National Historic Landmark

Helper, Hinton Rowan, House

Mocksville, Davie County, North Carolina
Listed
November 7, 1973
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
73001336

About this property

The Hinton Rowan Helper House is a historic house on United States Route 64 outside Mocksville, Davie County, North Carolina. Built on land that once belonged to Daniel Boone, it was the childhood and early adult home of Hinton Rowan Helper (1829-1909) whose The Impending Crisis of the South (published 1857) was an influential antislavery work that inflamed tensions in 1860. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1973. The Hinton Rowan Helper House is located west of Mocksville, set back from the north side of United States Route 64, a short way east of Bear Creek, on a 1.5-acre (0.61 ha) parcel of land that was once part of the Boone Tract, granted to Squire Boone and later owned by Daniel Boone. The location is marked by a state historic marker. It is a 1+1⁄2-story structure, with a central log structure at the core, and later frame additions to the side and rear. Its exterior is finished in clapboard siding. The gabled roof extends over the front porch, which is supported by posts, and there is a historic shed roof extension to the rear, with a modern kitchen ell added. The front parlor of the house shows exposed log construction, and some doorway thresholds are original split logs. It was here that author Hinton Rowan Helper (1829-1909) spent the first twenty years of his life, living in an area where he experienced directly the impact of slavery, not just on the slaves, but also on the white lower classes. In 1857 he published The Impending Crisis of the South, a reasoned polemic arguing that slavery was economically bad for most Southern whites, because it concentrated power and money in the slaveowning plantation elites and suppressed wages and drives to industrialize the region. The work was met with fury in the South, where it was banned, and was used by the Republican Party as campaign material in the 1860 United States election. List of National Historic Landmarks in North Carolina National Register of Historic Places listings in Davie County, North Carolina

Location

Mocksville, Davie County, North Carolina
35.90708, -80.60451

Categories

POLITICS/GOVERNMENT
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Center Arbor
Industrial
1 mi
Salisbury Street Historic District
Listed
2.5 mi
Downtown Mocksville Historic District
Listed
2.5 mi
Davie County Courthouse
Industrial
2.6 mi
Davie County Jail
Early Republic
2.6 mi

Nearby Battles

Stoneman's Raid — Mocksville Bridge Fight NC
1865Civil War
2.5 mi
Stoneman's Raid — Mocksville NC
1865Civil War
2.5 mi

Questions about this property

When was Helper, Hinton Rowan, House listed on the National Register?

Helper, Hinton Rowan, House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 7, 1973.

What type of historic resource is Helper, Hinton Rowan, House?

Helper, Hinton Rowan, House is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

Is Helper, Hinton Rowan, House a National Historic Landmark?

Yes. Helper, Hinton Rowan, House has been designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL), the highest level of federal recognition for historic properties in the United States.

What is the period of significance for Helper, Hinton Rowan, House?

The period of significance for Helper, Hinton Rowan, House is recorded as the industrial era.

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