Crenshaw Hall falls on hard times

Historic house was home to two different Crenshaw families

Crenshaw Hall, which was built in the early 1820s and was home to Samuel Crenshaw and his nephew John Martin Crenshaw, may be sold to a Virginia-based bank with local branches, American National Bank. It has been owned by Crenshaws and their descendants since it was built.

The current owner, John Bennett, renovated the house to serve as an event venue after he inherited it in 1997. Bennett is in failing health.

The house has been a landmark since it was first built, with all the later additions and changes which made it a fascinating mixture of Greek Revival, Gothic Revival and Colonial Revival styles. The double-door Gothic Revival doorway was a favorite of the family and their visitors.

Samuel and Eliza Crenshaw built Crenshaw Hall in 1824 on the old Raleigh-Oxford Road. Samuel died in 1828. Their daughter, Louisa James Crenshaw, married William B. Norman of Oxford in 1844, and the only child of the marriage, Sara Elizabeth Norman, was born in 1846. William Norman died a year later.

In 1850, Eliza, born a Harris, was living in the house (much smaller than the present day house) with Louisa and Sara Norman and a brother and sister, Robert and Ann Harris. Their brother, John Harris, owned Wakefields (now The Sutherland) just a mile or so north.

Time were prosperous and by 1860 the Crenshaw Hall family had 1,400 acres, 42 slaves and large tobacco operation overseen by James Woodard. Their farm produced 14,000 pounds of tobacco that year, only surpassed in Wake County by Priestly Mangum’s nearby operation, which produced 16,000 pounds.

Not far away and a bit earlier, William and Sarah Crenshaw had settled on a large plantation along Horse Creek along a road now called Thompson Mill. They built a grist mill, a lumber mill and a store as well as a house almost identical to Mordecai and Wakefields which they called Waterfall. Much later it was abandoned and burned in the 1970s.

William and Sarah had five daughters before their only son, John Martin Crenshaw, was born in 1822. He was first student to enroll in the new Wake Forest Institute, the forerunner of Wake Forest College, in 1834.

Two of William and Sarah Crenshaw’s daughters married two Thompson family brothers; Martha married Michael and Frances married George. The Thompsons lived in the house that was moved from Falls of the Neuse (the old road) to Old N.C. 98 in 2004 and restored by Kathy and Frank Drake.

John Martin Crenshaw, who would later be referred to as “Major,” took over the family business and became a cotton broker. He was 38 before he married in 1860, and he chose his cousin, Louisa Crenshaw Norman, as his bride, and she became Louisa Crenshaw Norman Crenshaw. The couple first lived at Waterfall, but the family legend is that Louisa missed the excitement of the traffic on the road next to her old home so the couple moved to Crenshaw Hall. She inherited the farm when Eliza died in 1871. The couple had no children.

They sold Waterfall and the grist mill to Martha and Michael Thompson. He was a doctor as was their son, Dr. Sanford Webb Thompson, born in 1852, and through the years the mill became “Doctor’s Old Mill” and later that was transformed to Thompson Mill.

Sara Norman (called Sallie by her Crenshaw family) married Benjamin Craven Williams from Franklin County about 1870 even though her mother, Louisa Crenshaw, disapproved of him and then disowned her. The couple had three children who survived to adulthood: Mattie Marvin Williams, W. Wilson Williams and Louise Norman Williams, who all were raised most of their lives at Crenshaw Hall with their grandmother, who was called Gramma Crenshaw by the family.

Louisa later disowned two of the children, Wilson and Louise, because they visited their mother in 1903 shortly before she died. Louise was 14 at the time.

Mattie Williams married Thomas Plummer Jones about 1896, William Williams married Susan Daughtry Jones about 1918, and Louise Williams married Henry Dalmas in 1945, divorced him in 1949 and took back her maiden name.

Mattie and Thomas Jones had three sons who survived childhood: William Martin Jones, Thomas Plummer Jones and Edward Brumfield Jones. Martin and Thomas (Tom) never married. Edward married Beatrice Mangum, a widow, and raised her daughter, Hariette, who later married William Turner Ray.

Martin and Tom Jones lived at Crenshaw Hall their entire lives. Martin inherited the house and 100 acres when Mattie died and left it to Tom when he died in 1986.

Martin Jones owned a small store and gas station near the house and was known for his thrift. Tom Jones also owned a gas station on U.S. 1 and reportedly ran a poker house on the family land.

Louise, known in the family and around town as Miss Lou, was distinguished by her erect posture in the pews of St. Johns Episcopal Church. She became a professional dance instructor after two years of study at the Nunn sisters’ School of Dance in New Orleans. At 40, she stared a career as a dance teacher in Wake Forest and branched out to Henderson, Panacea Springs, Kittrell, Raleigh and Rocky Mount until she was 65. She also began and ran the USO at the Wake Forest Community House during World War II.

She returned to Crenshaw Hall to live for many years with her nephews, the two brothers, fretting over “her boys.” Miss Lou died in June 1992 at the age of 102.

Three descendants — John Bennett, Jody Totten and Patricia Rolls – inherited the house and land. Their grandparents were Wilson Williams and Susan Jones, who had two children: William Wilson Williams Jr. (Bill) and Atlanta Louise Williams. Atlanta married John Robert Bennett of Rocky Mount.

The Harris and Crenshaw family graveyard remains near the house.

Totten, who has contributed family documents and other memorabilia to the Wake Forest Historical Museum and participated in Leadership Wake Forest in 2011-2012, was the source for most of the dates and information in this article. She lives away but remains interested and involved in the town.