{"nrhp_refnum":"07000215","name":"Machpelah","other_names":["Macpelah","McPelah","Taylor, Robert B., Farm"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"12079 NC 39, approx. 0.5 mi. S of Townsville","address_restricted":false,"city":"Townsville","county":"Vance County","state":"NC","lat":36.484072163000036,"lon":-78.4331182054708,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2007-03-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Machpelah is a 323-acre farm with a farmstead on the west side of N.C. Highway 39 between Little Island Creek and Little Nutbush Creek, near Townsville in northern Vance County, North Carolina. Its main house is a ca. 1880 two-story frame vernacular dwelling built by Edward Osborne Taylor after a fire.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the farm is an intact representation of a prosperous antebellum plantation that adapted to the labor structure of the post-slavery period. The ca. 1850 plantation office and ca. 1880 house are cited as representing Greek Revival and a transitional style, and the outbuildings and five tenant houses are cited as examples of farm building types and tenant farming.","narrative":"Machpelah is a 323-acre farm in northern Vance County, North Carolina, with a farmstead set a quarter mile back from N.C. Highway 39. The farm was established by Virginia planters around 1754 and has been worked continuously since. Its centerpiece is a ca. 1850 Greek Revival plantation office, the oldest surviving building on the property, which stands beside a ca. 1880 two-story frame house. Edward Osborne Taylor, who bought the farm at public auction in 1878, built the house after a fire destroyed an earlier dwelling. The house combines Greek Revival, Queen Anne, and Colonial Revival details, and its kitchen and pantry were appended around 1910. Outbuildings including a barn, corncrib, and salting house date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Five tenant houses stand across the fields. Together these buildings document the shift from antebellum plantation work to tenant farming after emancipation, and the farm's architecture spans several stylistic periods.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1850-1956","architect_builder":"Newkirk, Willie, local carpenter","architectural_style":"Greek Revival, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"The farm has been in continuous operation; the document does not describe a current vacancy.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:42.150073-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/96/7223/47722396/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/07000215.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47722396","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machpelah_(Townsville,_North_Carolina)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19986890"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/vance-county/machpelah-07000215/"}