Rosedale Plantation
NC, Beaufort County's Rosedale Plantation, also known as Wharton House, is or was a rare survivor of the antebellum river plantation in eastern North Carolina with thousands of acres worked by enslaved Black people.
Although lacking front white columns, the mansion house was set in a grove of live oaks, had elaborate Italianate exterior trim, and handsome Greek Revival interiors of large scale. It was also close to Maple Branch, a tributary of the Tar River.
Built as the two and a half story home of David Bradley Perry, a prominent Beaufort County planter, Rosedale continued after the Civil War as the center of a large plantation in the hands of Col. Rufus Watson Wharton, a Civil War veteran and the son-in-law of David B. Perry. At Col. Wharton's death in 1915, Rosedale was inherited by his daughter and son-in-law, United States Senator and Mrs. John H. Small, who leased the farm and house to tenants.
The 1850 census recorded Perry owning 2,500 acres of land valued at $10,000 and 81 slaves, while his plantation produced 3,600 bushels of corn and 1,200 bushels of sweet potatoes. In the following ten years Perry increased his holdings as well as his plantation's productivity.
On 24 March 1855, Col. James Latham left the home in his will (Beaufort County Orphans Book I,263, Archives, Division of Archives and History, Raleigh) ; to "my daughter Mary Perry and her husband David B. Perry the plantation I bought of Allen Grist whereon the said David B. Perry now lives.'
The 1860 census showed Perry with 2,700 acres of land, 99 slaves, livestock valued at $4,850, and 85 bales of ginned cotton and 10,000 bushels of corn grown on his plantation.
Rosedale is 4miles west of Washington east of the intersection of 264 and SR 1407. When it was nominated for the National Register of Historic Places In 1980 it was reduced to five acres, was owned by J.D. Briley of Greenville and had not been occupied for twenty years.
Source:
(August 1980). "Rosedale" (pdf). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory.https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/nr/BF0054.pdf
Shared from: Historic Port of Washington Project, Inc.