[Update, July 18, 2019: The winning bid was $225,000.]
The property at 239 Arrowhead Road in Davie County has had connections to a few diverse figures in North Carolina history over the last 271 years. It is the subject of an online auction that will end with a live auction Thursday at 6 p.m. at the property. The auction will be live-streamed for online bidders. So far, the bid stands at $170,000. The house can be seen from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The history of the property, as opposed to the house itself, goes back to 1748, the sellers say. It was part of a 565-acre tract on the Yadkin River granted by Lord Granville to Morgan and Martha Bryan. One of their grand-daughters, Rebecca, married neighbor Daniel Boone in 1756 (the couple lived in Davie County for 10 years before lighting out for the frontier).
In 1840 the property was sold to Dr. John Patillo Clingman, who built the medical office. If the Clingman name is familiar, it’s because of his more prominent brother, Thomas. Nicknamed “Prince of Politcians” (for reasons not obvious), Thomas was a pre-Civil War congressman and U.S. senator and a Confederate general. After the war he measured mountains in western North Carolina; Clingman’s Dome is named for him.
Since the Civil War, when the Union Army occupied the place, history has left the house alone. The current owners bought it in 1980. Davie County’s online records don’t go back that far, so the price is unknown.
The house has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Period features remain. The current owners “meticulously refurbished the home, paying close attention to restoring the interior,” the listing says. Exterior work wasn’t quite as meticulous; the house now has aluminum siding. HVAC wasn’t a high priority, either. The first floor has two heat pumps. The second has window air-conditioners and electric baseboard heat; the third has no heating or cooling.
Some significant facts about the house are reported variously by different sources. The listing shows the size as 2,733 square feet. County records say it has 3,091 square feet heated and an additional 972 unheated. The listing shows the lot size as 5 acres; county records show it as 12 acres.
Varying dates of the house’s origin have arisen as well. County property records show the house as built in 1913, although historical information provided by the sellers suggests it’s about 100 years older. “The home was built in the same era as the Vogler house was built in Old Salem,” it says. The Vogler House was built around 1819.
The property has a Mocksville mailing address, but it’s actually well to the north, close to where Davie, Forsyth and Yadkin counties meet. It looks to be about halfway between Winston-Salem and Mocksville; Bermuda Run, Clemmons, Lewisville and West Bend are all nearby.
The property includes a barn, a large shed/hangar, an original 1800’s doctor’s office, a gazebo with a repurposed church steeple for a roof, multiple outbuildings and land for an airplane runway (shared with a neighbor, as is a road through the property).
Piedmont Historic Homes 