Samuel and Laura Bitting House

Samuel and Laura Bitting House, ca. 1850

Samuel and Laura Bitting, most likely hired John Dietrich Tavis (more information about Tavis is available by clicking here) to build this house sometime between their marriage in 1845 and Samuel's death in 1856. Samuel was a merchant in Germanton, and the son of John L. and Gertrude Bitting. According to the 1850 census, Laura was born in Georgia.[1]  

Samuel Bitting's estate papers indicate he owned three parcels of land at the time of his death: one on the northwest side of Main Street, this lot on the southeast side of Main Street (where his family was living, indicating that there was a house here at that time), and a larger tract on Town Fork Creek.

After Samuel's death, his widow, Laura, married A.C. Myers and they continued to live in this house, but Samuel's purchase of this lot from R.D. Golding had not been recorded with the Register of Deeds. Thus, in the 1870s, Laura Bitting Myers and A.C. Myers and Laura's children from her marriage to Samuel were involved in a lawsuit to prove they owned this lot, which included this house.[2]

rear elevation showing 1920s addition

After Laura and her children established ownership of the lot and house, her children (Susan Bitting McNeeley and Joseph Bitting) sold the house to Sam and Adalia Hill.[3]

Sam and Adalia Hill lived here for a number of years followed by McGees and McKenzies.[4]

In 1946, T.S. And Laura Terry purchased the lot and in 1954, they sold it to Ray and Louise Browder, and Louise Browder continues to own it today.[5]

basement door: two-panel design, typical of Greek
Revival architecture

The Bitting House is a one-story dwelling with a hip roof. Brick, single-shoulder chimneys stand on each side elevation, although the southern chimney has been truncated at the eave. The exterior is covered with vinyl siding, but it was originally sheathed in weatherboards with flush boards flanking the entrance under the shelter of the original single-bay porch. In the 1920s, wings were added to either side of this portico to create a full-width porch. Also in the 1920s, an addition was made to the back. Original windows feature six-over-six sash with those on the front flanked by sidelights. Sidelights and a transom surround the central front entrance. Both the window and door sidelights feature off-center vertical muntins (the narrow piece of wood that divides a window’s panes), and this off-center or asymmetrical sidelight composition is a signature of John Detrick Tavis’ work.

Inside, the house has an unusual floor plan: a center hallway flanked by one large room to the left (northeast) and two smaller rooms to the right (southwest). Each small room has a corner fireplace. The house retains original Greek Revival woodwork that includes tall baseboards, post-and-lintel mantels, and two-panel doors. The basement contains a finished room that may have been used for dining and another room that served as a kitchen. At some point during the twentieth century, the basement also housed a pool room. Originally, a staircase connected the front hall to the basement, but that access has been covered over.

Tavis' asymmetrical sidelights

Sarah Woodard David, 2015

---

[1] Marriage records, accessed via ancestry.com, and Samuel Lewis Bitting’s gravemarker at the Riddle-Golding-Bitting Family Cemetery in Germanton.

[2] Stokes County Superior Court Minutes, 1876-1887, volume 6, page 237, Docket #74, July 18, 1882, available at the North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.

[3] James Rierson to Susan McNeeley and Joseph Bitting, July 10, 1906, Stokes County Deed Book 49, page 597; A.M. Bitting (Joseph Bitting’s widow) to Susan McNeeley, half interest in the property, June 4, 1906, Stokes county Deed Book 49, page 525; and R.F. and Susan McNeeley to Adalia Hill, Feburary 3, 1909, Stokes County Deed Book 54, page 14.

[4] Sam and A. S. Hill to E. L. Kiser and Company (to secure a debt), April 23, 1914, Stokes County Deed Book 60, page 9; N.O. Petree, Commissioner, to Curtis McGee, at auction, April 15, 1921, Stokes County Deed Book 69, page 208; and Curtis and Mattie McGee to Carrie McKenzie, April 22, 1926, Stokes County Deed Book 75, page 70.

[5] L.M. McKenzie, Commissioner, to T.S. Terry (as part of Carrie McKenzie’s estate settlement), April 20, 1946, Stokes County Deed Book 104, page 396; and T. S. and Laura Terry to Ray and Louise Browder, August 31, 1954, Stokes County Deed Book 122, page 547.