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Pickaninny Home

Joseph Griffith House

71 Concord Road

“A ‘tenant house’, in which lived a family of negros, was located on almost every farm in that section of the country, usually quite a distance from the farm buildings in an inconspicuous location … The negro man and his wife worked for the farmer in whose tenant house they lived,  the man working on the farm, and the woman working in the house for the farmer’s wife. Though they received low wages, they paid no rent for the house, and were given firewood and most of their food by the farmer. Most of the tenant families were respected for their honesty, reliability, trust-worthiness, industry, and loyalty” (Hannum, p. 18).

This former mill tenant house overlooks Green Creek from the side of a hill. The home was part of a sawmill complex that Thomas Wilson sold to William Vernon in 1797. This home was a tenant house for either the Dowden Farm or the Valentine Farm. The home was nicknamed “Pickaninny.”

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