Did you know every Tuesday through Saturday you can go to Washington Duke’s house, for free? You know, the place where all things Duke began. Duke Homestead is free & open to the public. I got a history lesson on Duke’s back porch & “The Bulls Of Durham” living history book is better for it.
Farming and building were what Washington Duke knew best. While his family members helped care for his children he went to work expanding his farm and constructing a four-room house. Washington married for a second time in 1852 to Artelia Roney. The family moved into the house he built & made it a home; Duke Homestead. He and Artelia would have three children in three years: Mary Elizabeth Duke born in 1853, Benjamin Newton Duke born in 1855, & James Buchanan “Buck” Duke, born in 1856.
By this point, Washington had officially made it to the middle-class status with approximately 300 acres of land, a business, a two-story home, & a family. Four miles away Bartlett Durham gifted four acres of land to the North Carolina Railroad. This would give tobacco farmers and manufacturers like Duke a pipeline to get tobacco out to the world in just a few years.
With the demands of a growing business and family, Washington Duke bought a young enslaved girl named Caroline in 1855 to help Artelia with the children and household duties. Little is known of Caroline other than she was approximately 11 or 12 years old when Washington Duke purchased her for $601, which would be $17,355 in 2019. She was a young girl taken from her family to care for someone else’s. Interestingly, Caroline wasn’t listed on the 1860 census and there are no records of her life beyond her short time at Duke Homestead. Perhaps coincidentally, records that show after the Civil War, Washington employed a woman named Caroline Barnes until she passed away in 1928. There’s is nothing to prove or disprove this is the same Caroline.
This Bull City History Bit was brought to you by our incrediBULL Community Partner Duke Homestead.
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