Historic Oak View facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Oak View
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1855 Historic Greek Revival Farmhouse
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 Location in North Carolina
Location in the United States
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| Location | Jct. of Poole Rd. and Raleigh Beltline, Raleigh, North Carolina |
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| Area | 15 acres (6.1 ha) |
| Built | c. 1855 |
| Architectural style | Greek Revival, Colonial Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 91000359 |
| Added to NRHP | April 3, 1991 |
Historic Oak View, also known as the Williams-Wyatt-Poole Farm, is an old farm from the 1800s. It is a special historic place located east of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. This farm was started with people who were enslaved and forced to work by the white owners.
Oak View has several old buildings, including a kitchen from the early 1800s, a farmhouse built in 1855, a barn for animals, a cotton gin barn, and a house for tenant farmers from the early 1900s. The Farm History Center on site helps visitors learn about Oak View's past and the history of farming in North Carolina. Besides the buildings, you can also see an orchard, a honey bee hive, a small cotton field, and the biggest pecan grove in Wake County.
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The Farm's Early Days
Historic Oak View began when Benton Southworth Donaldson Williams bought land in eastern Wake County in 1829. He bought 85 acres with some small buildings, but none of those buildings are still standing today. Over the next 30 years, Williams bought more land. This included the land where Oak View's oldest building, the kitchen, now stands. In 1855, Williams finished building a two-story farmhouse in the Greek Revival style. This house became the main building of Oak View farm for the next 100 years.
Cotton and Enslaved People
By 1860, before the Civil War, the Williams family had 10 people enslaved on their farm. These people were forced to grow 27 bales of Cotton each year. Cotton was a very important crop in the Southern United States. Even after the Civil War, many farmers, including the Williams family, grew much more cotton. By the 1880s, 93 percent of farms in Wake County, like Oak View, grew cotton. The Williams family grew 82 bales of cotton a year.
A New Role for Mr. Williams
After the Civil War, Benton Williams was chosen to represent Wake County at the 1868 North Carolina Constitutional Convention. He had supported the Union (the northern states) during the Civil War, which was not popular in Raleigh. But his connection with Governor Holden helped him play a part in deciding North Carolina's future during the Reconstruction period. Of the four delegates from Wake County, only Williams' home, Oak View, is still standing.
Changes in Ownership
When Williams died in 1870, he left his land to his children and his wife, Burchett. Burchett owned the land until she died in 1886. Then, the land, house, and other buildings were sold at an auction to Job P. Wyatt. His family ran the farm for almost sixty years. Many of the buildings you see at Oak View today, like the cotton gin house, the animal barn, and the carriage house, were built when the Wyatt family owned the farm.
Tenant Farmers and New Crops
While the Wyatt family owned Oak View, they usually hired a manager to run the farm day-to-day. Unlike many places in the South that used sharecroppers, the Wyatts' manager lived in the main house. This manager oversaw tenant farmers who grew crops for the Wyatt family and also grew their own crops for pay. Tenant families sometimes stayed for only a year, but Oak View had tenant farmers living in small houses on the property until the 1980s.
Even though the farm was successful under the Williams family, the Wyatt family often did not make a profit. They would carefully check their books each year to see if they could keep the farm going. Instead, the Wyatt family started using Oak View as a place to test seeds for their seed company in Raleigh. They began to grow more vegetables and pecans instead of mostly cotton. The pecan orchard that the Wyatt family planted still produces pecans every year and is the largest one left in Wake County.
Saving Oak View
Later, the Wyatt family traded the struggling Oak View farm to the Gregory-Poole family. In return, they received an office building in downtown Raleigh for their seed company. Soon after the trade, James Gregory Poole and his family moved into the farmhouse. The Pooles lived at Oak View for three years. They updated the property by adding to the house, putting in running water, and bringing electricity to the farm for the first time.
After these changes, the Poole family sold the property to James and Mary Bryan in 1944. The Poole family's additions were the last big changes to the historic buildings. The property then passed through several different families before Wake County bought it in 1984. At first, the county planned to tear down the buildings to build an office park. However, several important local families and descendants of the original owners worked together to save the property. In 1991, Historic Oak View was added to the National Register of Historic Places, which means it is a very important historic site. Soon after, Oak View became a Wake County park.
Oak View Today
The Wake County Parks, Recreation and Open Space Division took over managing Oak View in 1995. This made Oak View the first historic site in the Wake County park system. In 1997, a Farm History Center was completed. Since then, Oak View has focused on teaching people about North Carolina's farming history, from early colonial times to today.
Recently, a historic tenant house was moved to the Oak View Historic Park. This helps visitors learn about the lives of the people who lived and worked on the Oak View land. Today, more than 100,000 visitors come to Oak View each year. They learn about North Carolina's farming past through special programs, events, and exhibits.
