Styers House

The Styers House was built around 1887 by E. J. (Edward Justice or Edward Jesse) and Sallie Styers. The builder or carpenter is unknown. 

The lot it stands on is documented in the estate papers of Alexander Moody. He was born in 1779 in the Germanton area, and in the early 1800s, he purchased several lots and tracts on Germanton’s [1]

outer edges. His first purchase, made in 1804, the same year he married Sallie/Sarah Follis, was a one-and-a-half-acre lot on the young town’s main street.

plat from Alexander Moody's estate papers

Alexander’s death in 1826 made Sarah Moody an affluent widow, and in 1832, she married Jeremiah Gibson, also a prosperous widower. In a modern twist that speaks to their wealth, Sarah and Jeremiah signed a document that is, essentially, a prenuptial agreement keeping their estates separate.[2]

Sally Moody's lot on a plat from Alexander Moody's estate papers

Eventually, the Styers House property ended up in the hands of Jeremiah Gibson who sold it to his wife’s son-in-law, Marshall Benton.[3] At the time of Benton’s purchase, he and his wife, Anna Moody Benton, were already living in a house on the property and they also owned a store building on the property. It is likely that the house they lived in was Sarah and Alexander Moody’s old house, probably dating from the very early 1800s.

In 1876, as part of the settlement of Marshall Benton’s estate, George Hill bought the property at auction.[4] Within just a few years, however, George Hill had defaulted on a loan and William Chaffin sold the property at auction again.[5] At that time, the real estate still contained a little more than seven acres plus the Moody-Benton House and storehouse, and it was still described as the “Moody lots.” Charles Wall purchased the property at this auction, but he sold it less than two years later to E. J. Styers.[6]

Prior to this purchase, E. J. Styers lived in the Bethania Township of Forsyth County where he worked as a miller and merchant. By the time he bought the Moody land, he was a widower with three young children, but around the time he bought this land, he married Sallie Cumbie, the daughter of a successful farmer and coffin-maker in Germanton. E. J. and Sallie apparently set up housekeeping in the old Moody-Benton home and the couple became community leaders. E. J. Styers emerged as a successful merchant, railroad advocate, and newspaper editor who owned or co-owned at least two stores in Germanton and published the newspaper, the Germanton Enterprise. E. J. and Sallie both appeared frequently in newspaper reports about Germanton and in 1885, the Danbury Reporter noted that E. J.’s new store (located on the old courthouse square) was “the best and handsomest storehouse ever built in the county” with another store soon to follow. In January of 1886, the Reporter welcomed the upcoming inaugural issue of Styers’ Enterprise. E. J. Styers was also a proud Confederate veteran who frequently attended reunions with fellow veteran and neighbor, Dr. L. H. Hill.[7]

E. J. and Sallie built this house around 1887. According to local tradition, the Styers family moved the old Moody-Benton home from Main Street to the back of the lot, constructed this house, and then tore down the older home. They retained an earlier, one-room log house that probably functioned as a kitchen for the Bentons or, possibly, for the Moodys. This kitchen stood on the northeastern side of the lot, about 1/3 of the way back from Main Street.[8]

The Styers family chose Italianate references for their dwelling. The Italianate style emerged in the 1860s in North Carolina and remained popular into the 1880s. On the Styers House, the low-pitched roof is finished with heavy eave brackets and a wide frieze board. Low pediments top the windows, and sawnwork, brackets, and chamfered posts finish the full-width front porch.

Over time, the Styers family sold portions of the 7.25-acre property. The fledgling Episcopal congregation purchased a corner of it in 1887.[9] It appears that E. J. and Sallie Styers gave the land on which Germanton Baptist Church constructed its first building in 1890, but no deed records this transaction until the 1950s. R. L. Tuttle bought a lot from the family in 1910, but the Styers family later bought that property back.[10] E. J. Styers and his descendants eventually sold off other lots along Styers and Willow streets.

E. J. Styers died in the house in April, 1918. Sallie Styers also died in the house on March 24, 1921.[11] Their daughter, Sarah Long, and her husband, Edward Long, inherited the property.

Mr. Long was from Winston-Salem, where he worked for the city’s water department. Eventually, he became a Baptist minister and by 1914, the Germanton Baptist Church had hired him for two Sundays each month. Because the Styers family worshiped at the Baptist church, it is likely this is where Sarah Styers met her future husband. The couple married in 1917 in the Styers House, which was “beautifully decorated in palms, potted plants and flowers” for the occasion. The Longs lived in Winston-Salem until 1922 when they moved to Germanton. By that time, Mr. Long had become a full-time minister at Germanton Baptist Church.[12]

Two chicken houses stand behind the Styers House. These were probably constructed during the Long’s ownership. Historically, families produced eggs and chickens as a way to supplement their incomes and it is likely that Mrs. Long and her children would have been the primary overseers of this operation. 

The other outbuilding on the property is a concrete block garage. The north half of this building probably dates to the 1920s while the southern half was added at a later date, probably after World War II.

In 1966, Mr. Long donated the house to the Baptist Homes, Inc., who sold it to the Tilley family in 1968. During the Tilley’s ownership, Bill McGee moved the Moody kitchen to his property, at the north end of Styers Street. The Tilleys replaced all but one original mantelpiece with brick mantels and covered many of the rooms in wood paneling. In 1971, John and Linda Woodard purchased the house and they continue to own it today.[13]

Styers House

Styers House chicken house

 Sarah Woodard David, 2015

---

[1]John R. Woodard, ed. The Heritage of Stokes County (Winston-Salem: Hunter Publishing Company, 1981), 384; Michael Fry to Alexander Moody, September(?) 6, 1804, Stokes County Deed Book 4, page 425.

[2] Agreement between Jeremiah Gibson and Sarah Moody, August 16, 1832, Stokes County Deed Book 9, page 571.

[3] Jeremiah Gibson to Marshall Benton, January 23, 1848, Stokes County Deed Book 17, pages 9 and 10.

[4] Marshall Benton (estate) to George G. Hill, January 15, 1876, Stokes County Deed Book 23, page 95.

[5] William Chaffin to Charles T. Wall, January 2, 1879, Stokes County Deed Book 24, page 219.

[6] Charles Wall to E. J. Styers, November 5, 1880, Stokes County Deed Book 26, page 375.

[7] 1880 Census; Edward J. Styers House Architectural Survey File (SK 303) and William H. Cumbie Coffin Shop Architectural Survey File (SK 283), State Historic Preservation Office, Raleigh, N.C.; and the Danbury Reporter, February 12, 1885 and January 28, 1886.

[8] Oral tradition.

[9] E. J. Styers to Trustees of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, September 5, 1887, Stokes County Deed Book 29, page 223.

[10] E. J. Styers to R. L. Tuttle, March 28, 1910, Stokes County Deed Book 54, page 232, and R. L. Tuttle to John Styers, January 1, 1917, Stokes County Deed Book 64, page 194.

[11] Styers family gravermarkers, Germanton Methodist Church cemetery, and Winston-Salem Western Sentinel, March 25, 1921.

[12] Winston-Salem Journal, January 18, 1914; Winston-Salem Twin City Daily Sentinel, November 21, 1917; Winston-Salem Union Republican, November 9, 1922.

[13] E. A. Long to Baptist Homes, Inc., December 1, 1966, Stokes County Deed Book 182, page 164; Baptist Homes, Inc., to C. L. and Annie Tilley, April 22, 1968, Stokes County Deed Book 182, page 163; C. L. and Annie Tilley to John R. Woodard, June 22, 1971, Stokes County Deed Book 199, page 618.