Edwin’s Acres

A LIVING HISTORY | A journey through the past

The Jesse Dixon House

1794

Chatham County

Built by Jesse Dixon, son of Joseph Dixon, first cousin of Simon Dixon of Snow Camp fame.

Joseph bought the land in 1766 some time after moving to North Carolina from Pennsylvania. Joseph died in 1769.

Jesse later built a water powered saw mill on the property. He paneled the walls of the lower floor of the main house before moving to Ross County, Ohio, near the old state capitol of Chillicothe, in 1803.Sam Dowd, son of famous local Tory, Connor Dowd, bought the house in 1825 and added the front porch, shed rooms, upstairs paneling, and a log kitchen wing (which has not been replaced).

It stayed in the Dowd family until the Depression. The house is significant for its size and detail for eighteenth century Chatham County. Items like the doors with their rat-tailed hinges, the fancy moldings, and the large interior fireplace reflect the German building tradition brought from Pennsylvania by the Irish Dixons. Perhaps the most notable architectural feature is the “principal rafter” support system in the attic.

Since 1981 Mr. Edwin Patterson has been finding and saving buildings that give us a glimpse into the lifestyles of early North Carolina settlers. He has organized all the homes in a central location in Harnett County, NC.

Once he finds a building that he wants to save he spends months carefully disassembling all of the buildings parts and labeling everything so that once it is moved he can put it back together. He restores the buildings to as close as their original forms as possible and he also takes the time to research each building to learn about when it was built and what family lived in it.

The oldest home on the property is the Joseph Matthews Cabin and it dates back to 1772.

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