Norris-Holland-Hare House

The Norris-Holland-Hare House was built around 1805 by Needham Norris, a Baptist minister and the son of American Revolutionary War veteran Pvt. John Norris Jr.[1][2] Needham Norris was the grandfather of the Raleigh socialite Cornelia Alice Norris. The house was constructed on a portion of a land grant given to John Norris Jr.[3] Built in the Federal style, the house features wood sash windows, plain weatherboards, stone foundation piers, and Flemish bond brick chimneys.[4] Norris bequeathed the house and farm to his nephew, Simpson Washington Holland.[2]

In September 1864, Holland traveled to Virginia to search for his brother, a Confederate soldier fighting in the American Civil War.[2] Holland died two months later, without having returned home.[2] The widowed Mary Ann Matthews Holland was left to care for their young children.[2]

In April 1865, after the Battle of Bentonville, an encampment of Union soldiers encircled the house.[2][3] The family lived upstairs while the soldiers occupied the first floor as a field hospital.[2][5]

The home later passed to the Hare family, descendants of the Hollands, who owned it until 2004.[3]

In 2017, the town purchased the 1,904-square-foot house to save it from demolition, with plans to sell it with preservation requirements.[2] The home was purchased by a family later that year.