20 – 28 King Street
c. 1830
According to the 1890 Hopkins Map the owners of 20-28 King Street were J.W. Jones
and C.S. Isham, dealers in flour, grain, feed, and hay on 148 Church Street. In the 1881 – 1883
Burlington Directory Jones was listed as a farmer, but by the 1884 – 1885 Directory Jones was
advertising his business, and by the 1886 – 1887 Directory C.S. Isham appears in the ad.
Although there is no mention of 20 – 28 King Street under their names in the Burlington
Directories I thought this building, which is depicted on the Hopkins map as a barn/stable, could
have been used as storage for their business. I was able to confirm the buildings use from the
Burlington Warranty Deeds, in which Jones and Isham are documented as purchasers of “the
warehouse property belonging to said estate, situated on the North side of King Street, and
bounded south by said street…”. The parcel of land and its buildings were purchased from B.B.
Smalley on April 1, 1886 for $2000.1 Back in 1883, by “Assignment of Insolvent Effects”,
Morillo Noyes was given control of Henry Green’s estate, which included the “warehouse, barn,
and lot on the north side of King Street”.2 This was as far as I could get with deeds, but by
looking at the architectural clues of this structure I believe it may have been constructed c. 1830.
The close placement of the second story windows under the eaves suggests the structure was
built using the timber frame tradition found in the Georgian period, opposed to the balloon frame
construction developed in 1830, which allowed windows to drop away from the eaves creating
the more proportioned and symmetrical characteristics of the later Federal period. 3 However,
the older tradition of timber frames was still used after the introduction of the balloon frame in
the 1830’s.
Burlington Warranty Deeds, Volume 25 (1 – 272), p. 6.
Burlington Warranty Deeds, Volume 19, 1879 – 1896, p. 345.
3
McAlester, Virginia and Lee, A Field Guide to American Houses (Alfred Knopf, Inc.: NY), 143.
1
2
1884 – 1885 Burlington Directory
1886 – 1887 Burlington Directory