Black Creek Rural Historic District

Five farmhouses and their outbuildings make up this rural district in southern Wilson County, close to the meeting of Contentnea Creek and Black Creek. The houses date from about 1787 to about 1855. The earliest is the Dickinson House, a plain one-story Georgian cottage with some of the best-preserved Georgian woodwork in the county. Nearby are the Greek Revival Dr. Brooks House and two coastal cottages, the John Woodard House with a fine Federal interior and the Stephen Woodard House. The Dr. Stephen Woodard House, a Greek Revival I-house, completes the group. Tobacco barns, packhouses, tenant houses and a 1920s rural school record later farm life. The group was listed as a rare survival of antebellum architecture in Wilson County. It is also tied to the Simms and Woodard families, major landholders in Black Creek township, and to Dr. Alexander Brooks, a longtime county commissioner.