Harmony Hall

Harmony Hall is one of the oldest plantation sites in southeastern North Carolina with the house still on its original foundation and location.  It is important because it was built by Col. James Richardson about 1760 and the Richardson family records say, British General Charles Cornwallis commandeered the house during the Revolutionary War.

“This small, frame plantation house on the northeastern side of the Cape Fear presents a striking example of a regional form, which engaged double porches on land and water facades and a partially enclosed exterior stair rising between the landside porches. Here, in a rare survival, the exterior stair provides the only connection between first and second stories. The interior is simply finished and has a hall-parlor plan, later partitioned to create a center passage.”* (from A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina by Catherine W Bishir & Michael T Southern)

 Beth Car Presbyterian Church was first listed in General Assembly minutes in the Fayetteville Presbytery in 1836. It is quite possible that the church was under the Church of Scotland before 1836.  The earliest written record of it appears in the diary of Elizabeth Ellis Robeson as follows:

March 25, 1858..This day 39 years ago I was married here.  Today I see only three that were with me that day at church: Col. Byrne, T. J. and B. Robeson.

This places the date referred to as March 28, 1819.