Morehead Hill History

Morehead Hill Neighborhood History
Morehead Hill - Durham, NC

Making history since 1879

Morehead Hill was one of the first residential areas of Durham to be developed in the 1880s when tobacco and textile industry magnates began to build homes away from the business core near the railroad. The neighborhood is named for Eugene Morehead, Durham's first banker, who came to Durham in 1878 as an agent of the Department of Internal Revenue. Morehead was the son of former governor John Motley Morehead and was encouraged to come here by his UNC classmate, Julian Shakespeare Carr. At about the same time, George W. Watts came to Durham when his father, Gerard Watts of Baltimore, gave him a fifth ownership in W. Duke Sons and Company.

In the summer of 1879, Watts and Morehead decided to establish their permanent residences on a promontory just south of downtown - separated from the ridge of West Chapel Hill Street by a small 'valley' between the current Morehead Avenue and Jackson Street. William Gaston Vickers owned the majority of the land abutting downtown to the southwest, and saw the opportunity to develop some of this land into what some researchers view as Durham's 'first suburb'. There is evidence that he intended from the start for the land between present-day Vickers and Duke to be large lot houses for Durham entrepreneurs. Watts and Morehead were his first two customers. The legend is that Watts and Morehead flipped a coin to decide whose house would be closer to town, and that Morehead won. Both built strikingly similar Queen Anne Victorian houses side-by-side between Morehead Avenue and Proctor Street on Lea Street (now S. Duke Street), completed in 1880. Morehead became ill in 1888 and although he sought medical care up and down the east coast, he died in 1889 but not without leaving a big imprint on the young city of Durham. In addition to his mark in banking, he worked to increase area railroad lines, formed Durham Electric Light Company, partnered to form a fertilizer company, and supported education. The first graded school in Durham, Morehead School, was named for him.

During the 1890s other equally stylish homes were built on Morehead Avenue between Vickers Avenue and Lea Street. Sadly, most of these houses are no longer standing and few pictures can be found. The Stagg house (aka Greystone) is the only remaining house on the north side of Morehead Avenue. To the east of the Stagg house were grand Victorian homes owned by John Wily, Gilbert C. White, Alphonsus Cobb, and Wallace Seeman, respectively. On the west side of Morehead from west to east were the Beall house, the Johnson house (still standing), and the Muirhead house. Both the Morehead and Watts homes (actually Watts' second home, Harwood Hall, and Morehead's second home, both on the original site) were demolished in 1961 to make room for the Hospital Care Building, which became Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. The building is now the site of Duke University's Physician Assistant Program.

The remaining land between Chapel Hill Street and University Drive, owned by Gaston Vickers, was largely undeveloped. The Vickers home was located in the block bounded by Cobb Street, Vickers Avenue, Hill Street., and Lakewood Avenue. He taught school in Durham for more than 30 years and was the first superintendent for the Durham County school system. Unlike other land developers, such as Brodie Duke and Richard H. Wright, Vickers was not content with merely subdividing his land into building lots. Between 1900 and 1910, he built approximately one hundred rental houses in the northern and western area of Morehead Hill. Most of these houses on Yancey, Parker, Proctor, Wells, Shepherd and Arnette Streets were one-story but they were not the identical small and simple dwellings built by the block for factory workers. These moderately sized structures were often characterized by ornate sawnwork embellishing the posts of wrap-around porches and three-sided window bays, as represented by the house at 907 Jackson Street.
Vickers reserved a sizable portion of his highest land, mainly along Vickers Avenue for large building lots. He gave the entire block bounded by Vickers, Morehead, Shepherd, and Parker to a daughter who was married to a developer. Her own two-story Victorian house on the northwest corner of Vickers and Morehead was moved to Parker Street to free up a large lot sold to James S. Cobb for the construction of his large Georgian home, the Cobb-Toms home. Vickers sold both sides of the 900 block of Proctor to members of the Shepherd family who were related to the Vickers.

Most of the building lots, however, were sold to people unrelated to Vickers. Vickers recognized a growing real estate market that was attracted to the area by the grandiosity of the Morehead and Watts homes, just a block away on Morehead Avenue. In 1910, the John Sprunt Hill house was constructed on the former site of the L. A. Carr house. The land for the Hill House was given to his daughter and son-in-law by George W. Watts. The salvage from Carr's home was used to construct three houses on what is now S. Mangum Street. At the same time L. A. Carr's daughter began construction of a Colonial Revival style house across the street at 911 S. Duke Street. Within the next 20 years, two other period revival style houses were built to the north.

By the early 1910s, Morehead Hill was clearly the neighborhood in Durham, its prestige enhanced with the construction of the Howard Foushee and the Victor Bryant houses each occupying an entire city block. In the 1910s, the Colonial Revival style dominated the streetscape of Morehead Hill. In the late 1910s, R. L. Baldwin built a Colonial Revival style house with a tile roof and in 1921 T. Yancey Milburn built another Colonial Revival next door. Frame construction also remained popular, as seen in the 800 block of Vickers. Other period revival homes appeared, such as the handsomely appointed Budd house on S. Duke Street. Bungalows with fine craftsmanship from builders' guides and magazines were dispersed throughout Morehead Hill, creating a neighborhood diverse in architectural styles.

Morehead Hill remained a fashionable neighborhood into the 1940s, in spite of competition from newly developed suburban areas, such as Forest Hills and Hope Valley. The ornate embellishments of Victorian style became dated and the neighborhood became less desirable. As original residents moved, some homes became rental units and with time, the grand old houses of yesteryear deteriorated and were eventually torn down. The construction of the Durham Freeway cut the neighborhood in half and turned Vickers and S. Duke, two-way streets, into thoroughfares, which do not engender neighborly behavior. Many Morehead Hill homes in good condition were demolished to create the Freeway. The decline in the neighborhood peaked in the mid- to late-1990s. Since then an influx of young couples and families seeking affordable housing has given the neighborhood a palpable boost. The revitalization of downtown has improved property values and Morehead Hill's close proximity to entertainment and good food is certainly a drawing card. Many residents believe that Morehead Hill is Durham's best kept secret.

- Liz McGuffey, 2009

Lost Houses of Morehead Hill

Most neighborhoods experience periods of prosperity as well as hard times, but throughout its history Morehead Hill has experienced more than its share of loss. It is an important piece of Durham's storied past when the town grew from a railroad stop to a boomtown, thanks to growth of the tobacco and textile industries, in less than 40 years. At a time when the rest of the South was suffering through Reconstruction after the Civil War, Durham was thriving. Its good fortune was manifested by grand mansions built by its most successful entrepreneurs and Morehead Hill became a showcase of wealth and success.

Morehead Hill also tells a story of loss. As residents fled to the suburbs after the Great Depression and World War II, the popularity of inner city neighborhoods declined nationwide and Morehead Hill was no exception. Many Morehead Hill homes were lost in the name of "progress." With construction of the Durham Freeway in 1967, hundreds of Durham homes representing all socio-economic classes were demolished. The Freeway divided Morehead Hill in half, turning major two-way streets into thoroughfares and changing the feel of the neighborhood. This article focuses on architectural gems of Durham's early years that have been lost.

In 1879 Eugene Morehead, namesake of Morehead Hill, and George Washington Watts, both successful businessmen built almost identical, elaborately embellished Queen Anne style houses side by side on Lea (later S. Duke) Street between Morehead and Proctor. Although Morehead died in 1889, his widow and son lived in the house shown below for many years.
Some time in the early 20th Century, the original Morehead house was torn down and replaced with the Colonial Revival house shown below, with the circular drive retained.

Lathrop (son of Eugene) Morehead House, early 20th Century

Eugene Morehead House in 1895

George Washington Watts came to Durham from Baltimore after the Civil War, looking for opportunity. He found it in the golden leaves of tobacco and as 20% owner of the newly formed W. Duke Sons and Company, he prospered with the Duke family. Watts lived with his family, the former Laura Valinda Bealle, also of Baltimore, and their only child Annie Louise, in the Queen Anne style house shown here until the mid 1890s.

Original Home of George Watts, 1890

Watts continued to build his fortune, investing in the Durham Electric Lighting Co., Durham Fertilizer Co., Erwin Mills, and the Interstate Telephone and Telegraph Co. He paid Durham back with his philanthropy. He founded Watts Hospital on Main Street and was a supporter of the Durham Literary Society and the Durham Lyceum. As his prosperity grew, he decided to upgrade his residence to reflect his growing status.


In the early 1890s, George Watts moved his original house across the street, to the northeast corner of Proctor and S. Duke, in order to make way for his larger mansion, Harwood Hall. The house was renovated and occupied by his daughter Annie and her husband John Sprunt Hill when they returned to Durham from New York in 1903.


The use of the old George Watts house from 1911 to 1937 is unknown, but it evidently stayed in the family. In 1937 the house became the site of the Calvert School, which was previously housed in the Forest Hills clubhouse. The school also used the house at 803 S. Duke Street, on the southeast corner of Morehead and S. Duke, originally owned by Washington Duke's grandson George Lyon and later owned by Lyon's brother J.B. In 1967, when the school moved to Academy Road, expanded to a high school, and changed its name to Durham Academy, these houses were abandoned. They deteriorated beyond use and were demolished in the mid-1970s to construct a public housing project, JJ Henderson towers.

In the late 1890s construction of Harwood Hall, perhaps Durham's finest home, was completed. Its European chateau style was unique, with a large cubic mass capped with a steeply pitched roof that made it seem even taller than its three and a half stories. The ground floor was faced with roughly dressed pink Mt Airy granite. The upper stories were made of finely finished stone decorated with elaborate carving, porches, balconies, and dormers. The east façade which faced Lea Street featured a round turret on the north side and a massive gable over the front entrance.


The interior of the house was no less elaborate. Watts brought in craftsmen from Italy to create fine woodwork and carved wooden mantles over marble fireplaces. There was a pipe organ and a grand piano in the music room and colorful Persian tiles in the fanciful octagon-shaped Turkish smoking room. The grand staircase rose three stories under a stained glass skylight. The house had state-of-the-art electrical wiring and drew its power from the W. Duke & Sons factory. (The only problem with this convenient arrangement was that when the factory went on standby every night at 6:00, the electric lights in the house dimmed.) Photographs of the lavish interior can be seen at the Open Durham blog.


Harwood Hall, early 1900s

The social highlight of Harwood Hall's history was the 1899 wedding of daughter Annie Watts and John Sprunt Hill. The wedding was big news in Durham and The Durham Sun reported every detail of the plans. Wedding gifts were displayed in the billiard room. The caterer came down by train from Washington DC with food and staff to serve dinner at Harwood Hall for 250 people following the 8:00pm wedding ceremony at the First Presbyterian Church. The Hills built their own home in 1910 just one block south of Harwood Hall. The Spanish Colonial style Hill House remains a landmark in Morehead Hill a century later.

By 1903, G. W. Watts was one of five millionaires living in Durham. The others were his business partners Washington, Buck, and Ben Duke, and Julian Carr. Mrs. Watts, who had long been in poor health, died in 1915 and Watts married Sarah Ecker, who had been the family nurse. When Watts died in 1921, his estate was valued at $15M (over $200M today). He left Harwood Hall to his daughter Annie Watts Hill with the stipulation that his widow could remain in the house. Mrs. Watts stayed only until 1925, when she married Cameron Morrison and moved to Charlotte.


Annie Hill's son George Watts Hill moved into Harwood Hall with his bride Ann McCulloch soon after. Ann was the daughter of a minister and had grown up in more middle class surroundings than her husband. She called Harwood Hall "a fifty room monstrosity- the satisfied desire of dead ancestors." Watts Hill followed his father into the banking business and was one of the first entrepreneurs in the new business of health insurance.


The Hills had three children while they lived at Harwood Hall: George Watts, Jr., Ann Dudley, and John Sprunt II. Cautious after the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in 1932, Watts Hill had bars installed on the children's bedroom windows. The life style demanded by Harwood Hall was never a pleasure to Mrs. Hill, and in 1938 the family moved permanently to Quail Roost, their country estate in northern Durham County. Harwood Hall was for a short period a nurses' residence for Watts Hospital, but its location was inconveniently far from the hospital on Club Boulevard. The nurses moved out and the house remained empty.


After World War II, Watts Hill tried several plans to save the family estate. Inspired by a 1949 visit to St. Simon's Island, Georgia, he considered turning Harwood Hall into a small exclusive hotel. He proposed adding a wing for more guest rooms at the back of the house, but was unable to interest hotel developers in what must have seemed an incredibly old-fashioned property.


In 1954, Hill turned the property over to Allied Arts of Durham (now the Durham Arts Council.) But the component organizations, including the Art Guild, the Civic Choral Society, the Theatre Guild, the Duke University Arts Council, the Chamber Arts Society, and the Durham Chapter of the NC Symphony Society were able to use the elegant building for only a few years.


In 1961, the Hospital Care Association bought Harwood Hall from Watts Hill as well as the Morehead House next door. The old mansions were demolished and a modern office building in the Colonial Revival style was built on the site. Hill's early hopes for the health insurance industry had come to full fruition as the modern business enterprise known today as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina replaced the elegant home built by his grandfather in an earlier generation of Durham entrepreneurs. The building is now the home of Duke University's Physicians Assistant Program.


Between 1900 and 1915, houses lined both the north and south sides of Morehead Avenue. On the north side between Vickers and S. Duke, four grand houses were built east of Greystone by successful business men. All of these houses have been lost. (The block numbering scheme was changed by the city sometime between 1915 and 1923. House numbers generally remained the same. The block number used in this article is the 800 series, but some sources may refer to the 500 series. Interestingly, census and city directory data show Greystone in another block, but no street break is apparent today. Fairview alley may have run between Greystone and the Wily house, accounting for the numbering discrepancy.)

Directly east of Greystone, at 818 Morehead, was the Wily house, built by John Fleming Wily, a Virginian who came to Durham to work as a cashier at Fidelity Bank. According to the Hill's Directory, he arrived in Durham around 1905-06 and by 1907-08 was residing at his Morehead Avenue home. By 1915-16, he was vice-president of Fidelity and by 1924 he was also vice president of Pearl Cotton Mills and secretary of Sneed-Markham-Taylor Co, "clothiers, gents' furnishers & hat" according to their ad. By 1925 Wily was president of Fidelity. J. F. Wily remained in the house until 1939 when he moved to Dover Road in Hope Valley. Eugene Wily resided at 818 Morehead from 1939 to the 1960s. The house shown here is thought to be the Wily residence.

Tomlinson House, c. 1895

Thought to be the Wily house, c. 1920










Gilbert C. White came to Durham in the early 1900s as a consultant to solve Durham's sewerage problem and ended up designing a new water system. By 1907-08 he was residing at 812 Morehead in the house of his mother-in-law, Mrs. S. F. Tomlinson. He worked as a city engineer and continued to consult as a civil engineer forming the G. C. White Company around 1923. He was also vice-president of the Southern Fire Insurance Company and was a partner in CE Boesch, GC White, CC Fulton. The Whites continued to live here until their son Finley and his family moved to Hope Valley in 1950. G.C. White's grandson, G. C. White II remembers the tennis court, the back yard that sloped down to the barn, and going to Calvert School on S. Duke Street. The house shown here is believed to be the White residence.

The Alphonsus Cobb House was located at 806 Morehead Avenue. He came to Durham from Hickory, NC and resided at the Carrolina Hotel where his brother Howell was proprietor. Alphonsus Cobb became manager at the hotel in 1902 and by 1905 he was proprietor. In 1911-12 he worked at the Corcoran Hotel. By 1915 he resided at 714 (now 814) Vickers Avenue and was secretary-treasurer of Durham Realty & Insurance Company and Durham Loan & Trust. As vice-president of Durham Realty & Insurance and West End Land Company in 1919 he moved to his new home at 806 Morehead. In 1925 he served as secretary-treasurer of the Durham Real Estate Board. He died tragically in 1935, but his widow Nellie remained in the Morehead Avenue home until at least 1955. There is no known photograph of this house.


The last house in this block at 802 Morehead was occupied by Judge Howard Foushee, his family, and a nurse in 1910. Unlike the other houses nearby, this was a single story house, referred to as a "cottage," which sat on a slight elevation about four feet above the sidewalk. In 1923 Wallace E. Seeman, son of Henry T. Seeman, bought the property. The Seeman family ran the Seeman Printery for many years in Durham and Seeman Street in Old North Durham is presumably named for the family. Seeman lived here until 1926 when E. S. Yarbrough, president-treasurer of Halloway, Calvin, Yarbrough, & Darnell Mills Inc. moved here. In 1935, Dr. Arthur J. London and wife Janet B. bought the property. In 1955 Southgate Jones, Jr. lived here. This site is now occupied by the dental office of Dr. James R. Lewis.


George H. Beall appeared in the Turner City Directory of 1889 as a resident of Oxford and an employee of J.W. Swift and Company. He disappeared from Durham City Directories until 1902 when he was listed as a coal dealer residing at 411 Lea Street (later renamed S. Duke Street). He remained at the same residence until 1907-08 when Hill's Directory of Durham listed his residence as 833 Morehead Avenue and his business address as 604 Morgan Street. Due to a house numbering change, it is believed that he actually lived at the site of 619 Morehead, at the southeast corner of Morehead and Vickers, across the street from Greystone. He lived at this address, raising a family and diversifying into the tobacco business as president, secretary, and treasurer of Durham Tobacco Manufacturer Company, Inc in 1919-20. His tobacco venture is thought to be short-lived because it does not appear in a city directory after 1920. Beall continued to live at 619 Morehead until 1934 when Mrs. Thelma P. Stewart, an operator at the Ellis Stone Beauty Shoppe at 120 W. Main and 123 W. Parrish, took up residence here. In 1935 William P. Whitaker, Jr., manager of Hubbard Brothers and Company ("brokers, stocks, bonds, cotton, and grain"), lived here with his wife. In 1936 Granville P. Patterson, a heating engineer with Nicholson Inc., and Mrs. Grace N. Noell were renters at 619 Morehead. The house was rented to Grace Noell and W. P. Whitaker Jr. in 1937. It continued to be rented until at least 1955 when as a duplex, it was rented to Michael G. Jennings, assistant manager at Reynolds (a stock brokerage firm), and wife Mary E; Robert John, an instructor at North Carolina College, and his wife Jewel lived at 619 ½ Morehead. The house was still standing in late 1968. The only known photograph of this house is taken from a newspaper account of an automobile accident, in which the house appears in the background, shown below.



Looking southeast from Morehead and Vickers, 11.11.68
(Courtesy Herald Sun)

William Muirhead first appeared in Hill's Directory of Durham in 1923 living at 822 Cleveland Street as a North Carolina Representative of Concrete Steele Company. He disappeared from Durham city directories until 1926 when his residence was 609 Morehead and his business was William Muirhead Construction Company. His house was located east of the J. Eric Johnson house (still standing) at 619 Morehead. He remained at 609 Morehead until 1940 when this address was listed as "vacant." In 1955, W. Frank Warren, a salesman for Christian-Harward Furniture, lived there. The house was removed sometime later. There are no known photographs of this house.



R. Lynnwood Baldwin came to Durham around 1911 and lived at 606 Chapel Hill Street. By 1915 Baldwin lived at 804 Vickers Avenue in the home he had built and served as treasurer of R. A. Baldwin & Sons, purveyors of dry goods, at 105 W. Main Street. His father, R. A. Baldwin, remained in Farmville, Virginia. By 1919 he was manager of the R. L. Baldwin Company Department Store and was vice president of the Durham Morris Plan Company. Baldwin assumed responsibility as president of Home Building and Loan Association in 1923 and as secretary-treasurer of Durham Citizens Hotel Corporation in 1924. The home passed to a daughter and remained in the family until the early 1980s. A photograph of the house is shown below as it appeared in the late 1970s. It burned in the early 1980s. In the mid 1990s, the lot was purchased at auction by the owners of 908 Vickers.

Baldwin House, looking Southwest, late 1970s

Morehead Hill, still home to Durham's largest concentration of mansions representing its peak of prosperity from the 1890s to the 1930s, has lost an unconscionable number of fine homes. The reasons for loss are varied. Preservation Durham's13th Annual Home Tour laments the loss of these grand dams of Durham's storied past. But it also laments the loss of other more moderate Morehead Hill homes in the name of progress and urban renewal. As a result, appreciation for surviving houses has been enhanced. The Morehead Hill neighborhood is an equal mix of diverse architectural styles and sizes and in some ways is a microcosm of Durham itself.


- Liz McGuffey, 2009


The author is indebted to Gary Kueber, his incredible investigative thoroughness, his willingness to share, and his ability to make a large amount of information available for everyone.


Share by: