GRAVES HOUSE (SITE)

View south, circa 1890 (photo via UNC)

 

 

This house is said to have been built prior to the Civil War. In 1885, UNC Professor Ralph H. Graves purchased the property.

 

In July 1889, Graves killed himself, likely in this house. Soon afterwards, his wife/widow, Julia Charlotte (Hooper) Graves, began operation of a boarding house in their home, initially charging $13.00 a month. She went into debt, mainly from supplying her boarders with an abundance of food, and once her children were grown and moved out of the house, she closed the business in 1902.

 

Julia sold the house and property in 1920 to John Sprunt Hill. It was then operated as a boarding house by a Mrs. Daniels until the structure was moved.

 

In April 1923 the house was moved "to the back of the lot" (just south of its original location) and severely renovated into the cafeteria for the soon-to-be-built Carolina Inn. It was also to be used as rooms for guests and student boarders. The structure was to be remodelled into a ballroom in the late 1930s, but may have been demolished in early/mid-1939, when a new cafeteria was to be built.

 

1915 Sanborn Map excerpt

 

Former Graves House at left, view south west, 1924 (photo via UNC)

 

1925 Sanborn Map excerpt

 

Former Graves House at left, view west, late 1920s (photo via UNC)

 

Graves House/cafeteria remodel plans, by the firm of T. C. Atwood, 1924 (via UNC)

 

 

A well, likely associated with this structure was cleaned, photographed, and mapped by archaeologists from UNC’s Research Laboratories of Archaeology in 2018, and a 3-D map of it was created from the photographs.