Hope Plantation
February 19 Speakers:
African-American Celebration
March 4
Elizabeth Stevenson Ives Lecture Series
"At Home in the 18th Century"
Dorothy Redford - "Antebellum Women: Barriers and Bonds to Relationships"James Jordan III - "Dining Habits of the Late Colonial South"
Tom Savage - "Highlife in the Low Country"
Registration Fee covers materials, seminar, and lunch = $100 ($75 Hope Foundation Members)
September 22
Harvest Day and Living History Day.We'll see about 350 school kids (especially for 4th graders) and show them living history demonstrations on cooking, candlemaking, Civil War soldiers, bulletmaking, etc.
If anyone would like to volunteer to help out one or both days, we'd love to have the help, especially if they can do a "period impression!" Also, crafters are welcome to bring their wares and sell them on the grounds to the public (small booth fee $20)
December 3 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Christmas Open House is the first Sunday (December 3). The Hope mansion and King-Bazemore house are decorated for the holiday season by local volunteers. Admission is by donation
Let's make this a "family tradition" for Bertie County families!
Email [email protected] for details.
For additional information, please write:
Historic Hope Foundation, Inc.
132 Hope House Road
Windsor, NC 27983
Phone: 252-794-3140 E-mail [email protected]
Fax: 252-794-5583
The Lords Proprietors of the Carolina colony granted this land to the HOBSON family in the 1720's. It is believed to have been named for Hope Parish in Derbyshire, England where the Hobson Family originated.
It came to Zedekiah Stone when he married Elizabeth Shriver, the widow of Francis Hobson, in the late 1760's. Zedekiah and Elizabeth had a son, David, born Feb 17, 1770, and he was given the plantation as a wedding present in 1793 when he married seventeen year old Hannah Turner.
The year after he graduated, David served as a delegate to the 1789 state convention in Fayettesville, where he voted for North Carolina's ratification of the newly established Federal Constitution.
He read law under William R. Davie in Halifax, North Carolina and this association influenced his life. Davie served at governor in 1798 and was instrumental in founding the University of North Carolina.
When David Stone was admitted to the bar in 1791, he was already serving in the North Carolina House of commons, having been elected in 1790. In 1795 he became a Superior Court Judge. In 1798 he was elected to the House of Representatives of the United States and two years later to the Senate ending his term in 1806. After two more years as Superior Court Justice, he appointed governor of North Carolina from 1808-1810. Influenced by his mentor, Davie, he initially was a Federalist, but upon entering Congress he switched to the Jeffersonian Republican party.
He was again elected to the House of Commons and in 1812 for a second term as a Senator. He was opposed to the War of 1812, and this soon made him unpopular with his constituents. He resigned in 1814, and returned to his law practice and farming operations.
In 1792 he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina, on which he sat for the remainder of his life. He was a member of the committee that selected Chapel Hill as the site for this new school established by the general assembly. Before and after his administration as governor, he was involved in establishing local academies, including one what was free to students unable to afford the tuition.
As governor, Stone pushed for improvements in transportation, particularly canals that would expedite commerce. He also realized the need for a new and accurate survey map of the state, to replace the one done in 1789. He and his friend, Peter Browne, contributed financially to the project. The resulting survey, done by cartographers, Jonathan Price and John Strother, was published in 1808.
Stone is believed to have been his own architect while building Hope in early 1800's. His family (eleven children) and his many guests easily filled the large home.
The architecture is unique in eastern North Carolina as it more closely resembled those on the eastern seaboard than in rural Bertie County. Basically Georgian, Hope has neoclassical features of the Federal period like the large window panes (16 by 20 inches); the mantels in most rooms; the delicately turned columns and the fret work balustrades on the porticoes.
It was built of pine and cypress cut from his own forests and prepared in his sawmill. The full, ground-level basement within the brick foundation contains a winter kitchen and store rooms.
Off the hall on the first floor are the family parlor, dining room, and two bedrooms.
On the second floor are the drawing room, library, and two more bedrooms. A service stair extends from the basement to the attic, and from the attic another stair leads to the "captain's walk" on the roof.
The large library on the second floor had floor to ceiling
bookshelves on two walls to hold his 1,400 volumes. At that period in
North Carolina, books were not that plentiful, so to obtain this many
books showed his diligence in acquiring them wherever he traveled.
His son, David Williamson Stone, sold Hope Plantation in 1836 and from that time it had many owners. In 1965 under the leadership of Mr. and Mrs. John E. Tyler, the Historic Hope Plantation, Inc was formed and through these efforts, not only the house itself, but many of the period furnishing, as well as the library books have been replaced.
During their marriage David and Hannah Stone had ten daughters and one son. Six of the daughters died in childhood. Hannah and their youngest daughter both died in 1816 during a fever epidemic. Following Hannah's death, he married Sarah Dashiell of Washington D.C.
Hope Plantation was the birthplace of their first children:Anne Elizabeth Stone Dec 28, 1793-July 28, 1794 Rebecca Stone September 23, 1795 - Hanna Stone February 12, 1798 - David Williamson Stone February 22, 1800 Unnamed child born in 1802, died the same day Mary Stone June 14, 1803-Sept 12, 1804
David Stone died suddenly on October 17, 1818 at Restdale, his property on the Neuse River near Raleigh.
History from "Hope Plantation in North Carolina" by John E. Tyler
For more information
For information about Samuel Cox's family