Mecklenburg’s last slave cabin may soon be designated as a local historic landmark
The Charlotte City Council this fall could designate a property with a former slave cabin as a local historic landmark.
In a quick procedural vote on Monday evening, the City Council scheduled a public hearing on the Stafford-Holcombe Farm for Sept. 27.
The farm — located at 12215 Plaza Rd. Ext., in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction — is home to the only known existing slave quarters in Mecklenburg County, according to the city.
”The Stafford-Holcombe Farm possesses special historical and architectural significance in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County due to its retention of an early-19th-century one-story, hewn-log slave quarter-tenant house,” a city document states.
The timber-framed main house, which dates to the early 1800s, still maintains original interior elements. Those include millwork, carved mantels and enclosed wood stairs.
During a county survey in 1905, a granite square marker was placed on the Stafford property, marking the Mecklenburg County/Cabarrus County line, according to a report from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission. “M” is inscribed on the north face for Mecklenburg and “C” on the south face for Cabarrus.
The commission recommended the landmark designation for the 28-acre property.
The one-story log slave quarters also functioned as a tenant house from Reconstruction until around 1948, according to the commission report.
”The rectangular hew-log outbuilding with half dovetail joints is in fragile condition as the roof has collapsed, but portions of the wall remain,” the commission report states.
Little is known about the enslaved people who once lived in the cabin, the Observer has reported.
The first federal census of 1790 says that James Stafford — who bought the land in the 1760s — owned one slave. When Stafford died, he bequeathed an enslaved girl, named Kate, to his daughter, according to the commission report.
His grandson, Franklin Stafford, owned seven slaves, according to the 1850 federal census. That included a 30-year-old blind woman, according to the commission report. By 1860, Stafford had 10 slaves on the property: six male and four female.
The commission notes that some “servants” at the farm, in the 1880s, were likely former slaves named Margaret, Adaline, George, Nat, Jane and Hope.
Historic Latta controversy
Mecklenburg County’s “plantation culture” was made possible by a 1763 treaty ending the French and Indian war, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission.
Farmers turned to family members, day laborers and slaves for planting and harvesting fields, tending livestock and building farm structures.
The pending landmark designation for the Stafford-Holcombe Farm comes after another Mecklenburg County plantation recently stirred controversy over a racist description for an event on Juneteenth.
The future of Historic Latta Plantation in Huntersville remains unclear. But in mid-June, Mecklenburg County did not renew its contract with the nonprofit that manages the site.
Historic Latta’s later-canceled event, called “Kingdom Coming,” did not acknowledge the historical significance of June 19, which commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the United States. Historic Latta had promised to tell the story of “white refugees” and defeated Confederate soldiers.
The event’s advertisement struck a sympathetic tone for those who had owned slaves, referring to one slave owner as an “overseer” and “massa.” The event also used the term “freedmen” without mentioning that slavery had lasted for 250 years.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 12:50 PM.