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<br /> United States Department of the Interior 29
<br /> National Park Service
<br /> National Register of Historic Places
<br /> Continuation Sheet
<br /> Jacob Jackson Farm / Maple Hill
<br /> Section number 8 Page 2 Orange County, NC
<br /> were rare in the North Carolina Piedmont and simple wings, ells, or sheds of one story were
<br /> constructed when more space was needed. By the mid-nineteenth century, additions at Maple
<br /> Hill and Sans Souci reflected the newly popular Greek Revival style. Country builders made
<br /> few changes to the basic forms but instead altered proportions and ornament, creating a
<br /> vernacular interpretation of the Greek Revival style expressed in lower building profiles and
<br /> hip roofed porches at both locations.
<br /> Maple Hill is also part of a long Piedmont log building tradition. Beginning in the mid-
<br /> eighteenth century and extending well into the twentieth century, logs provided a much
<br /> utilized construction material for they were readily at hand in the abundant forests. Despite
<br /> this, few log houses in Orange County survive from the antebellum period and most of these,
<br /> like the William Maynard farmhouse, ca. 1814, represent simple one-room structures to which
<br /> later frame additions have been made. The Federal block and Greek Revival wing of Maple
<br /> Hill, like the southern section of a farmhouse located in the newly established Oaks historic
<br /> district in Bingham township near Mebane,'are part of a more select group of log structures,
<br /> also few in number, which were built of logs and intended to be finished with weatherboard
<br /> exteriors and paneled and plastered interiors. With their stylish appearances, they embody
<br /> distinctive characteristics of the English and European vernacular architecture traditions that
<br /> give character and identity to the Orange County, North Carolina countryside.
<br /> HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND AGRICULTURAL CONTEXT.
<br /> According to a historian of Orange County Land Records, The Jacob Jackson Farm was
<br /> part of a 381-acre grant made to James Taylor by John, Earl of Granville on March 14, 1753,5
<br /> Records show that James Taylor, Thomas Wiley, William Reed and William Wiley, a foursome
<br /> who almost certainly were land speculators, held title to the tract until William Wiley
<br /> conveyed the land to Jonas Chamberlain in a deed dated August 12, 1765. At that time Wiley
<br /> also sold Chamberlain a 60-acre parcel in the vicinity. Chamberlain purchased an additional
<br /> 300 acres, probably on the south side of the Eno River, from John Thompson later in the same
<br /> year and 260 adjoining acres from Moses Embree three years later. He accumulated 1001 acres
<br /> which he owned for almost twenty-eight years.6 Even so, he may never have lived in North
<br /> Carolina for there is no record of his ever having paid poll or property taxes either in the
<br /> `Carter,Jody and Peck,Todd,Oran CounlySunL(W,October 29, 1993,File,Department of Archives and
<br /> History, North Carolina State Office of Historic Preservation, Survey and Planning Division, Raleigh,NC.
<br /> 'Browning,Hugh C.,letter to Mrs. D. E. Hollandsworth dated July 29, 1974, File,Department of Archives and
<br /> History ,North Carolina State Office of Historic Preservation, Survey and Planning Division, Raleigh, NC. See
<br /> also Markham,A.B.,Map of Land Grants to Early Settlers in Old Orange County,NC,Period 1743-1810,1973,copy
<br /> in Perkins Library, Duke University,Durham,NC.
<br /> Browning,Letter.
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