Hardin and Sallie McGee House

Hardin and Sallie McGee House
1906

Andrew Bowman was born in 1772 in Ireland and came to America as a child with his parents. He was one of the first doctors in Stokes County, but where he received his medical training or when he moved to North Carolina is not known.^[1]

Beginning in 1798, Dr. Bowman purchased several lots in Germanton, and in 1799, he married Nancy Bynum, the daughter of Grey and Margaret Bynum, a wealthy couple involved in the establishment of Germanton.^[2]

On one of his lots, Dr. Bowman constructed his own house, which he sited on the courthouse square with almost no setback from the street. The substantial dwelling had flush gable ends and a boxed cornice, typical features of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century architecture.

ca. 1898 photo of the courthouse (L.M. McKinzie Co. at that time) with a corner of the Bowman House visible behind the courthouse building 

1812 newspaper ad for the Bowman House

In 1812, Dr. Bowman advertised his house, noting that the location would make an excellent store or tavern and that “Cash or Negroes will be expected in payment.”^[3]

1854 newspaper ad for the property

Dr. Bowman does not appear to have sold his house, however, and he and Nancy continued living in Germanton until their deaths in the 1840s. Dr. Bowman’s estate papers record the sale of three and three-quarters of an acre of land “including the house and lot in Germanton” to John L. Bitting.^[4] By 1854, the house was up for sale as part of John L. Bitting’s estate. As Dr. Bowman himself had depicted it in 1812, the 1854 advertisement described the house as “well constructed for a tavern or store.”^[5] 

1906 news article mentioning the McGee House

Although advertised in 1854, the house wasn’t sold until 1857 when John L. Bitting’s nephew, John W. Bitting, purchased it.^[6] In 1878, local merchant, I. L. Blackburn bought the house, but Blackburn used the property as collateral on a loan in 1885, and by February 1905, the land and house were in the estate of Blackburn’s creditor, William Wall, from whom Hardin McGee purchased it at auction.^[7]

Hardin and his wife, Sarah, McGee tore down the Bowman House and started building this house in early 1906.^[8]

Hardin McGee was born in Surry County and as a young man, he worked as a “drummer,” traveling the area selling butter churns from his wagon and trading livestock. During a foray into Stokes County, he stopped at the home of Francis Petree, on Friendship Road, north of Germanton. One Petree daughter, fifteen-year-old Sallie, caught Hardin’s eye, and a few months later, twenty-two-year-old Hardin wrote to Mr. Petree, asking for and receiving permission to marry Sallie.^[9]

After a short stay in Surry County, the young couple moved closer to Germanton, and in 1896, the family, which now included a daughter, moved to Germanton where Hardin started a mercantile business in the former Gibson Storehouse on the northeast corner of the courthouse square. Eventually, Hardin acquired the building and business in the former courthouse, which stood in the middle of the road, and in 1905, he bought the Andrew Bowman house. That house stood right across the corner from the courthouse building, and the McGees tore it down to construct the existing home.^[10]

 

1948 view of H. H. McGee and Co., via Forsyth County Public Library's Digital Forsyth website; the McGee House would be just beyond the photo's left edge

Hardin and Sallie raised three children here while operating the store, and in 1920, Hardin was elected to the North Carolina General Assembly.^[11]

Hardin died in 1950 followed by Sallie in 1959. In 1961, the family sold the house, and after changing hands a few times in the 1970s, Doug and Sheila Arrington purchased it in 1981.^[12]

The McGee House is basically a T-plan house with a gable-front wing and a side-gable wing, An extensive porch extends across the facade and wraps around both ends of the house. The porch features rounded corners and Doric columns. A second-story, gable-front porch projects out over the porch roof above the front door. An early street scene photograph appears to show this as an open porch that was probably enclosed in the 1920s. The house retains original two-over-two sash windows and decorative eave brackets, but the second-story porch windows have been replaced and vinyl siding covers the exterior.

Sarah Woodard David, 2017

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^[1] Andrew Bowman grave marker in the Germanton Methodist Church cemetery.

^[2] John R. Woodard, Jr., The Heritage of Stokes County (Winston-Salem, NC: Hunter Publishing Company, 1981), “Gray Bynum,” by Bill McGee, 207-208, and Lewis Blum to Andrew Bowman, October 28, 1798, Stokes County Deed Book 3, page 281. An additional note: Lewis Blum was married to Sarah or Sally Bynum, sister of Nancy Bynum Bowman.

^[3] The North Carolina Star (Raleigh), May 29, 1812, page 1.

^[4] Andrew Bowman estate papers, N.C. State Archives, Raleigh, N.C.

^[5] The Greensboro Patriot, April 1, 1854, page 4.

^[6] Estate of John L. Bitting to John W. Bitting, March 10, 1857, Stokes County Deed Book 18, page 641.

^[7] Estate of J. W. Bitting to J. I.. Blackburn, November 21, 1878, Stokes County Deed Book 24, page 196; J. I. Blackburn deed of trust, Stokes County Deed Book 27, page 495; and Estate of William Wall to Hardin McGee, February 25, 1905, Stokes County Deed Book 47, page 555.

^[8] The Danbury Reporter, February 8, 1906, page 1.

^[9] John R. Woodard, Jr., The Heritage of Stokes County (Winston-Salem, NC: Hunter Publishing Company, 1981), “Hardin McGee” by Bill McGee, 345.

^[10] Heritage of Stokes County, McGee, 345. This article notes that the house was built in 1903, but deed records clearly indicate that the McGees did not buy the property until 1905.

^[11] Heritage of Stokes County, McGee, 345.

^[12] Robert Earl and Trula Simmons to Doug and Sheila Arrington, Noevember 16, 1981, Stokes County Deed Book 271, page 863.