Turner, Henry, House and Caldwell-Turner Mill Site

Along Fifth Creek near Cool Spring in Iredell County stands a two-story frame farmhouse built around 1860 for Henry Turner. It replaced the home of David Caldwell, a prominent 18th-century settler and political figure, which burned in 1859. The house has a gable roof, exterior end chimneys, a one-story rear ell and a two-story pedimented porch with Doric posts. Inside, heavy Greek Revival mantels and door surrounds survive, and the cellar holds an ice pit and a milk pit. Nearby are a former mill office, a one-room log building, a shed, a garage, the remains of a wooden water race and an early cemetery thought to be the Caldwell family graveyard. Turner bought the property in 1841 and ran a grist mill that produced flour, meal and feed; his sons converted it to a roller mill in 1891, and it closed in the mid-twentieth century. The property illustrates farming and small-scale milling in the region.