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Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries

Jeter and Ethel Neville House

In Carrboro. 6 dated events, 1944–2023.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

In the chronology

  1. Jeter and Ethel Neville buy a corner lot at Cobb and Broad streets in Carrboro On September 13, 1944, Jeter and Ethel Neville bought a small lot at the northwest corner of Cobb and Broad streets, in the Lloyd-Broad section of the Black Northside neighborhood, from Guilford Realty and Insurance Company. Jeter Neville was a janitor at Northside Elementary School.
  2. Black mason John Wesley Campbell and his sons build the stone Neville House in Carrboro John Wesley Campbell and his sons, with Jeter Neville and mason Earnest Farrar, built the Nevilles' one-and-a-half-story bungalow of granite fieldstone trimmed in red brick, with an arcaded porch and a star and crescent moon set in stone beside the front windows. Campbell's son Handy said the stones came by army truck from Chatham County; the house is the least altered of Campbell's five 1940s stone buildings in Northside.
  3. Ethel Fuller Neville dies at 99 in the stone house on Cobb Street Ethel Fuller Neville, widowed in 1960, lived at 107 Cobb Street until her death in 2013 at 99. Her five children all took part in the local civil rights movement, and son Calvin became a stonemason trained by the Campbells. The house stood mostly empty afterward.
  4. Self-Help buys the Neville House for the Northside land bank On November 8, 2018, Self-Help Ventures Fund bought the vacant Neville House through the Northside Neighborhood Initiative land bank, which uses a $3 million no-interest UNC loan to keep homes in Northside, Tin Top and Pine Knolls from becoming student rentals.
  5. Self-Help begins rehabilitating the Neville House for sale to a homeowner In 2022 Self-Help began a full rehabilitation of the Neville House, to be sold with a deed restriction keeping it owner-occupied. Code work meant gutting the interior, and the stone mantel, the one original inside piece of the masons' work, was lost when the fireplace was removed.
  6. The Jeter and Ethel Neville House is listed in the National Register On August 1, 2023 the National Park Service listed the Jeter and Ethel Neville House in Carrboro in the National Register of Historic Places.

Open these in the chronology →

Indexed works

The index has no works about Jeter and Ethel Neville House itself yet. The surveys and maps below cover where it stands. Search the index for Jeter and Ethel Neville House, or tell us about a book or record we have missed.

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about Jeter and Ethel Neville House alone: the architectural surveys that cover its town or the county, and maps drawn while it stood. Several of the surveys can be read free online at NC Digital Collections.

Carrboro Map [1935]

1935

Hand-drawn map of Carrboro from about 1935, centered on Greensboro Avenue and Weaver Street and marking buildings, lots and the main roads.

DPLA

Map of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, N.C.

Gove, John R. · 1958 · Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association

Robert J. Ayers drew this folding map of Chapel Hill and Carrboro using data gathered by John R. Gove; the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association published it under a 1954 copyright. The 1958 printing shows the towns, the University, streets, creeks and country clubs. On the back is text for the Chapel Hill School Art Guild house tour of 30 October 1960, with eleven houses marked in red.

UNC State Archives of NC

Map of African-American Neighborhoods in 1944, Chapel Hill

1944

An appendix map from 1944 marking Chapel Hill's African American neighborhoods: Potters Field, Sunset, Tintop, Knolls and South West Lane. A proposed park north of town, possibly Umstead Park, is also shown.

DPLA

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

Start at OCPL

    Where to look on the shelf

    These books don’t necessarily mention Jeter and Ethel Neville House, but they cover where it stands, its kind of building and the land, family and burial records behind it, and they are where a search for a place like this usually goes next. All are at OCPL, most in the Wall Collection.

    Histories of the town and county

    • Rebecca Wall Collection · 975.656 OTTO Carrboro Otto, David · 2011

      Pictorial history of Carrboro in Arcadia's Images of America series by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington, published in 2011. Its 127 pages of photographs, maps, facsimiles and portraits cover the town's history, social life and African American community, with a bibliography and index.

    • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.656 OTTO Carrboro Otto, David · 2015

      Second Images of America volume on Carrboro by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington (Arcadia, 2015). Chapters follow the town from mill village to growing urban center, then turn to its merchants, the arts, festivals, changing demographics and changing architecture, in 95 illustrated pages.

    • Foundational · 975.656 RYAN Orange County Trio: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, North Carolina, Histories and Tour Guides Ryan, Elizabeth Shreve · 2004

      Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.

    Buildings and surveys

    • Foundational · NC 720.975 BIS A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina Bishir, Catherine W. · 2003

      Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern's field guide to the historic buildings of the North Carolina Piedmont, arranged county by county from Wake and Franklin in the east to Mecklenburg and Gaston in the west. The Orange County section takes in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro along with the rural county, with entries on individual buildings and maps for finding them. Published 2003, 596 pages with illustrations and maps.

    • Start here · NC 720.975 BRO Carrboro, N.C: An Architectural & Historical Inventory Brown, Claudia Roberts · 1983

      Architectural and historical inventory of Carrboro by Claudia Roberts Brown, published in 1983 by the Carrboro Appearance Commission and the town. The 48-page survey, with illustrations and maps, documents the town's historic buildings and their conservation.

    Research sources

    Places to visit 8

    Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

    Show all 8

    Read contemporary evidence 3

    Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

    Search beyond the index 4

    Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

    Ask locally 7

    Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

    Show all 7

    Nearby

    Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
    Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026