Kennedy Memorial Home Historic District

Set along a broad avenue off Kennedy Home Road, the district combines a plantation landscape with a working orphanage. Cedar Dell, a two-and-one-half-story brick side-hall house begun in 1832, was enlarged in the 1880s with Eastlake veranda and dormers, and its brick kitchen and early outbuildings survive. In 1912 Captain William Kennedy and his wife deeded the property to the Thomasville Baptist orphanage, and the first cottages opened in 1914. Brick Craftsman, Colonial Revival and Ranch-style cottages, a church and farm buildings followed through the 1950s, when enrollment peaked near 160 children. The farm supplied food, feed and fertilizer, and it produced revenue for the institution until agricultural operations ended in 1993. Fields and woodland have changed little since 1940. The district is significant for its social history and its agriculture, reflecting how orphanages cared for children and sustained themselves in mid-twentieth-century North Carolina.