407 North Blount Street
Raleigh, NC, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Andrews-Duncan House

Statement of Significance:

Alexander Boyd Andrews, a successful railroad executive, was living in Granville County in April, 1873, when he bought a Raleigh city lot from R. S. Pullen. On this lot, located at the southwest corner of North and Blount Streets, Andrews was soon to build a substantial Victorian house.
A. B. Andrews had begun his career with railroads in 1859 in South Carolina at the age of eighteen. During the Civil War he served in the First North Carolina Cavalry Regiment. He rose to the rank of captain and was among the troops surrendered by General Joseph E. Johnston at the Bennett Place. After the war he returned to the railroad business and was elected superintendent of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad in 1867. He became president of several smaller railroads as his career progressed, and is "credited with providing the leadership necessary to complete the Western Carolina Railroad from Azalea near Asheville to Murphy and Painted Rock despite financial hardship and engineering and political difficulties." In 1895 he became first vice-president of the Southern Railroad, a position he held until his death in 1915. He was held in such high regard that when he died, Raleigh stores closed during the funeral hour.
B. Laura Duncan Pearson, wife of a Raleigh dentist and widow of a Durham tobacco industrialist, bought the house from the Andrews estate on October 1, 1919. The house has remained in the Duncan family, and the state of North Carolina currently holds an option with the heirs of Laura T. Duncan (Mrs. Pearson).

In the southwest corner of the yard of the Andrews-Duncan house stands an ancient white oak tree known as the "Henry Clay Oak." It is generally accepted that Henry Clay, the popular Whig candidate for the presidency, wrote his "Texas Question" letter while sitting under this oak. Clay was in Raleigh visiting his congressional colleague, Kenneth Rayner, whose house, since removed, stood near the great oak tree. In his letter, written April 17, 1844, and published in The National Intelligencer ten days later, Clay said that annexing Texas without Mexico's consent would be "compromising the character of the nation, involving us certainly in war with Mexico and probably with foreign powers, dangerous to the integrity of the Union, inexpedient to the financial condition of the country and not called for by any general expression of public opinion." His stand alienated both slave and anti-slave factions in Congress and led to the election of Clay's opponent, James K. Polk, as president of the United States. It was while defending this stand that Clay is credited with having said, "I would rather be right than President."

The Andrews-Duncan House, built by one of the leaders in the nineteenth century railroad business which did much to unite distant sections of the state, is a fine example of a Victorian dwelling in the Italian mode. Together with the Heck-Andrews and Hawkins-Hartness houses beside and across the intersection from it, it stands as an impressive vestige from the days when Blount Street was the address of some of Raleigh's most prominent families. The large oak in the yard is a reminder of what may have been the turning point of Henry Clay's career.