Jan 14, 2000
National Register of Historic Places - Marcus Tilley House
Statement of Significance: The Marcus Tilley House, also known as the Roscoe Tilley House, located on a thirteen-acre home tract adjoining Lake Michie in the Bahama vicinity of northeastern Durham County, is a simple, well-preserved frame I-house built about 1880 around the earlier one-and-one-half-story log house of the Tilley family. Marcus belonged to a well-known clan of tobacco farmers who achieved fame with their early innovations in curing Bright Leaf tobacco in the 1860s. Marcus's youngest son, Roscoe, remained at the homestead and continued to farm the 380-acre farm until his death in 1935. The oldest of Roscoe's children, Nannie May Tilley, never married, but pursued a career as one of the first generation of female North Carolina historians. She earned her master's degree and doctorate in history at Duke University. Her dissertation, The Bright-Tobacco Industry: 1860-1929, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1948, remains the standard reference book on the history of tobacco cultivation and manufacturing in Virginia and North Carolina. The Marcus Tilley House is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion B as the home of pioneering female historian Nannie May Tilley from 1899 until 1947. Tilley's most productive years while living in the house began with the completion of her dissertation in 1939 and concluded in 1942 at her mother's death, the last year in which she is documented as living there. These years mark the period of significance for Criterion B. Her experience on the family tobacco farm shaped her choice of subject matter in her field, and the homestead symbolizes the history of tobacco culture during its formative period in rural Durham County in the second half of the 1800s. In addition, the Marcus Tilley House has architectural significance under Criterion C as a well-preserved farmhouse that symbolizes the typical evolution of small farmhouses from log cabin to frame I-house during the second half of the nineteenth century. The Tilley House stands as one of a relatively few, relatively intact examples of this dominant house type left in a rapidly suburbanizing county.
National Register of Historic Places - Marcus Tilley House
Statement of Significance: The Marcus Tilley House, also known as the Roscoe Tilley House, located on a thirteen-acre home tract adjoining Lake Michie in the Bahama vicinity of northeastern Durham County, is a simple, well-preserved frame I-house built about 1880 around the earlier one-and-one-half-story log house of the Tilley family. Marcus belonged to a well-known clan of tobacco farmers who achieved fame with their early innovations in curing Bright Leaf tobacco in the 1860s. Marcus's youngest son, Roscoe, remained at the homestead and continued to farm the 380-acre farm until his death in 1935. The oldest of Roscoe's children, Nannie May Tilley, never married, but pursued a career as one of the first generation of female North Carolina historians. She earned her master's degree and doctorate in history at Duke University. Her dissertation, The Bright-Tobacco Industry: 1860-1929, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1948, remains the standard reference book on the history of tobacco cultivation and manufacturing in Virginia and North Carolina. The Marcus Tilley House is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion B as the home of pioneering female historian Nannie May Tilley from 1899 until 1947. Tilley's most productive years while living in the house began with the completion of her dissertation in 1939 and concluded in 1942 at her mother's death, the last year in which she is documented as living there. These years mark the period of significance for Criterion B. Her experience on the family tobacco farm shaped her choice of subject matter in her field, and the homestead symbolizes the history of tobacco culture during its formative period in rural Durham County in the second half of the 1800s. In addition, the Marcus Tilley House has architectural significance under Criterion C as a well-preserved farmhouse that symbolizes the typical evolution of small farmhouses from log cabin to frame I-house during the second half of the nineteenth century. The Tilley House stands as one of a relatively few, relatively intact examples of this dominant house type left in a rapidly suburbanizing county.
Jan 14, 2000
Posted Date
Aug 29, 2023
Historical Record Date
Jan 14, 2000
Source Name
National Register of Historic Places
