Edenton Historic District

Edenton's historic district preserves the core of a small North Carolina coastal town that began as a village on Queen Anne's Creek and Edenton Bay. The town kept its original grid plan and its orientation to the water, with the courthouse green running down to the bay and a commercial district along Broad Street. Buildings span nearly three centuries. The 1725 Cupola House, St. Paul's Church and the 1769 Chowan County Courthouse form what the nomination calls the most important group of Georgian buildings in the state. Federal houses such as Beverly Hall, Greek Revival Pembroke Hall, the eclectic Wessington House, Gothic Revival cottages and Queen Anne houses add variety. Two-story frame houses with double porches recur across many periods and styles, giving blocks a consistent look. Slow growth after early prosperity left the scale, street trees and waterfront largely unchanged, and a rebuilt late-nineteenth-century commercial area survives with metal-front buildings.