Stedman-Rainey-Savage House

The Stedman-Rainey-Savage House
ca. 1853

The Stedman-Rainey-Savage House was probably commissioned by William and Olivia Stedman around 1853 with John Dietrich Tavis as the builder.

Olivia Gibson was born in Germanton around 1829 to William N. and Eliza Gibson. William Gibson belonged to one of Germanton's wealthiest families and was the son of Jeremiah and Rachel Nelson Gibson. William graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1820 and he was a medical doctor. The 1830 census records William heading a household of four free whites and 13 enslaved persons while his father, Jeremiah, owned 25 slaves, making Jeremiah one of the county’s larger slave owners. William Gibson died in 1831, when his daughter, Olivia, was about two years old. Although Eliza Gibson, Olivia’s mother, was still living, Jeremiah became his granddaughter’s guardian.[1]

Tavis often used broad pediments on his gable ends.

On December 16, 1848, the Raleigh Register recorded the marriage of Olivia Gibson and Dr. William W. Stedman[2] in Clemmonsville (southwest Forsyth County).[3]

Jeremiah Gibson died in 1849, leaving 404 acres in Germanton to his granddaughter, Olivia Stedman. This property included at least two houses (John Pepper’s, probably located about where the Baptist Church is today and purchased by Gibson when Pepper defaulted on debts, and Joshua Banner’s, probably located to the south, closer to Buffalo Creek and purchased by Gibson after Banner’s death).[4]

By 1850, William and Olivia were living in the Richmond District of Forsyth County (northwest Forsyth County). William was a physician, the family included five-month-old William G., and the family’s worth was an impressive $4,000. In 1853, Olivia completed the purchase of the land she had inherited (Jeremiah had not fully paid for the Banner and Pepper properties before his death, so Olivia settled that debt before taking ownership of the land.) That same year and again in 1855 and 1857, the Stedmans made land purchases in Germanton that added about 200 acres to Olivia’s 404 acres.[5]

Tavis' signature asymmetrical sidelights.

While Olivia’s property included at least two other houses, it is likely that the young family constructed this house around 1853, when they appear to have moved to Germanton: stylistically, the house appears to date from the 1850s, other buildings by the same builder date from the mid-1850s, the Stedmans were investors in one other project by the same builder in the mid-1850s, and the subsequent owner referred to the property and house as having been Dr. Stedman’s.[6] No other buildings associated with the Stedmans’ ownership of the property remain, but presumably, their farm included barns, outbuildings, and housing for enslaved persons.

On April 12, 1857, William Stedman died. Dr. Stedman, like Germanton’s other prominent white men, including his Gibson in-laws, were members of the Masonic Lodge and upon Stedman’s death, the Masons issued a proclamation of mourning that described him as affable, efficient, and in the prime of his career. The Masons planned to wear mourning badges for 30 days and drape the lodge in crape. Dr. Stedman is buried with Olivia’s other family members at the Methodist Church cemetery.[7]

In late 1857, Olivia advertised the sale of 14 “likely Negros” at auction on January 11, 1858. The advertisement noted that the enslaved persons were from the estate of Dr. William W. Stedman.[8] The term “likely Negros” does not mean people who are likely to be African American; it means they are likely to be good workers.

By 1860, Olivia was living in Salem with her young children, William G, Eliza, and Fannie and in 1861, she married the prominent newspaper publisher, John W. Alspaugh.[9] Eight years later, Olivia Alspaugh sold 7 tracts of land containing about 600 acres to Thomas Rainey, of the “Kingdom of Brazil.”[10] The acreage still included the old Banner house, and among several interesting notes, one tract included the “Race Grounds.”

Thomas Rainey never lived in Germanton, but he was a successful businessman and one of the primary advocates for construction of the Queesnboro Bridge in New York City. In his memoir, Rainey recalled moving many times in Caswell County and the Danville, Virginia, area, chasing his unlucky father’s fortunes and running from his losses. By the time Rainey purchased the Stedman farm, his father was deeply in debt and elderly. Rainey installed his father and siblings here and described the property as being purchased from Dr. Stedman and called Capitol Hill. Over time, the Rainey family moved the bodies of several deceased family members to Germanton’s Methodist Church cemetery, which probably started as a Gibson family cemetery.[11] 

By 1907, Thomas’ brother, Virgil Rainey, owned the property and he sold 446 acres, including this house, to B. J. Savage. B. J. Savage was a successful and colorful farmer and his son and daughter-in-law, Kemp and Ruby Savage, owned the house into the early twenty-first century. The Savage family replaced the original stair in the central hallway with a classical-revival staircase and columns around 1910. They replaced the original double-tier portico with the current porch and added the one-story kitchen wing on the northeast side in the 1940s.[12]

Sarah Woodard David, 2015 

To learn more about the builder of this house, John Dietrich Tavis, click here. 

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[1] Olivia Gibson’s birth year can be calculated from census records and it is recorded on her gravemarker at Salem Cemetery in Winston-Salem. Several deeds (Stokes County deed book 11, page 520, and deed book 13, page 336) and Jeremiah Gibson’s will (N.C. State Archives, Raleigh, NC) confirm the family relationships. Gravermarkers for Jeremiah Gibson and William Gibson are in the Germanton Methodist Church Cemetery. 

[2] Very little is known about William Stedman. He was a doctor and received his M.D. from the University of the City of New York in 1842. (New York University was chartered as the University of the City of New York in 1831.) His parents and birthplace are unknown. He may be the son of William Winship Stedman, a wealthy Gates County planter with ties to Chatham County who had several sons who remain unknown.

[3] Carrie L. Broughton, ed., Marriages and Death Notices from Raleigh Register and North Carolina State Gazette, 1846-1855 (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State Library, 1948), 438.

[4] Jeremiah Gibson’s will and estate papers (NC State Archives, Raleigh, NC); John Pepper to Jeremiah Gibson, Stokes County deed book 15, page 446, October 10, 1845; and Jeremiah Gibson to Olivia Gibson Stedman, Forsyth County deed book 1, page 734, October 17, 1853.

[5] U. S. Census, Population Schedule, 1850, and Stedman land purchases, Forsyth County deed book 2, pages 222, 223, and 611.

[6] Thomas Rainey Memoir, written around 1901 and published on the Caswell County Historical Association website, ncccha.blogspot.com/2009/12/Thomas-rainey-1824-1920-memori.html, accessed December 2, 2014.

[7] William W. Stedman grave marker at Germanton Methodist Church, and “Tribute of Respect,” published in the (Raleigh) Weekly Standard, April 22, 1857.

[8] Greensboro Patriot, December 18, 1857.

[9] U.S. Census, Population Schedule, 1860, and Stedman-Alspaugh marriage noted in the Fayetteville Semi-Weekly Observer, March 25, 1861. Olivia died in 1869 and her children disappeared from obvious public records, but they may have ended up in Fayetteville where other Stedman relatives may have been living. The youngest child, Fannie, married a minister from Fayetteville and she eventually resurfaced in Germanton to sell Gibson property in the late 1800s.

[10] John and Olivia Alspaugh to Thomas Rainey, Forsyth County deed book 4, page 577, September 4, 1868.

[11] Thomas Rainey Memoir.

[12] Virgil Rainey to B. J. Savage, Forsyth County deed book 85, page 168, 1907. See also Stokes County deed book 586, page 833.

The Courthouse Square, Updated

The previous post showed a plat of Germanton's Courthouse Square in 1920. Here, I've added a picture of the courthouse and some photographs of the square as it exists today. 

In 1790, after the Fry brothers, Henry and Michael, gave 23 acres of land (Stokes County Deed Book 1, page 42) for the creation of Germanton as a county seat for newly-formed Stokes County, the town's appointed commissioners laid out half-acre lots with the courthouse centered on a crossroads. According to a 1915 article in the Winston-Salem Twin City Daily Sentinel, builders completed the courthouse around 1793, and it served until it burned in the 1820s. The ponderous edifice recognized by students of Stokes County history as the Germanton courthouse is actually the second building and was completed in the early 1830s. 

Germanton's courthouse square anchored the town's civic and commercial activity for 170 years. Even after the legislature created Forsyth County in 1849 and established new county seats in Danbury and Winston, the old courthouse found new life as a store and Masonic Hall, but in 1959, officials demolished the courthouse to ease traffic through town.

facing northeast with the courthouse in the center of the street

from a similar perspective today

1920 plat with letters keyed to the following images

 A. The Bitting-Gibson Storehouse

This is shown on the plat as the post office and S. W. Kurfees House. Although long associated with the Gibson family, my research suggests John Bitting built this around 1792, 

and this building will be the subject of a future post.

 

The Bitting-Gibson Storehouse from a 1941 Winston-Salem Journal photo.

  

 B. Rainey Store-Kiser House

This is shown on the plat as an establishment of E.J. Styers and R. T. Tuttle. Both men were local merchants and B. J. Savage, a prosperous farmer, also owned an interest in the building at one point. Now used as a residence, the Rainey family originally constructed this as a store farther southwest on Main Street. It is unclear when or who moved the building, but it was in its current location by 1900. A second story was added in the twentieth century and since the Kiser family purchased it in 1945, it has been extensively remodeled for residential use.

C. Hardin and Sallie McGee House

 D. Chaffin-Vaughn House, also known as the Boarding House or Chaffin Hotel.

 E. McKenzie Store, also known as the Chaffin Store

One of the local fire departments burned this two-story, wooden store for practice in 1985. The fire quickly got out of hand and several additional fire departments responded.

 

 F. 1950s commercial building on the site of earlier store buildings

 

G. Bank of Stokes County

After decades of neglect, this building was demolished in 2014, although the square column from the corner entrance remains partially intact. 

Courthouse Square in 1920

Germanton started out as the county seat of Stokes County, but it lost that status in 1849 when Stokes County was divided to form Forsyth County to the south. The courthouse, however, remained in the middle of the street until 1956. Here's an image from a 1920 deed recording the old courthouse square.

At the top left is the Post Office and S. W. Kurfees Residence. This is the two-story brick home that faces "sideways," so to speak; if you were passing through Germanton on Highway 8 heading north, this house is on your left. At the top right is the Bank of Stokes County, of which a few ruins remain on the right hand side of Highway 8 when you're traveling northbound. Buildings on the railroad side of the square include stores belonging to E. J. Styers, R. T. Beck, and L. M. McKenzie's property which housed stores belonging to a Poindexter and W. L. Chaffin. In the lower right corner is the Chaffin House, which was also a boarding house. The Hardin McGee House stands in the lower left corner and both the Chaffin Boarding House and the McGee House are still standing. A store belonging to R. T. Tuttle and E. J. Styers is located at the corner of the square and now-defunct Mountain Street. This building also stands and is used as a house today. The courthouse, in the center, is noted as "Old Court Houses now Store of H. McGee." 

Stokes County Deed Book 65, page 591

John Dietrich Tavis, the German who built Germanton

The Bynum House, off N.C. Highway 65 on the south side of Town Fork Creek

Local oral tradition had long attributed the construction of several houses in and around Germanton to a “German architect,” and that story eventually proved true. The builder was John Dietrich Tavis, born Johann Dietrich Tewes in 1814 in Hanover, Germany. According to a brief obituary published on July 4, 1889, in the Salem People's Press, he arrived in the Salem area as a young man, and in 1845, he petitioned the Moravian Church for membership. By then, he had been established in Salem for several years, and in 1847, he married Henrietta Winkler. The 1850 census enumerates the couple in Salem with Tavis employed as a house carpenter. Tavis' obituary describes him as a well-known and respected citizen. Tavis left the Moravian Church, but his wife and children remained members and the Moravian memorabilia (like an obituary) of his eldest son, Christian Heinrich Tavis, mentions Tavis' contracting business, which Christian took over as his father aged. Christian's sons, William and John D., also went on to be carpenters and cabinet makers in Winston.[1]
 
Although Tavis appears to have prospered, his work in Winston-Salem has not been documented. Court documents related to an estate settlement tie him to a house in Winston (financed in the early 1860s by John Alspaugh for Leonidas Gibson, the deeply indebted cousin of his wife, Olivia Gibson Stedman Alspaugh), but his known, extant work stands to the north, in and around Germanton.[2]
Tavis' work exhibits stylish Greek Revival designs and consistent application of a particular sidelight configuration in which a single vertical muntin is offset, either closer to the interior (door edge) or

closer to the outer edge of the composition. He also employed broad, pedimented gable ends and composed single-bay, double-tier entrance porticoes with classical or classically inspired columns and flush-board sheathing. Tavis interiors feature Greek Revival finishes, including post-and-lintel mantelpieces, Greek Revival door surrounds and two-panel doors.

from the estate papers of William W. Stedman

Tavis' best-documented house no longer stands, but it was intended to be a school for girls. According to court documents related to the settlement of the William W. Stedman estate in Germanton, Tavis was the builder of a large, two-story house that was under construction in 1855 for Mrs. Ann Eliza Mays. The house was to be “suitable for a dwelling house and also of sufficient size and dimensions for keeping a large Female School.” However, Mrs. Mays died in 1856, and a year later, William W. Stedman, who was one of the investors in the school, also died. This left several
other investors indebted to “Dedrick Tavis the builder of said house.”[3] Eventually, a doctor named Wade Hampton Bynum purchased the property and although the house was demolished in the 1950s, Bynum's name is still most closely associated with it. Historic photographs show a two-story house with a single-bay portico and square posts, and oral history maintains that this house looked like the existing two-story Tavis houses.

Tavis signature entrance composition at the Bitting House

 

windows at the Bitting House

Four other examples of Tavis' work remain in and around Germanton, three of which are nearly identical to each other and to the demolished Dr. Wade Bynum House. Standing diagonally across the street from the site of the Dr. Bynum House is the Stedman-Rainey-Savage House, known more commonly as the Savage House. Just to the northeast of the Stedman-Rainey-Savage House and Dr. Bynum House site, on Germanton's main street, is a one-story Greek Revival house most likely built in the early 1850s by Samuel L. and Susan Bitting. This house features a low hip roof and an unusual floor plan with one large room to the left of the center hall and two rooms, each with a corner fireplace, to the right of the hall. Tavis' sidelight and transom composition surrounds the front door and his asymmetrical sidelights also flank each of the six-over-six sash windows on the front elevation.

A few miles northeast of Germanton on either side of Town Fork Creek, stand the Bailey House and the Bynum House. The Bailey House was most likely commissioned around 1855 by John W. Chambers for his daughter and son-in-law, Benjamin and Ellen Chambers Bailey while Hampton and Mary Bynum most likely built the Bynum House in the 1850s, after their older home burned. The Bynum, Bailey, Stedman-Rainey-Savage, and Dr. Bynum houses were all nearly identical to each other, with the Bynum House retaining the most intact exterior of the known Tavis houses.

Pepper-Blackburn-Petree House

A fifth house, the Pepper-Blackburn-Petree House, is probably the work of Tavis, but this connection is less obvious. It stands in Germanton, between the Samuel and Laura Bitting House and the Germanton Methodist Church. It is a modest one-story, side-gable dwelling with two-panel doors and post-and-lintel mantelpieces, which look like those found in the Tavis houses, but which are also common to many houses built in the 1850s. The feature that suggests it may be the work of Tavis is the twelve-over-twelve sash windows like those seen down the street at the Stedman-Rainey-Savage House. Oral tradition holds that this house was built as the parsonage for the neighboring Germanton Methodist Church (ca. 1856), and, indeed, at least one of the church's nineteenth century ministers lived in it. The builder of the Methodist Church is not known, but the church's Greek Revival details, the possibility that this house was the work of Tavis, the similarity of the church’s steeple to the belfry on the 1851 Forsyth County Courthouse (with which Tavis would have been familiar), and Tavis' work on Germanton's other prominent Greek Revival landmarks dating from the same period point to Tavis as a possible builder of the church.

Sarah Woodard David, 2015


See also . . .

. . . the architectural survey files for these houses at the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, Raleigh, NC. Laura Phillips documented these houses in the early 1980s in her countywide architectural survey. The survey file numbers for each house are: SK298, Pepper-Blackburn-Petree House; SK299 Samuel Hill House (aka Samuel and Laura Bitting House); SK304, Rainey-Savage House; SK253, Benjamin Bailey House; and SK281, Hampton Bynum House,

. . . and the Tavis entry in the North Carolina Architects and Builders Biographical Dictionary.  

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[1] Moravian Memorabilia, Moravian Archives, Winston-Salem, NC, and Old Salem, Inc., Personnel Files.

[2] Leonidas Gibson Estate Papers, Stokes County Records, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

[3] William W. Stedman Estate Papers, Stokes County Records, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

Welcome to the Germanton Project!

Germanton is my hometown. It's situated on the Stokes-Forsyth County line, north of Winston-Salem, NC, and it's the place I learned to love history. A year or two ago, I started a long-thought-of but long-put-off research project to document the town's buildings. I am an architectural historian and buildings are my preferred springboard for talking about a place's history, so I started digging into deed books with the ultimate goal of creating a well-documented, soundly-sourced history of the town.

I'm not there yet: the deeds and research have led me in a lot of unexpected directions (one might call them tangents), and for such a tiny wide spot in the road, Germanton has a lot of layers. So, in an effort to share what I've learned so far (and to push myself to actually produce something), I decided to use a blog for posting short essays. Most essays will be histories of individual houses, but I also hope to post stories and histories about certain groups, individuals, institutions, eras, and significant events.

I'll aim to post a new essay or at least a photograph or map every week, so hopefully, you'll find something new every time you visit this blog, but if you see an error, have a question, or if you'd like to contribute an article, there's a contact form at the bottom of the page.

Thanks for your interest in Germanton!

Styers-Long-Woodard House