Email sent to Elizabeth Gould (and Mary Warshaw) - 22 Apr 2013
I have finally finished reviewing the body of research that you and Mary had sent to me regarding the history of your house at 603 Broad Street in Beaufort. I found your research to be amazingly thorough, complete, and extremely well organized. The chain of title research, the historic maps, and the photographs that you sent to me via e-mail, coupled with the physical evidence that I saw during my July 17, 2012 site visit has provided me with sufficient evidence that I am comfortable with a circa 1877 construction date for the house.
The photographs of the crawlspace of the house show a hewn sill that has a pocket for a half dovetail joint as well as a pocket of a mortise and tenon joint. These empty pockets (on the side face of the sill) indicate that the sill(s) are reused timbers from an earlier structure. The pegged joint that we looked at this past summer is a half-lapped splice joint that joins the two timbers that make up the plate on the front elevation. These timbers, as well as the wall studs and the floor joist (shown in your crawl space photograph) are all sawn timbers. These sawn timbers as well as nail evidence and the overall size and form of the building would be of the type seen during the 1870-1900 period.
Your primary and secondary source information (chain of title, census, and maps, etc.) all help to more narrowly pinpoint an approximate date of construction. Although we will never likely know the exact year of construction, the likelihood that it falls within the period 1874-1880 is pretty good. Also, based on your chain of title research, the Davis-Everett name would be appropriate for the house.
Based on my examination of your research and the building itself, I believe that you have sufficient information to proceed with an application for a plaque from the Beaufort Historic Preservation Commission listing it as the Davis-Everett House, circa 1877.
With you application I recommend that you include all of the historic background information that you shared with me. You are also welcome to include a copy of this e-mail message with your application as my opinion of the thoroughness of your research and my evaluation of the building’s date-of-construction and appropriateness of the building’s name.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or require additional information. Thanks again to both you and Mary for the undertaking the research on the property. I will include a copy of your findings in our survey file on the property.
Regards,
John
John P. Wood
Preservation/Restoration Specialist
N.C. State Historic Preservation Office
http://www.hpo.ncdcr.gov
Phone: (252) 830-6580, extension 225 - Fax (252) 830-6583
