Barker House | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: We believe the subject of history makes people (i.e., American people) smarter, so in our quest to educate others, we will provide excerpts from the North Carolina History Project, an online publication of the John Locke Foundation. This eighty-second installment, was originally posted, by Kellie Slappey, in the North Carolina History Project.

    The Barker-Moore House, also known simply as the Barker House, is currently home to the Edenton Historical Commission and is open to the public for tours.

    The Barker House was built in 1782 in Edenton, North Carolina, for Thomas and Penelope Barker. Penelope Barker presided over the notorious Edenton Tea Party on October 25, 1774.

    The home was originally built two blocks north from where it currently presides at 505 South Broad Street and consisted only of a parlor wing and half hall built in a Federal style. In 1830, Augustus Moore bought the house and added onto the home three times. It now has three floors and eight fireplaces. The second front parlor was built in Georgian and the dinning room and kitchen are done in Greek Revival style.
The Barker House just behind the Boat docks on Edenton Bay: Above. Edenton's bulkhead, dock and promenade with the screw-pile lighthouse and the Barker in the background: Below.     photos by Stan Deatherage    Click the images to enlarge.
    Augustus Moore's family and his descendents lived in the house until 1952, when they sold it to Mr. Haywood Phthisic. Phthisic bought the Barker House with intentions to

    donate it to an organization that could renovate the house.

    The Junior Chamber of Commerce, Business and Professional Woman's Club, and the Edenton Woman's Club all worked together to restore the home for public use. They moved the house two blocks south to the Edenton waterfront, where it sits currently overlooking the Albemarle Sound. The house was used as the Historic Edenton Visitor Center until 1992.

    The Business and Professional Woman's Club deeded the house in 1992, to the Edenton Historical Commission.

    In 2006, the Barker House received the only two remaining cannons that originated from Edenton during the Civil War. Edenton had sent several military units to fight for the Confederate cause during the Civil War, and in 1862, the Edenton Bell Battery melted bells to make cannons. The cannon "Edenton" was built from the bell donated by the 1767 Chowan County Courthouse and the cannon "St. Paul" was named after St. Paul's Episcopal Church that donated it's bell. Both cannons now sit on display outside the Barker House.

    The house is open to the public and tours and admission are free. Many refer to the elegant southern home as the living room of Edenton.

    Sources:

    Edenton and Chowan County, The Barker House, http://www.edenton.com, (last accessed October 12, 2010); Edenton Historical Commission, The Barker House, http://edentonhistoricalcommission.org/ (last accessed October 12, 2010); Edenton Woman's Club, Historic Edenton and Countryside, (Edenton, 1962); William S. Powell, North Carolina Through Four Centuries, (Chapel Hill,1989).