Purefoy-Dunn Plantation

This 185-acre farm southwest of Wake Forest preserves the core of a once larger plantation of 650 to 750 acres. Its main house, a two-story, L-shaped frame building, began as a small Federal style dwelling around 1814 and was enlarged and remodelled in the Greek Revival style by Samuel H. Dunn around 1850. Rev. John Purefoy, who built the original house, was a Baptist minister and a founder and first trustee of Wake Forest College. A historian credited him as the key figure in choosing the farm that became the college's campus in 1832. Dunn ran a far larger farming operation, growing wheat, corn, cotton and other crops with enslaved labor. The house retains its original stone foundations, six-over-six windows and Greek Doric pilasters, though the front portico was removed. A mid-19th century smokehouse survives, along with several 20th century farm buildings and scattered foundations of former tenant or slave houses.