Kapp, John Henry, Farm

Near Bethania in western Forsyth County, this farmstead grew from 106 acres that John Henry Kapp bought from his father in 1870. The nominated portion includes a two-story weatherboarded I-house of brick-nogged frame, enlarged around 1880 with a rear tee and remodeled around 1910 with a two-level porch. Around it stand a smokehouse, granaries, a chicken house, a shop, and a large heavy-timber barn from the 1870s. A tenant house and tobacco pack house from about 1900 recall the tenant farming common in the county during the twentieth century. A cultivated field, pasture remnants and woodland complete the working landscape. The farm is considered significant for agriculture and architecture between 1870 and 1942. It shows how crops such as grain, fruit and tobacco were raised after the Civil War, how farm labor was arranged, and how house styles changed. The Kapp family's long association with the Moravian congregation at Bethania adds local context.