728 W Hargett St
Raleigh, NC, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Joel Lane House

Statement of Significance:

One of the earliest settlers in Wake County was Joel Lane, the son of Joseph Lane of Halifax County. Joel settled at a small crossroads hamlet, then in Johnston County, known as Bloomsbury. Sometime prior to 1760, Lane built a story and a half house in Bloomsbury near the present intersection of Morgan Street and South Boylan Avenue in Raleigh. Lane chose to name his new home "Wakefield" in honor of Margaret Wake, wife of Governor William Tryon. From 1770 to 1771 Joel Lane represented Johnston County in the General Assembly. In December of 1770, the General Assembly passed a bill which reduced the size of Johnston, Orange, and Cumberland counties and formed a new county called Wake. Joel Lane was among the commissioners who were chosen to lay out the Wake County boundaries. In 1771 he served as a justice on the first Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions held in Wake. In 1772 he represented Wake County in the General Assembly.

During the Revolutionary War, Lane was a lieutenant colonel in the Wake County regiment commanded by his father-in-law, Colonel John Hinton. Lane also served as a justice for the county court and was at one time the presiding justice. He represented Wake County at the Provincial Congress which met in Hillsborough in August, 1775, and he was elected to the committee of safety for the Hillsborough district. In August of 1776 the state committee of safety met at his home in Bloomsbury where they continued their deliberations for nearly a week. Lane also represented Wake County at the Provincial Congress which met at Halifax in April of 1776. Joel Lane's home was the largest dwelling in Bloomsbury but he found it necessary to build a small ordinary or inn to accommodate the many demands made upon his hospitality. In 1777 Lane applied for a license for its operation as a public inn. In June, 1781, the General Assembly held one of its itinerant sessions at the Wake County Courthouse. For want of a more commodious edifice the members of the assembly elected to hold the session at the home of Joel Lane. During this session, Thomas Burke was elected to succeed Abner Nash as governor. While the session was in progress the members of the assembly stayed at Lane's home and ordinary.

From 1782 until 1795, Lane served as the Wake County representative to the State Senate. In 1788 Lane was one of five Wake County representatives sent to the Constitutional Convention which met in Hillsborough for the purpose of choosing the site for a permanent capital. The decision was reached to locate the new capital somewhere within Wake County. Lane also attended the following Constitutional Convention which decided not to ratify the Constitution of the United States as it then stood. In March of 1792 the commissioners appointed to choose the site for the capital met at Joel Lane's home to examine the various tracts offered for sale. It was Lane's tract of 1,000 acres around Bloomsbury which was purchased for $2,756 to become the capital called Raleigh.

Lane died March 29, 1795, leaving "Wakefield" to his son Thomas, who was ten years old. In 1808 Thomas sold the house to his brother-in-law, Dr. Allen Gilchrist, who later sold the house to Peter Browne. William Boylan, editor of the Raleigh Minerva, purchased the house from Browne in 1818. It remained in the Boylan family until 1909. During their ownership a wing and lattice porch were added. These additions were removed and added to the rear of the house when the Wake County Committee of the Colonial Dames of America bought the building in 1927 and moved it about 100 yards westward to Hargett Street. Unfortunately, during the process of relocation, the eighteenth-century chimneys were damaged and were not restored accurately. Plans have now been made to correct this error. Since 1927 Wakefield" has been maintained as a historic site by the Wake County Colonial Dames. The ordinary, later turned into a school, was used as an outbuilding to another residence on the north side of Hillsborough Street and subsequently demolished.

The crossroad location of 'Wakefield" made it the most important house in Bloomsbury before Raleigh was laid out. The political career of its builder made it the scene of many important incidents in the early history of North Carolina particularly in the founding of Raleigh. At present the Wake County Committee of the Colonial Dames of America is working on the preservation and further restoration of "Wakefield."