A Brief History of Mecklenburg County

Part II: Ante-bellum Period

By 1800 the county's population was 10,439. Most of these families were small farmers without any slaves. Cotton growing was becoming increasingly important, however, especially after the invention of the cotton gin in 1793. Mecklenburg County led the state in cotton ginning in the early 1800s. The sixty-two stills and twenty-one mills in the county in 1850 demonstrate the continuing importance of corn and grain to the economy. An 1850 North Carolina agricultural analysis shows that Mecklenburg actually had a strong economy. It ranked third in cotton production, fourth in butter production, eleventh in corn production, and twelfth in wheat production. All of these activities increased the wealth of the area and the demand for slave labor. Around 1800, the largest and wealthiest slaveholding planters were T. Hood, John Ford, and James Walkup, owning eight, nine and twelve slaves respectively. In 1850, seventeen planters owned more than thirty slaves, and by 1860 this number had increased to thirty planters. Much of the local agricultural produce was shipped to the port of Charleston via Columbia, South Carolina. This transport was made even easier when the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad was completed in 1852. The railroad, in addition to the discovery of gold in 1799, followed by the establishment of a branch of the United States Mint in 1837, greatly helped Charlotte's economy grow. By 1860, four different railroads had made Charlotte a trading center surrounded by a few prosperous plantations and many small farmers. The city's population had doubled between 1850 and 1860.

While log construction was still being practiced by most farmers, a few of the earlier settlers became successful enough to erect more fitting residences. These ante-bellum (before the Civil War) farmhouses were constructed using the heavy timber frame method and covered in plain weatherboards. They were generally in the I-house form of two stories with one room on each side of a central hall and a one story rear section. Front porches and any decoration would be in the restrained Federal manner through the 1840s, or in the Greek Revival style during the 1840s and 1850s.

Hezekiah Alexander House

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Cedar Grove

There are a few examples of more elaborate ante-bellum houses in Mecklenburg County. The Greek Revival style Cedar Grove(1833) and the Federal style W.T. Alexander house (1799) are both fine brick homes along with the stone Hezekiah Alexander house (1774). Most plantations were rather modest due to the tradition of each generation splitting the family land. In addition to the "Big House," often a simple I-house form, there would be a detached kitchen, smokehouse, well house, carriage house, plantation office, barns, slave quarters, and occasionally a blacksmith or carpenter shop staffed by trained slaves. Most of these ante-bellum buildings have disappeared. The best remaining example can be found at Latta Place, where some have been reconstructed.