Spears House

This log dogtrot house sits on its original site beside Caldwell Creek in rural Cabarrus County. It grew in stages. A one-room log pen, probably built between about 1760 and 1795, was joined to a larger, finely hewn second pen built around 1796 to 1800, probably by William Wallace Spears. The two were united as a dogtrot by the first quarter of the 19th century. A frame rear ell was added near the middle of the century, and part of it was later lost to a fallen tree. The house was vacated in 1961, then restored between 1982 and 1987 to its dogtrot form, using hand-hewn replacement logs cut on the farm. It is considered locally significant for architecture. The first pen is probably among the oldest surviving buildings in the county, and the house is the county's only remaining log dogtrot. Its half-dovetail notching and pen proportions reflect Scotch-Irish building traditions. The property is also linked to the Caldwell, Spears and Pharr families of the Rocky River community.