Located just off U.S. Highway 158 at Jarvisburg, back of Garrenton's Store.

Addendum by Roy E. Sawyer, Jr.--      This house was inherited by my mother, and she donated it (as per her mother's wishes) to the Lower Currituck Fire Dept. to be used as a demonstration/training for volunteer firemen to practice putting out fires.  It was burned to the ground in 1964 after several training sessions.  The house had become a nuisance and I remember as an early teenager going with my father to "run out" itinerants who were staying there without permission.  I remember the doors were made of wide boards and had cross braces - no planed panels.  The stairs were very steep and curved to the two rooms upstairs.      The house originally stood in what is called the Jim Owens field, two farms to the north, and it had been moved to its last location sometime c1880.  The Jim Owens property is directly west of the Whitehall farm, and it is likely that it might have been a division of the Whitehall farm.  This was part of the peach growing operation in the 1860's by W. A. Stockton, a Philadelphia pomologist, who acquired extensive acreage in this area near the present division between Jarvisburg and Grandy, NC.  The land where it last stood was at one time part of the William A. Jarvis property.  The William A. Jarvis house stood east of this house and it was identical to the Banister Hardy Jarvis house (of which pictures are extant in this collection).  A guess is that it was used perhaps as a family member's dwelling, or might have been the home of an overseer.      In 1897 Joseph Bunch acquired this house and one acre of land from the Sears descendants of William A. Jarvis.  Sometime later the house and adjoining land was acquired by William B. Garrenton, and he left the house and about ten acres of adjoining land to his daughter, Dorcas, who was married to James Parker.  William B. Garrenton died in 1926.  The Parkers lost the property to First & Citizens National Bank in Elizabeth City, and the bank leased the property to Ben Lewis.  My grandfather, John Q. A. Garrenton, son of William B. Garrenton, bought the property from First & Citizens National Bank in 1941, and his descendants own the property today.

 

This photo and information are from the project "Old Homes in Currituck County to 1860" originally compiled June 1960 by Alma O. Roberts and Alice Flora of the Currituck County Historical Society.   We are indebted to Barbara B. Snowden, president of the Currituck County Historical Society for permission to reproduce this collection on the internet, and also to Gerri Andrews and Diane Ferebee of the Currituck County Public Library who provided digital copies of the photos.  No part of this document may be used for any commercial purposes; however, please feel free to copy any of this material for your own personal use and family research.  Images are for personal use only, not for redistribution.