The "Superintendent's House"

A small two-story brick cottage stands back from a street in Eden, NC, and looks out over the Governor Morehead Park.  It may be the oldest dwelling in the city, thought to have been built as early as 1813 - about the same time that James Barnett built the nearby Spray Canal to power his grist mill. It was certainly in existence by 1836, when John Motley Morehead (later Governor) built the “Old Stone Factory” on the land directly below the house.   

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Governor Morehead hired John Hall Bullard from Boston to set up and run his new mill in a brand new little town in North Carolina. The town was first known as Splashy, later as Spray, and much later was incorporated into Eden. Bullard, as the first mill superintendent, probably lived in the cottage that was perched on the hill overlooking the factory site - a perfect location to view the teeming activity below. That factory launched the textile industry, which became the community’s lifeblood for more than a century.  

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By 1840 James Ray was the “factory manager,” and probably occupied the house for a time.  Meanwhile, the mill complex grew with the addition of the Leaksville Woolen Mill and many other structures. This is “Eden’s only dwelling directly associated with the genesis of the local textile industry,” according to A Tale of Three Cities, the Eden Preservation Commission’s inventory of historically significant local structures.  And it comes with strong ties to some of the oldest families of Eden: the Barnett’s, Bullard’s, Ray’s, and Morehead’s.

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"A Tale of Three Cities - Eden's Heritage," is available at Eden City Hall (Stadium Drive) and the Eden Historical Museum (Washington Street).