The two-story, single-pile Barfoot House, circa 1879, follows a form often referred to as an I-house, popular throughout Eastern North Carolina during the late nineteenth century.

There is a center hall, three fireplaces and downstairs you will find four rooms, a kitchen, and one full bath. The second floor has four rooms and two baths. The house is not livable and requires a complete rehabilitation.

Sheltered beneath a triple-A roof, you will find boxed cornices which return on the front (southwest) to enframe a double louvered vent on the northwest side to enframe a blind tympanem. The frieze is decorated with trios of raised diamond-shaped lozenges above the six-over-six sash windows. A hip-roofed porch carries across the front and wraps around the southwest elevation. It has turned posts with cut-out side brackets and a turned baluster railing.

The earliest Sanborn Map of this area, 1893, shows the house with a one room rear ell and a small detached, square outbuilding; possibly a kitchen. By 1898 a porch has been added to the northwest elevation of the ell and a large detached outbuilding placed transverse at the rear of the ell. Between 1916 and 1922 the present, large, two-story, two-room deep ell was constructed and finished identically to the front except for a bay window and curious overhang of the second story at the rear of the southeast elevation.

Mrs. Susan Culpepper Barfoot states that this substantial, two-story frame residence was built by her husband’s grandfather, George Barfoot. According to her account, her husband, George A. Barfoot (1875 – 1964), remembered hearing as a small child that his grandfather had inherited a sizable sum of money, but because he was a poor manager of money and property, it was put in the name of his son, James Jackson Barfoot, George A. Barfoot’s father.

The land was a gift from Larry D. Tomlinson, the brother of James J. Barfoot’s wife. The deed, dated May 31, 1879, indicated that the house was built about then. James Jackson Barfoot, listed in the 1908 City Directory as a policeman, and his wife resided here until their deaths. It was then inherited by their son, George A. Barfoot, one of the earliest and most active real estate and rental agents in Wilson. Barfoot was the owner of much property in Wilson, much of which was subdivided and developed during the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. His wife, whom he married in 1910, was the daughter of prominent carriage maker Cicero Culpepper. The Culpepper House stands adjacent of this house.

This house qualifies for the North Carolina Historic Tax Credits offering 30% off all eligible construction costs. It is conveniently located within walking distance to the commercial and cultural district. The downtown offers many free events during the year, including a summer music festival. Wilson is quaint southern town of 50,000 and located only 40 minutes to the state capital of Raleigh, two hours to the beaches and five hours to the mountains.