant changes to the mill or to how the business was operated.  It is likely that the mill, renamed Whitley’s Mill, continued to function as a center of the rural community.  At some point in the nineteenth century a store was built across Long Creek from the mill and served as the area’s post office. 15 The Chas. Emerson & Co. Charlotte City Directory 1879-1880 gives the community around the mill the name “Martindale,” and lists R. D. Whitley as a farmer. 16 In addition to farming over 300 acres, and owning the mill and store, R. D. Whitley was active in real estate and is listed as grantee in over 30 conveyances before his death in 1900. 16  R. D. Whitley was also instrumental in the establishment of the nearby St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.  In addition to  helping to organize the church, Whitley and his wife Martha McCoy Whitley sold to the trustees some of the land for the sanctuary for a “modest sum,” and donated land for the rectory. 17

Long Creek Mill in operation ca.1915

When R. D. Whitley bought the mill in 1860, water powered milling was in its ascendancy with nearly 14,000 thousand mills operating in the country, most of them isolated country mills like the Whitley’s Mill, with a potential to produce up to 50 barrels of flour a day. 18 The world was very different when Joseph S. Whitley took over operation of the mill and store after his father’s death in 1900. Larger mills producing flour for the domestic market and for export, such as the massive 1915 Interstate Milling Company located in the Fourth Ward in Charlotte, began to dominate.    Where there had been at least five grist mills operating in northern Mecklenburg in the nineteenth century, by 1918 the Whitley’s Mill was the only one still operating.  The 1918 “Biennial Report of The North Carolina Department of Agriculture” lists just three mills in all of Mecklenburg County: the Interstate Milling Company, Charlotte; DA Henderson, Matthews; and Whitley Mill, Long Creek.  Around 1919 the mill ceased to operate, perhaps due to a storm that damaged either the mill or the dam. 19  In 1927 the estate of R. D. Whitley was divided among his heirs. 20

In 1934 Whitley’s Mill was inventoried by the Historic American Buildings Survey.  By that point the tall building was in decay with a notably sagging roof.  The building was photographed and measured drawings were made.  A 1938 U.S. Parks Service publication used the mill’s HABS photograph to illustrate the overall deterioration of the nation’s historic buildings.  At some point after the survey work was completed, the metal waterwheel, gears and other machinery were removed.   It is believed that the mill workings were reinstalled in a reproduction grist mill south of Charlotte by Dr. Charles D. Lucas around 1935. 22

Above: the ruined Lucas Mill in Charlotte with machinery that may have been removed from the Long Creek Mill around 1935.

1. Lee Kemp Ramsey, “The Long Creek Settlement and the Gum Branch East of the Catawba River, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina: A Genealogical Survey of the Neighbors and Allied Families of William and Nancy Ramsey,” Mecklenburg County NC Geneology Project, accessed May 20, 2012, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncmeckle/longcrk.htm
2. Mecklenburg County Old Real Estate books/pages: 18-52 and 19-517
3. J. B. Alexander, Biographical Sketches of the Early Settlers of the Hopewell Section (Charlotte: Observer Printing and Publishing House, 1897) 31.
4. C. L. Hunter, Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical: Illustrating Principally the Revolutionary Period of Mecklenburg, Rowan, Lincoln, and Adjoining Counties, Accompanied with Miscellaneous Information, Much of it Never Before Published(Raleigh: Raleigh News Steam Job Print, 1877) 132, 137, 298.
5. Dan L. Morrill, Historic Charlotte: An Illustrated History of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County (San Antonio: Historical Publishing Network, 2001) 13.
6. Mecklenburg County deeds 20-103 and 19-56
7. Alexander, p. 31.
8. “Who Was Oliver Evans?” accessed on May 20, 2012 at http://www.greenbankmill.org/oliverevans.html.
9. “Colvin Run Mill,”The Fairfax County Park Authority Division of History, Annandale, Virginia, accessed on May 20, 2012 at http://gfhs.org/local_lore/colvin_mill.htm.
10. Dan L. Morrill, “Torrence Mill” (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission, 1978) accessed on May 20, 2012 at http://www.landmarkscommission.org/S&Rs%20Alphabetical%20Order/surveys&rtorrancemill.htm.  Alexander p.31.
11. Alexander, p. 31.
12. Deed 25-192
13. “Survey and Research Report on Holly Bend,” (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission, 1974?) accessed on May 20, 2012 at http://www.landmarkscommission.org/essays/HollyBend.html.
14. Deed 4-386
15. Interview by Stewart Gray with Brown D. Whitley, May 7, 2012.
16. The Chas. Emerson & Co. Charlotte City Directory 1879-1880 (Charlotte: Charlotte Observer Steam Job Print, 1879) 138.
17. Dan Morrill, “Survey and Research Report on the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church,” (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, 1983) accessed on May 20, 2012 at http://www.landmarkscommission.org/S&Rs%20Alphabetical%20Order/surveys&rstmarks.htm.  Grantee Index to Real Estate Conveyances – Mecklenburg County, NC, p. 138-139
18. St. Mark’s S&R
19. Robert Lundegard, “Country and City Mills in Early American Flour Manufacture and Export.”  Report for the Colvin Mill Historic Site, 2007.
20. HABS Report  on Whitley’s Mill, State Route 2074, Charlotte vicinity, Mecklenburg, NC, 1934. Also, Interview BR Whitley.
21. Mecklenburg County Map Book 345.
22. Interview by Stewart Gray with Dr. Dan L. Morrill, May 15, 2012.

Architectural Description

The Long Creek Mill Ruin is located on the north bank of Long Creek in northern Mecklenburg County.  The mill ruin lays due east of Beatties Ford Road, approximately 375 feet from the edge of the pavement.  Once open farm land, the area is covered with second-growth forest.  The most substantial element of the mill ruin is the mill building’s stone foundation which sits only about ten feet from the north bank of the current channel of Long Creek.  It is composed of rough-cut granite laid in irregular courses. The walls are approximately two foot thick.  The foundation is nearly square, thirty-two feet wide by  twenty-nine feet deep.  The stone walls are broken in places, with only the northeast corner, built into the hillside, having retained its original height.  Much of the stonework appears to have fallen inward into the foundation.  The foundation was stepped with a ten foot tall section in the northeast corner.  The remainder of the foundation walls were originally eight feet tall. 

The land rises steeply to the north of the ruin and the northeast corner of the foundation is level with grade.  The southwest corner of the foundation rises from the grade five feet, and the stone work is in good condition and not obscured by ruble.  The southeast corner of the foundation is buttressed by an irregularly coursed rubble stone wall that extends toward the creek.  This wall formed the western edge of a five-foot-wide discharge chute, or tailrace.   The eastern wall of the tailrace is formed by a partially extant retaining wall of unshaped stones. 

The building foundation is bordered on the east by a wheel pit.  The wheel pit is relatively intact, perhaps because the stonework of the wheel pit was built into the hillside, as opposed to being freestanding stonework.  The pit is five feet six inches wide.  Ruble from the collapsed east wall of the foundation has partially filled the pit.  Yet even with the ruble, the rear or north wall of the pit features approximately eight feet of exposed rock.

The red square is the location of the mill ruin.  Long Creek is shown in blue.  The approximately 1,000′ millrace is depicted in pink. Evidence of dams are shown in orange.

The millrace joined the mill at the northern edge of the wheel pit.  The millrace was an elevated flume (no longer extant) where it joined the mill , but for most of its approximately 1,000 foot length, it is a channel. The existing channel width varies from six to ten feet wide, but because of erosion and sediment it is difficult to determine the original dimensions of the channel.  Portions of the millrace channel are a simple ditch.  Other sections of the millrace channel feature significant earthen retaining walls.  Other sections of the millrace channel are lined with stones.  Approximately 320 feet from the mill, the millrace shows evidence of a gate and a stone discharge flume.  This gate may have allowed the millrace to be stopped or discharged back into the creek below the dam but before it reached the mill.   The millrace has very little slope, dropping in elevation less than ten feet over its entire length.

Evidence of two dams is located along the creek in the form of rock piles and borings in the bedrock.  One dam may have been located approximately 320 feet upstream from the mill ruin.  Another possible site is located approximately 450 feet upstream of the mill ruin.

While the mill is a ruin, early-20th-century photographs of the mill exist, and measured plans for the mill were produced as part of the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) in 1934.  The stone foundation was pierced by three small window opening on the south elevation and was topped with a side-gabled two-story frame building.  The building was two bays wide and two bays deep.  A brick chimney was located on the west elevation.  The building incorporated heavy timber construction.  The roof was covered with wooden shake.  Aside from the stonework described above, no elements of the mill building appear to have survived.  Other buildings such as a house and a store were once located near the mill.  No prominent visible elements of these structures have survived.

1. Name and location of the property:  The property known as the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery is located near the northwestern corner of Colony and Sharon Roads in Charlotte, North Carolina.
   
2. Name address and phone number of present owner of the property: The owner of the property is:

   Grubb Properties Inc.
   Morrison Place, LLC.
   1530 Elizabeth Ave., Suite 200
   Charlotte, NC 28204
   (704) 372-5616
    

3. Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property.  Click here for photographs of the property.
   
4. A map depicting the location of the property.  The UTM Coordinates of the property are 17 515966E 3890297N
   
5. Current Deed Book references to the property: The most recent deed to this property is recorded in the Mecklenburg County Deed Book 16228, page 124.  The tax parcel number is 177-092-06.
6. A brief historical sketch of the property:  This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Hope L. Murphy.
    
7. A brief physical description of the property: This report contains a brief physical description of the property prepared by Hope L. Murphy.
    
8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S. 160A-400:
    
9. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance.  The Commission judges that the property known as The St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.  The Commission bases its judgment on the following criteria: 1) The St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery is a locally large and well-preserved burial site of African Americans that contains graves dating from  roughly 1868 until about 1926; 2) the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery is located in an otherwise highly-developed section of Charlotte and is the one of the few reminders of the rural farming community that once stretched along this section of Sharon Road; and 3) the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church cemetery is the only surviving remnant of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church, a Christian congregation that established its own house of worship in response to the newly-gained liberation of African Americans from bondage.
10. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association: The Commission contends that the physical description that is included in this report demonstrates that the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery meets this criterion.
11. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal:  The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes “historic property.”  The current appraised value of the 1.0164 acres of land is $318,700.  There are no improvements on the property.  The property is zoned R-17MF.

Date of preparation of this report: April 8, 2004

Prepared by: Hope L. Murphy

Historical Overview

One can best appreciate the cultural significance of the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery by examining the plight of African Americans in Mecklenburg County in the years immediately preceding and following Emancipation.  In 1860 slaves accounted for approximately 40% of Mecklenburg County’s population.[1]   These bondsmen and bondswomen tended, unlike those in Virginia and South Carolina coastal regions, to live on small plantations, and the slave owners in Mecklenburg County most often owned a relatively small number of bondspeople.  About twenty-five percent of the white population of Mecklenburg County held African Americans as slaves, the majority of whom worked as farmhands or domestics, while a small minority labored in the County’s gold mines.  In 1860 only 139 free blacks lived in the Charlotte.[2]

            Whites placed onerous controls on free blacks and enslaved blacks during the decades leading up to the Civil War.  Slaves were barred from the streets after 9:30 p.m., were not allowed to buy or sell liquor, and could not assemble without the expressed permission of the mayor or town commissioners.  Free blacks were limited both by local and state codes, including the Free Negro Code of 1830, which attempted to prevent free blacks from having contact with both slaves and abolitionists, restricted their movement into and out of the state, and forbade whites from teaching bondspeople to read and write.  By 1835 the North Carolina General Assembly had also stipulated that free blacks could no longer vote.[3] Charlotte’s City commissioners placed severe restrictions on local free blacks and enslaved blacks.  The minutest details of black life were circumscribed.  For example, blacks, free and slave, were prohibited from smoking, carrying weapons, and from being employed as clerks or retailers.  In sum, whites attempted to prevent African Americans from obtaining even the most rudimentary sense of independence and self-worth in the pre-Civil War era.

     After the Civil War, newly-freed blacks relished the opportunity to build families not subject to white control and churches that were similarly independent.  Kathleen Hayes, a freedwoman, railed against the practice of seating African Americans in the balcony of Charlotte’s First Presbyterian Church and called upon the black members of the congregation to “come out of the gallery and worship God on the main floor.”  The Northern Presbyterian Church responded to such urgings by establishing the General Assembly’s Committee on Freedman on June 21, 1865, which sent 40 white missionaries and teachers to the South.

      These teachers and missionaries faced many difficulties, including inadequate funding and rejection and hostility at the hands of many of the local whites.  Undaunted, preachers like Reverend S.C. Alexander came from Pittsburgh to help Kathleen Hayes and other disaffected blacks establish Seventh Street Presbyterian Church, now First United Presbyterian Church.[4]  Alexander joined with fellow whites Sidney Murkland and Willis L. Miller in October 1866 to create the Catawba Presbytery, the first all-black Presbytery in the United States.  These courageous men labored tirelessly to assist African Americans in creating several churches in Mecklenburg County – including McClintock Church, Murkland Church, Woodland Church, and St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church.  These newly-founded congregations provided places of worship for those African Americans who wanted to remove themselves from their former white-controlled churches because of the demeaning treatment accorded black members there.[5] Black congregants in white-controlled churches were listed separately on membership rolls, were forced to sit in separate sections, and were denied leadership positions.

Another primary need among freedmen was education.  In response, the Committee on Freedmen began to establish primary schools, secondary schools, and colleges.  Alexander and Miller helped to launch Biddle University, which was founded for the expressed purpose of “training of colored preachers, catechists and teachers of their own race.” [6]  Catechists, in this period, were candidates for the ministry.  They were often older men with little or no formal education. Many walked from the 14 neighboring African American Presbyterian Churches, like St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church, that eventually arose in the area.  They often traveled a distance of 5-10 miles each way, from the churches where they performed duties, in the absence of more formerly trained ministers.[7]

Biddle was named for Mrs. Henry Biddle of Philadelphia who made a donation to the school in the name of her husband who was killed in the Civil War[8].  Biddle, which is now named Johnson C. Smith University, has been a cornerstone of the intellectual, social, and spiritual life of Charlotte’s African-American community.  It has also had remarkable regional influence on the Presbyterian Church.  A survey conducted in 1970 found that 60 percent of Black Presbyterian clergy in the Southeastern United States were Biddle/Smith graduates. [9] Biddle would provide at least one of the ministers at St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church.  He was Rev. Hercules Wilson, a 1911 graduate of Biddle Theological Seminary.  St. Lloyd Presbyterian, as a small country church, was most likely Wilson’s first assignment.  Later he would serve at the larger and more socially prestigious Woodlawn and Brooklyn Churches.

Rev. Hercules Wilson (Far Right) Photo courtesy of the Inez Moore Parker Archives & Research Center,  Johnson C. Smith University

The Founding of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church

In October 1867 a group of African American members of Sharon Presbyterian Church appeared before the Church Elders.  According to the minutes of that Session, these black members requested “advice and aid in  building a house of worship for the colored people.”[10]  Though the names of the petitioners, or the church they wished to establish, are not in the Sharon Presbyterians minutes, it is believed that these African American members were the subsequent founders of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church.[11]

These former slaves, like others all around them, sought to define their freedom within their own institutions and houses of worship.  Reverend Willis L. Miller, aforementioned as one of the founders of the Catawba Presbytery and Biddle University, helped the charter members of St. Lloyd Presbyterian establish their new church in the Sharon community.  Miller requested that the Elders of Sharon Presbyterian Church dismiss without censure the African Americans who wished to leave.  Miller’s request was granted during the Session meeting on October 20, 1867, with the following words:

“It is resolved by this Session that the names of all those colored members, who have gone into this aforesaid organization, be other (sic) are hereby, omitted from the Roll of Members of this Church without censure, with the prayer that the Great Head of the Church may go with and bless these our colored brethren in their new church relations.” [12]

Rev. Willis L. MillerPhoto courtesy of the Inez Moore Parker Archives & Research Center,  Johnson C. Smith University

On February 18, 1868, five trustees of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church signed a deed to purchase one acre of land in Sharon Township from Jonathan K. Ray.[13]  This parcel of land was located about a mile north of Sharon Presbyterian Church, also on Sharon Road.  The diamond-shaped piece of property was purchased for $25.00 for the purpose of erecting the congregation’s first church building and for providing a burial ground.  The deed stipulated that in the event of the dissolution of the church, ownership of the property would revert to the Catawba Presbytery.  When St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church was founded, Sharon Road was dirt; and according to David Lockwood, a white long-time resident of the Sharon community, it was not a main thoroughfare but “led nowhere.”  Colony Road was then only a narrow dirt path that led to the farmlands behind the Church grounds. [14]

In the “Jim Crow” era, St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church would have served many of the needs of its congregation. Most of those who attended St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church were poor and worked primarily as laborers, farmers, and domestics.  With educational opportunities limited, many remained uneducated.  When the Trustees of Lloyd sold the property in 1926, two out of five of the trustees were illiterate, as evidenced by their making their mark, in lieu of a signature.   The harshness of lives of the church members is also evident from their causes of death.  Many died early in life of diseases, like Pellegra (a vitamin deficiency) and lung ailments like pneumonia and tuberculosis, which are now largely curable.

Rev. Hercules Wilson

Much time would have been spent in the church, which served, as most country churches, black and white, as a place to receive spiritual salve in difficult times and as a social center for the community.  David Lockwood and Mary Ruth Gibson, the latter also a white resident of the Sharon community, each fondly recount that his and her  families would sit on their front porches in summer evenings and listen to the members of St. Lloyd Presbyterian singing hymns. [15]  C.C. Caldwell, Mary Ruth Gibson’s brother, recounts that his father attended a wedding in the 1920’s at St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church. The bride was Sara Alexander, whose father was an attorney. [16] Tom Kirkpatrick, another white resident of Sharon, recounts with humor that Lloyd parishioner Lucinda Davis, who was in his family’s employ along with her husband Walter, often lectured Kirkpatrick’s father on how to be a better Christian.[17]

When the Church property was sold to the Morrisons in 1926 the congregation moved to a new location in Grier Heights, on what is now Wendover Road.  Grier Heights was, and still is, a primarily African American neighborhood.  St. Lloyd Presbyterian’s move from Sharon Township to Grier Heights is tangentially related to broader trends that were present in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County  during the “Jim Crow” era.  Neighborhoods that had for many years showed a “salt and pepper” pattern – where blacks and whites lived, worshiped, and worked in close proximity – became after Reconstruction increasingly segregated.[18]

It is clear that in the half-century following the Civil War St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church was central to life in Sharon Township.  In this rural area it provided spiritual guidance, acted as a social outlet for African Americans, and provided a forum for developing black leadership.   It also served, in a time characterized by racial animosity, as a place of refuge, comfort, and encouragement for African Americans.

Architectural/Physical Description

             The St. Lloyd Presbyterian Cemetery is located near the northwestern corner of Sharon and Colony Roads in  Charlotte, North Carolina.  Once part of the rural township of Sharon, the area has now become one of the busiest and most sought-after areas for residences, shopping, and business.  The St. Lloyd Cemetery is situated on a largely level, diamond-shaped one-acre lot, which extends along Colony Road to a set of apartment homes.  Most of the parcel is covered with mature trees, except for the approximately one-half-acre that contains the graves; there younger trees grow, and the ground is covered with periwinkle.  Periwinkle was a common ground cover used in older cemeteries.  Its invasive root system prevents other weeds from growing, and its purple flower acts as a decorative ground cover.  It is probable that the plants that now exist there  are offshoots from those planted by the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church congregants more than 150 years ago. 

      Seventy-eight graves have been identified at the site[19].  These depressions are about two feet wide and range in length from six feet to between four and five feet.  Adults are interred in the larger depressions, and the smaller ones contain the remains of children.  The graves, generally oriented from east to west,[20] are located close to Colony Road and are grouped in what must be family burial plots.[21]  The graves at the site likely date from about 1868, when the church property was purchased, until  roughly 1926, when the property was sold to Cameron and Sarah Morrison.  The Morrisons purchased the property as part of a larger parcel that would become part of Cameron Morrison’s grand “gentleman’s farm”  named Morrocroft.

       Very few grave markers remain, and none has an inscription.  The ones that do survive are field stones.  Most likely some of the markers were fashioned from wood and have since deteriorated.  There is anecdotal evidence that larger stone markers may have been in the cemetery but were later relocated.[22]  An explanation of any motivation behind such a move does not exist, since no graves were to be relocated and since the property was, by deed, to remain an undisturbed gravesite in perpetuity[23].  It is not clear whether the Morrisons agreed to maintain the cemetery.  Mary Ruth Gibson recounts that as a child her brother C.C. Caldwell would compel her to visit the cemetery and help him pick the weeds that had grown up around the site.[24]

There is no visible evidence of the church building remaining.  As of this date it is unclear what happened to the church structure, though there is anecdotal evidence that it burned down.  Residents of the area recount that the church was located approximately 200 yards from Sharon Road and faced northeastward, toward what is now uptown Charlotte.  The church, according to David Lockwood, was a small, one-story wooden structure, with a simple bell tower in the front.

Click here to read about Weeping Willow, another historic African American Cemetery that was once the Weeping Willow A.M.E. Zion Church Cemetery.

[1] Dan L. Morrill, A History of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, Chapter 4.  An on-line resource:www.danandmary.com/historyofcharlotte.htm.  Ms Murphy produced this report as a student intern.  She is enrolled in the Public History Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

[2] Janette Thomas Greenwood, Bittersweet Legacy: The Black and White “Better Classes” in Charlotte, 1850-1910. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994), p. 21.

[3] Ibid, 22.

[4] Ibid.

[5]  Interestingly, Rev. Miller had, prior to his conversion, been a slaveholder, and had fought to maintain the institution of slavery.  (Inez Moore Parker, Historical Narrative, The Biddle-Johnson C. Smith University Story, Charlotte: Charlotte Publishing, 1975 p. 94)  D.G. Burke, “The Catawba Story 1866-1980: A brief History of the Catawba Presbytery.  Sponsored by the Historical Committee of the Catawba Presbytery, United Presbyterian Church, USA, 1981”.  From the Inez Moore Parker Archives, Johnson C. Smith University.

[6] Biddle University Report of 1871.  From the Inez Moore Parker Archives, Johnson C. Smith University.

[7] Biddle University Report of 1869.  From the Inez Moore Parker Archives.

[8] Greenwood, 44.

[9] Background and Status Survey United Presbyterian USA Black Ministers, Feb 1971. The Inez Moore Parker Archives and Research Center, Johnson C. Smith University.

[10] Minutes of the Sharon Presbyterian Church Session, October 19, 1867.

[11] The prevalence of family names that appear both among black congregants at Sharon and congregants at Lloyd, along with the close ties between known members of Lloyd and living informants from Sharon, lead the writer to this conclusion.

[12] Minutes of the Sharon Presbyterian Church Session, October 20, 1867.

[13] The church has been called Lloyd and St. Lloyd’s alternatively.  Though all deeds are registered in the name of Lloyd Presbyterian, death records list the Church as St. Lloyd’s.

[14] Interview with David Lockwood – Febuary 24, 2004.

[15] Interview with Mary Ruth Gibson – February 19, 2004, and Lockwood Interview.

[16] Interview with C.C. Caldwell – March 2, 2004.

[17] Interview with Tom Kirkpatrick – February 24, 2004.

[18] http://danandmary.com/hisof charlottechap9new.htm

[19] Most of the names of those buried at Lloyd Presbyterian Church are not known; the following names were obtained from death certificate searches.  Mecklenburg County only maintains death certificates from 1913 making research, using death certificates, prior to this date impossible.

[20] “An Archeological Reconnaissance of the Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery: Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.”  J. Alan May, August 1993.

[21] May, p. 14.

[22] C.C. Caldwell, recalled that as a child in the 1930’s that as many as 30 headstones were still standing in the cemetery. Mr. Caldwell conjectures that the stones may have been stolen by vandals.

[23] Mecklenburg County Deed Book 617, page 440.

[24] Gibson Interview.

Click here to view the photo gallery of the Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church.

This report was written on February 4, 1981.

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church is located at 403 N. Myers St. 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:
City of Charlotte
600 E. Trade St.
Charlotte, N.C. 28202

Telephone: (704) 374-2241

The present occupant of the property is:

Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church
403 N. Myers St.
Charlotte, N.C. 28202

Telephone: (704) 334-3782

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 current deed to this property is recorded in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 4210, page 954. The original deed to this property on behalf of Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church is recorded in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 60, page 395. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is: 080-104-08.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property:

Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church was established in the early 1870’s, as the black people of Charlotte were struggling to fashion an identity outside of the shackles of slavery. Its founder was Thomas Henry Lomax (1832-1908), a remarkable and resourceful human being.¹ A native of Cumberland County, North Carolina, Lomax had come to Charlotte to advance the interests of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a denomination which had its roots in the antebellum North but which began to penetrate coastal North Carolina when Union forces occupied Beaufort and New Bern. After the Civil War, A.M.E. Zion preachers moved inland to rally the former slaves to a Christian institution which was entirely devoid of white influence or power.² The church reached Charlotte about May 1865, when Edward H. Hill arrived and founded Clinton Chapel, the first black church in the city. It stood on S. Mint St. between First and Second Streets.³ Thomas Henry Lomax came to Charlotte about 1873. Six years earlier, in 1867, he had received his license to preach. Initially, he labored in eastern North Carolina, where he demonstrated the administrative skill and adroitness which were to characterize his entire career. It is not surprising, therefore, that Lomax was assigned to Clinton Chapel in Charlotte, an important frontier for the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Between 1873 and 1876, Lomax worked feverishly to build upon the foundation which E. H. Hill and others had started. In addition to increasing the size of Clinton Chapel by approximately seven hundred members, he established a second church in Charlotte, Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church.⁴

Little Rock Church originally occupied a parcel on S. Graham St. between Second and Third Streets.⁵ In 1876, Lomax became a Bishop and journeyed to Canada as a missionary. Although Lomax served the church in several capacities during the decades that followed, he maintained a strong connection with Charlotte and with Piedmont North Carolina. He was instrumental, for example, in having the A.M.E. Zion Publishing House locate in this community. Also, Bishop Lomax was on the committee which selected the site in Salisbury, N.C., for Livingstone College, an A.M.E. Zion institution of higher education. Not surprisingly, he received the Doctor of Divinity Degree from Livingstone.⁶ Bishop Lomax resided in Charlotte during the final years of his life. He died there on March 31, 1908.⁷ Indicative of his standing in the community was the fact that the Charlotte Observer commented editorially upon his death. Indeed, the acclaim which he received from the white leadership of the city was almost unknown in those days of intense and prevailing racial segregation. “In the death of T. H. Lomax of this city, the colored race and the community lose a valuable member and the A.M.E. Zion Church a shining light,” the newspaper asserted. “His example and counsels always made for good and by all colors and classes his death is to be regretted.”⁸

Perhaps some of the esteem which Bishop Lomax enjoyed among his white compatriots was due to his abilities as an entrepreneur. He invested heavily in real estate in Charlotte, especially in Second Ward, and possessed an estate of approximately $70,000 at the time of his death.⁹ “He had remarkable business talent,” the Charlotte News proclaimed, “and set an example to his people of how power and respect come to a man from thrift and industry.”¹⁰ Bishop Lomax is buried in Pinewood Cemetery in Charlotte, N.C.^l1 Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church prospered and flourished in Charlotte. In June 1884, the congregation purchased a lot at N. Myers and E. Seventh Sts. and began the construction of a new house of worship.¹² It is reasonable to assume that the people of Little Rock Church abandoned their original building on S. Graham St. and moved to First Ward, because the largest and oldest A.M.E. Zion church in Charlotte, Clinton Chapel, was only about a block away from the initial site.¹³ By 1889, activities were in full swing at the First Ward location.¹⁴ So successful was Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church in ministering to the black people of the neighborhood that a larger edifice replaced the first building in 1893.¹⁵

In order to appreciate and understand the function of the black church in Charlotte in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one must realize the difficulties which the customs and attitudes, not to mention the legal strictures, of white supremacy and racial segregation placed in the path of black men and women. Imagine, for example, how the black citizens felt when a play entitled “The Nigger” was performed on the stage of the elegant Academy of Music on S. Tryon St.¹⁶ Fancy how they reacted emotionally to the announcement that the owners of Lakewood Park, a popular amusement complex, would not extend the fall season for a week in 1910, so the black residents of Charlotte could visit the facility, because the “fear existed that such a course might injure the resort in some manner, or might lesson the prestige.”¹⁷ At almost every turn, the black men and women of Charlotte encountered events which threatened their sense of self-esteem. In November 1911, the Board of School Commissioners announced that it was abandoning plans to construct a black school in Third Ward because of the “objections which have been forthcoming from the citizens.”¹⁸ In April 1911, black Sunday School teachers were invited to the Mecklenburg County Sunday School Association, but they had to sit in the balcony.¹⁹ Within this cultural milieu, the black church served as a haven from the white man; there black men exhorted their congregations to persevere in the face of adversity and scorn. The African Methodist Episcopal Church provided a service whereby congregations could obtain architectural plans from offices in Philadelphia, PA.²⁰

When S. D. Watkins, minister of Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church from 1900 until 1906, undertook to build more imposing structure for his congregation than the wooden buildings which had housed the people theretofore, he decided to raise the funds to secure an architect.²¹ W. R. Douglas succeeded Watkins as minister in 1906 and superintended the building program. By May 1908, the plans were drawn and the congregation had raised $2000 in its building fund.²² The building permit was issued in September 1910, and the new church was finished by June 1911. The cost of the new, brick house of worship was $20,000.²³ This phenomenal sum of money for a black congregation of that era was raised entirely by the congregation itself. “Built by the subscription of Negroes entirely,” boasted the Greater Charlotte Club, an influential white organization, “this structure is a monument to the thrift and religious inclinations of Charlotte negroes.”²⁴ By pursuing the more difficult and expensive route of securing a local architect, the members of Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church made a more forthright statement about their standing in the community than would have been the case if they had ordered a standard design from the A.M.E. Zion offices in Philadelphia. The architect of the new edifice was James Mackson McMichael (1870-1944).²⁵ A native of Harrisburg, Pa., McMichael was the architect of several imposing buildings in this community, including the North Carolina Medical College Building, the old First Baptist Church (now Spirit Square), East Avenue Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, St. John’s Baptist Church, First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and Myers Park Presbyterian Church.²⁶ Unlike these affluent white congregations, however, the people of Little Rock Church had raised the money to hire the leading church architect of Charlotte at great financial sacrifice to themselves.²⁷ The official history of the Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church reveals that the text for the first sermon in the new building was taken from Nehemiah 4:6: So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof; for the people had a mind to work.²⁸

Over the years, Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church has played a leading role in shaping the destiny of the black community of Charlotte, NC. Happily, the exterior of the building is essentially unchanged from the original. Presently, the congregation is erecting a new sanctuary across Myers St. from the 1910-11 edifice. Hopefully, the old building will survive as a reminder to the contributions of individuals such as Bishop Thomas Henry Lomax, who guided his people toward a new and better tomorrow.

NOTES:

¹ Charlotte Observer (April 1, 1908), p. 8.

² J. W. Hood, One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (New York: A.M.E. Zion Book Concern, 1895 , pp. 191-195.

³ Ibid., p. 297. Map of Charlotte: F. W. Beers (1877).

⁴ Charlotte Observer (April 1, 1908), p. 8. William J. Walls, The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church: Reality of the Black Church (Charlotte, NC: A.M.E. Zion Publishing House, 1974), p. 580.

⁵ Map of Charlotte: F. W. Beers (1877).

⁶ Charlotte Observer (April 1, 1908), p. 8.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Charlotte Observer (April 2, 1908), p. 4.

⁹ Charlotte Observer (April 1, 1908) , p. 8.

¹⁰ Charlotte News (April 1, 1908), p. 9.

¹¹ Charlotte Observer (April 1, 1908), p. 8.

¹² Mecklenburg County Deed Book 60, p. 395.

¹³ Map of Charlotte: F. W. Beers (1877).

¹⁴ John Hirst and Dudley G. Stebbins, eds., Hirst’s Directory of Charlotte (Charlotte: Hirst Printing and Publishing House, 1889), p. 35.

¹⁵ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 91, p. 366.

¹⁶ Charlotte News (January 6, 1911), p. 9.

¹⁷ Charlotte Evening Chronicle (September 21, 1910), p. 6.

¹⁸ Charlotte Observer (November 10, 1911), p. 6.

¹⁹ Charlotte Observer (April 21, 1911), p. 5.

²⁰ Star of Zion (September 7, 1911), p. 3.

²¹ Official Journal of the Twenty-Third Quadrennial Session of the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, pp. 149-150. The Journal states that the plans were drawn “by one of the leading architects of the city.”

²² Ibid.

²³ Charlotte Evening Chronicle (October 29, 1910), p. 9. Mecklenburg County Deed Book 271, p. 648. Official Journal of the Twenty-Fourth Quadrennial Session of the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, p. 345. 24. Charlotte: The Hydro-Electric Centre (Charlotte: The Greater Charlotte Club, 1913). This source contains an early photograph of the building.

²⁵ Interview of David S. McMichael by Dr. Dan L. Morrill (January 22, 1981). Mr. McMichael, who lives in Alexandria, Va., has the original drawings of the building.

²⁶ Charlotte News (October 2, 1907), p. 5. Charlotte Observer (October 4, 1944), 2nd. sec., p. 1. Charlotte Evening Chronicle (February 23, 1911), p. 9. 27. Eighty Sixth Anniversary Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church, p. 6. 28. Ibid.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a description prepared by Jack O. Boyte, A.I.A.

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 Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: 1) the building was designed by J. M. McMichael, an architect of local and regional importance; 2) the structure is the only known building which McMichael designed for a black client in Charlotte; 3) the building is the most architecturally sophisticated of the older black churches in Charlotte; 4) the only other historic A.M.E. Zion church building in the center city, Grace A.M.E. Zion Church, has already been designated as “historic property” — Clinton Chapel has moved to a suburban location and the original building is not extant; and 5) Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church has occupied a place of great importance in the cultural and social life of the black community.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association: The Commission judges that the architectural description included in this report demonstrates that the property known as the Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church 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 Ad Valorem tax appraisal of the .357 acres of land is $18,680. The current Ad Valorem tax appraisal of the building is $43,270. The property is exempted from the payment of Ad Valorem taxes. The property is zoned B2.

Bibliography

Charlotte Evening Chronicle

Charlotte News

Charlotte Observer

Charlotte: The Hydro-Electric Centre (Charlotte: The Greater Charlotte Club, 1913).

Eighty Sixth Anniversary Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church.

John Hirst and Dudley G. Stebbins, eds., Hirst’s Directory of Charlotte (Charlotte: Hirst Printing and Publishing House, 1889).

J. W. Hood, One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (New York: A.M.E. Zion Book Concern, 1895) .

Interview of David S. McMichael by Dr. Dan L. Morrill (January 22, 1981).

Map of Charlotte: F. W. Beers (1877).

Official Journal of the Twenty-Third Quadrennial Session of the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

Records of the Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office.

Records of the Mecklenburg County Tax Office.

Star of Zion.

William J. Walls, The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church: Reality of the Black Church (Charlotte, N.C.: A.M.E. Zion Publishing House, 1974).
Date of Preparation of this Report: February 4, 1981.

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill, Director
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
3500 Shamrock Dr.
Charlotte, N.C. 28215

Telephone (704) 332-2726

The Little Rock AME Zion Church building is a striking medley of turn-of-the-century revival architectural styles. Romanesque arches combine with neo-colonial trim details and domed bell towers to create a unique and handsome church building, a building which has enriched Charlotte’s First Ward community for nearly three quarters of a century. Its hillside site is visible from several adjoining neighborhoods, and the church is firmly implanted in early memories not only of First Ward residents, but of many who grew up in Elizabeth, Myers Park or elsewhere in eastern Charlotte. Bordering East Seventh Street where it crosses Myers, the large rectangular red brick structure rises from a half basement some thirty feet to a steep tripped roof. Exterior front and side facades are symmetrical and feature a series of cast stone trimmed window and door openings as well as carefully executed Adamesque wall and roof design elements of wood. The entrance facade has a three bay balconied portico in the center and large square corner stair towers at each side. The front wall of each tower has twin windows on three levels. Basement sash are small square projecting vents with opaque, patterned glass. At the second, or main sanctuary level, tall double hung sash windows are set in masonry openings with lintels of brick jack arches. Shorter double hung mezzanine windows have rounded brick arch openings defined by corbeled brick eyebrows.

At the tower side walls single windows at each level repeat, in a smaller scale, the details of front units. The southern tower touches the Seventh Street sidewalk, and here there is a prominent secondary entrance. Double doors open onto a landing from which stairs rise a half flight to the narthex or drop a half flight to the basement. Clear glass panels fill the upper half of each door and flood the stair with natural light. The entrance opening has a low arched stone head. This arch is a continuation of a stone belt course which bands the entire structure at the main floor level. Soaring high above the corners, twin octagonal bell cupolas complete the tower compositions. With segmented curved roofs which rise steeply to knob finials, the domed roof towers are dominant elements in this eclectic architectural composition. The eight sided belvederes have Palladian arches in each segment with wooden casing, spring blocks and arch keys. Both are open to the weather on all sides, yet only the south tower shelters a bell. Simulated stone entrance stairs matching the front portico in width, begin at the edge of the Myers Street sidewalk and rise a dozen steps to a recessed entrance platform. In each bay tall panelled doors open to a narrow narthex. Over the doors arched transom windows are glazed with lead patterned stained glass. Fluted Ionic columns rest on square brick pedestals at the top of the entrance steps. Above this, the flat portico roof has a broad molded entablature supporting a projecting denticular cornice. The balcony balustrade is segmented to match the three bays of the portico. Solid wood panels occur over each column and slender balusters support a molded intermediate rail.

Set behind the balcony the mezzanine wall has three equally spaced double hung sash windows. Over these windows is a projecting pedemented gable featuring molded raking cornices. The Seventh Street facade, which is repeated on the uphill side of the church, is a lofty wall of red brick laid in running bond. This wall rises more than forty feet from a grass sidewalk strip to a modest projecting cornice where a narrow bed mold with dentils is the only elaboration. At the molded eave line a built in gutter anchors a steeple sloped slate roof. At the main floor level, there is a wide band of simulated stone which circles the entire building perimeter. Below this belt line, five shallow windows with low arched heads are spaced evenly in the basement wall. An exterior basement entrance was inserted in the rearmost window opening in subsequent years. The wall surface above the stone belt course is divided equally by five monumental windows. These tall openings have twin sash lower units with mullion dividers. Above are half circle stain black transoms and brick Romanesque arches. Three large gable vents are centered side by side in both sloping long side roof surfaces. Designed as architectural features, these gables have raking cornices which shelter horizontal wood louvers. Wood surrounds for the triangular louvered vent panels are sawn in two cusp, trefoil, arch forms.

Rear facade details are generally consistent with those found elsewhere. A low-roofed wing extends along the Seventh Street frontage and includes a pastor’s study and choir robe room. Simulated stone steps rise from the sidewalk to a simply detailed secondary entrance at this wing. Centered in the high rear facade is a gable roof where another triangular louvered vent has a trefoil wood surround. Important among the extraordinary features which adorn the exterior of the church is the consistent use of leaded stained glass in the windows. On all four sides numerous and varied glazed openings flood the interior with subdued light warmed by multi-colored glass. Following the basic rectangular exterior building form, the church plan is balanced along a central axis. From the main entrance on Myers Street, one enters a low ceilinged narthex flanked by open stair towers. The inside narthex wall faces the nave with a center window and double doors at each side, all set in arched openings. Rising in five runs from basement to mezzanine levels the tower stairways are bordered by mill crafted balustrades and molded wall panels. Sturdy turned balusters support a heavy molded wooden rail. Large square corner newel posts at each landing have recessed side panels and molded caps.

Designed to focus on a center pulpit platform and raised choir chancel, the vaulted nave retains much of its original classical trim, though the pulpit and pew furnishings have been replaced. Wall and ceiling surfaces are smooth plaster interrupted only by a projecting chair rail which borders the interior at the window sill line and a wide crown mold at the ceiling. Plaster arches divide the nave into equally spaced window bays. The curved ceiling is likewise segmented by lowered plaster arches. At the rear of the nave a sloping gallery opens from above the narthex. Here, on high-stepped platforms, are examples of the original church pews. Fabricated of dark stained pine, the heavy seats are typical turn-of-the-century molded and carved furnishing produced in local planing mills.

A dominant feature in the main auditorium is an array of brass organ pipes set behind the chancel in a shallow plastered alcove. This instrument with its fine old console is a significant element in the preserved interior. The Little Rock Church building is a remarkable reminder of an exuberant expression of faith by the earlier congregations. This intricate old classic is important not only to First Ward but the entire community and should be carefully preserved.