{"nrhp_refnum":"70000457","name":"Rea, William, Store","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"E. Williams St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Murfreesboro","county":"Hertford County","state":"NC","lat":36.44403628200007,"lon":-77.09802751399997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1970-09-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story brick commercial building with a one-story brick wing, on East Williams Street in Murfreesboro, Hertford County, North Carolina, built about 1790 by merchant William Rea.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it one of the oldest commercial buildings in North Carolina. Rea and his brothers outfitted trading ships at Murfreesboro in the early 1800s, making the town an important export center for the Roanoke Valley. The office wing later served as the law office of Thomas Maney, who became a prominent Tennessee judge.","narrative":"Built about 1790 at the corner of Fourth and Williams streets in Murfreesboro, the William Rea Store is a two-story brick building measuring roughly 40 by 28 feet, laid in Flemish bond. Its utilitarian design includes large ground-floor windows that may have helped display goods, smaller upper windows for a storage floor, and a second-floor door with a hoist bar for moving bulky items. A one-story brick wing, added about 1803, probably served as an office and housed the law office of Thomas Maney, later a prominent Tennessee judge. William Rea, a Boston merchant, traded extensively between Murfreesboro and New England, and he and four brothers outfitted trading ships there in the early nineteenth century, helping make the town an export center for the Roanoke Valley. Rea sold the store in 1831, and in the early 1900s it served as a machine shop servicing mechanical peanut harvesters. It was donated to the Murfreesboro Historical Association in 1967 and is used as a museum.","period_of_significance":"18th and 19th Century; specific date c.1790","architect_builder":"William Rea (builder/owner)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition is listed as good and altered, on its original site; present use is museum. It is owned by the Murfreesboro Historical Association, which received it by donation in 1967.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:56.731229-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/85/7208/47720885/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/70000457.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000457/5ca5525a27-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000457/5ca5525a27-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Waterman, Thomas T., creator","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historic_American_Buildings_Survey,_Thomas_T._Waterman,_Photographer_July,_1940._-_White_and_Britton_Store,_Williams_and_Fifth_Streets,_Murfreesboro,_Hertford_County,_NC_HABS_NC,46-MURF,10-1.tif\" rel=\"noopener\">Waterman, Thomas T., creator</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historic_American_Buildings_Survey,_Thomas_T._Waterman,_Photographer_July,_1940._-_White_and_Britton_Store,_Williams_and_Fifth_Streets,_Murfreesboro,_Hertford_County,_NC_HABS_NC,46-MURF,10-1.tif"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47720885","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rea_Store","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18739444"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/hertford-county/rea-william-store-70000457/"}