{"nrhp_refnum":"86001656","name":"Upper Town Creek Rural Historic District","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by NC 1003, NC 1411, NC 1414, and Town Creek","address_restricted":false,"city":"Wilson","county":"Wilson County","state":"NC","lat":35.79843904350005,"lon":-77.75645213004518,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-08-29","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A rural historic district of four contiguous farms on about 1,755.7 acres at the eastern edge of Wilson County, North Carolina, each centered on a nineteenth-century plantation house with tenant houses, tobacco barns and other farm buildings. The houses include the William Davis Petway House (c. 1820), the Colonel David Williams House (1845-1860), Hawthorne (c. 1855) and the Jesse Norris House (mid-nineteenth century).","why_significant":"The district is significant for its concentration of intact farmsteads that preserve both the antebellum plantation culture and the post-Civil War tenant farming system. The houses represent Federal, Greek Revival and Gothic Revival styles, and the nomination says the Norris House is the best surviving example of a dwelling outside Wilson city limits in the Gothic Revival style. The owners were prominent in local politics and civic affairs, including Colonel David Williams, who helped lead the formation of Wilson County in 1855.","narrative":"Four contiguous farms on about 1,755 acres at the eastern edge of Wilson County contain plantation houses and farm complexes built from about 1820 through the 1860s. The William Davis Petway House, a two-and-a-half-story Federal-style I-house, dates to around 1820, and the Colonel David Williams House, a square two-story Greek Revival house, was built between 1845 and 1860. Hawthorne, a double-pile frame house of about 1855, follows a plan not found elsewhere in the county. The Jesse Norris House is a board-and-batten Gothic Revival dwelling. Tobacco barns, packhouses and tenant houses from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries survive beside them. The district is considered important because it preserves both the antebellum plantation system and the tenant farming that followed the Civil War, with an unusually full set of early residential and farm buildings in one place.","period_of_significance":"ca.1820-1920s","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival","criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"Hawthorne is stated to be vacant; the Williams House has been occupied by tenants.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:41.123207-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/51/7187/47718751/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/86001656.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47718751","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Town_Creek_Rural_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22061112"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/wilson-county/upper-town-creek-rural-historic-district-86001656/"}