Wayne County, NC - Heritage Series

Reprinted with permission of the Mount Olive Tribune and cannot be 
reproduced without permission. 
Transcribed by Sloan Mason.

"Our Heritage" by Claude MOORE
(no date)

                         GOSHEN HALL OF CALYPSO

(This week we have a guest writer, Christopher DENISE, a student of Wayne 
Community College. He is writing about his ancestral home where he and his 
mother now live and they are in the process of restoring the home. In March 
1984, the oak grove was obliterated by a tornado and the house was badly 
damaged. This article recently appeared in the Wayne Community College 
Literary Magazine.)

It was a glorious spring day in the year 1834. Penelope could hardly contain 
her excitement. Finally, after hours of traveling, the small carriage crossed
the little branch of Goshen Swamp that marked the western border of the 
plantation that she was to be mistress of. Soon she would see, for the first
time, the house that Bryan had spent the last three winters building for 
her.

She and Bryan had been married only a week ago, and today she would see the 
house that she would spend the rest of her life in. Twenty minutes Down the 
muddy little path, the carriage started up the last hill. Penelope caught 
a glimpse of the tall chimneys through the trees. Finally they were there! 

The house was large and white with green shutters and a green front door. 
The steep roof was neatly shingled, and the whole house was shaded by 
100-year-old oak trees. In the middle of the main house was beautifully 
columned balcony in the fashionable new Greek Revival style.

While it is true that the house is in the Greek Revival style, it is also 
an example of American folk architecture exhibiting strong regional 
adaptations and the influence of many different ethnic groups. Probably 
the greatest influence is that of the English Georgian country manor. The 
façade is true to Georgian proportions and symmetry; however, all of the 
detailing is very Greek Revival. 

The house is three stories tall. The first two floors have four main rooms 
each, two on the left and two on the right of the hall. The hall is 10 feet 
wide and has two identical staircases, one for the front and one for the 
back of the house. The eight main rooms have fireplaces, all with mantels 
and similar in design but different in detail. 

The floorboards run the length of each room unbroken with a single nail. 
Both upstairs and down, the ceilings are 10 feet high. The windows are 
nearly six feet wide, with two sashes each with six lights, many of which 
are the original hand-blown glass. The four rooms downstairs are the parlor, 
the common parlor, the dining room, and the master bedchamber. Upstairs, 
the front two rooms were for the girls and the back two were for the boys. 
The third floor was for the house slaves; it is one large, low room 16 feet 
wide and 42 feet long with a window at each end and storage space on either 
side.

All of the wood used to build the house is heart of pine (fat wood) with 
exception of stair rails, which are black walnut and persimmon. The frame 
of the house is made up of large timbers that were hand-hewn and pegged 
together with a Roman numeral at each joint. Even the individual 4x4 wall 
studs are notched into place. The walls are constructed of two coats of 
plaster. The first rough coat was mixed with animal hair for strength and 
then applied over the hand-split lattice. The second coat was much finer 
and thinner which allowed it to be finished to the texture of polished 
stone or marble. The bricks for the foundations and chimneys were made on 
the plantation from clay in the fields. Likewise, all of the lumber came 
from the plantation; however, some of it was probably milled elsewhere down 
the Northeast Cape Fear River.

This house was built entirely with slave labor. Knowing this fact and 
examining the craftsmanship, care, complexity, and refinement of the 
construction of the house can make one rethink some of the stereotypes of 
slavery (not to condone it in anyway). Old family records reveal that many 
slaves took the family names of their masters, and when one considers the 
isolation of plantation life and intimate role that slaves had in the 
everyday life of the master's family, perhaps one can understand why so 
much care was taken to build this house.

I am Bryan and Penelope's great-great-great grandson, which makes me the 
sixth generation of my family to live in this house. It has served us well 
through good times and bad times, through wars and bumper harvests, in 
death and in life. It is a good strong house.

==============================================================

USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free
information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial
entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material.
The electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit 
or for presentation by other persons or organizations.

Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes 
other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file 
contributor, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of 
this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb 
Archives to store the file permanently for free access.

==============================================================