Final Report: Comprehensive Architectural Survey of Bertie County, April 30, 2010

Southeast Preservation; Blokker, Laura

From introduction: "The following pages present an architectural history of Bertie County, North Carolina from the 1650s through the 1960s. This architectural history, spanning over three hundred years, is told primarily through examples of extant buildings, augmented by documented descriptions of buildings that no longer stand, along with general county history provided as a context for its building pattern. The work represents the culmination of a comprehensive architectural survey of Bertie County commissioned and administered by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (HPO) with funding from the federal Preserve America program and the state Golden Leaf Foundation. The project was supported at the local level by a core committee led by Clara Bell. The survey, conducted between August 2008 and March 2010, covered all rural and municipal areas of the county outside of the preexisting National Register historic districts of Windsor and Woodville with a purpose of identifying and recording all properties of historic or architectural merit in order to increase the knowledge, awareness and understanding of the county‟s built heritage and to facilitate preservation efforts. The methodology for the survey of Bertie County followed the project outline set forth by the HPO and the HPO‟s architectural survey manual Practical Advice for Recording Historic Resources. It was further defined by the physical and historical nature of the county as discovered through the windshield survey and preliminary research of the survey‟s planning phase. Sites of approximately fifty or greater years of age were selected for survey based on their architectural integrity and distinction, or their social or historical significance. The comprehensive architectural survey of Bertie County primarily entailed the documentation of rural resources; however, several towns were surveyed as well. In addition to domestic buildings, commercial and agricultural buildings, churches, schools, and Masonic lodges, and other building types were documented. Cemeteries were only documented if they were related to a standing house or church or had outstanding artistic merit. Approximately 375 rural sites and 450 municipal sites were recorded during the course of the survey. Standard documentation included digital photography, mapping, oral history, floor plans, site plans, data entry, and written narratives. Municipal properties were recorded in a more limited manner with exterior documentation and minimal history. Bertie County‟s online tax records were used to gather some of the data for each property, particularly the GIS PIN number which was entered into the HPO database. Deed research was executed for select properties. General historical research was performed before, during, and after the survey to establish a context for the architectural history and is reflected in this report. All buildings which were not individually recorded, but appeared to be fifty years of age or older were map-coded according to building type on USGS quad maps which constitute part of the final product of this project." Funding was provided in part by a 2008 Historic Preservation Fund grant administered by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (project number NC-08-017, grant number 37-08-21738) and the State, Tribal, and Local Plans and Grants Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Final Report: Comprehensive Architectural Survey of Bertie County, April 30, 2010

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