Anthony, Abraham, Farm

Near Blackburn in southwest Catawba County, this 127-acre farm centers on a two-story brick house built in 1877-78 for Abraham Anthony, a farmer and shoemaker. The house is L-shaped, with a low hipped roof, six-over-six windows and an unusual pair of front doors that open into the two front rooms. A decorative porch with sawnwork arches was added by 1895. Around the house are sixteen outbuildings of brick, log, frame and concrete, including a brick cobbler shop where Anthony's shoemaking equipment remains, a log granary from 1883, and a log and frame barn from 1888. Surviving building receipts and a floor plan name carpenter Daniel Jarrett and W. W. Wells as workmen. The property is considered notable as the most intact nineteenth century farmstead in the county, reflecting the agricultural life and craft work of a prosperous postbellum farm family. Open fields and woodland preserve its rural setting.