Loftin Farm

Loftin Farm occupies fifteen acres of a larger tract in northwestern Duplin County, North Carolina, on fertile soil suited to tobacco, cotton, corn and soybeans. The nominated area holds three contributing buildings: a one-story, square, hipped-roof Greek Revival cottage built in 1852 for Joel Loftin, a hand-hewn plank smokehouse of the same year with full-dovetail corners, and a three-story gambrel-roof livestock barn from 1937. The house keeps its center-hall plan, six-over-six windows, a full-width porch with Doric-inspired capitals and simple post-and-lintel mantels. Later changes, including a 1950s kitchen remodeling, were confined to the rear shed. The smokehouse planks carry Roman numerals from assembly. The farm was listed for architecture because the house is one of three intact examples of its form in the county, the smokehouse is one of two surviving antebellum plank smokehouses, and the barn reflects state agricultural stock-plan influence. A pecan grove planted in the 1880s lines the driveway.