Adelphia Plantation

Adelphia Plantation was built in 1854 in Edgecombe County, North Carolina for Dr. Joseph John Garrett, a local physician.[1][2] The house, located north of the town of Pinetops and south of the town of Tarboro, was possibly designed by the architect George Lipscombe.[1] It was built in the Italianate style and some of the designs used for ornamentation may have come from William Ranlett's 1847 pattern book The Architect.[3] The house is also known as the Garrett-Wiggins House and the Garrett-Wiggins-Brown House.[3][4]

The plantation also includes a doctor's office and a two-story wood-sided tobacco packhouse built in 1880 by Tom Battle, a carpenter and former slave on the plantation.[5] Battle's family continued to work as sharecroppers at Adelphia.[5] There are also gardens on the property.[6]

Adelphia Plantation has been owned by the Wiggins-Brown family since 1881.[1] John Lawrance Wiggins, a local magistrate,[7] owned the house until his death in 1897, when it passed to his heirs.[1] Wiggins was the father of Fred Wiggins, Nannie Elizabeth Wiggins, and Octavia Josephine Wiggins.[1] In the 1990s, the house was inherited by photographer and city planner Watson Brown. Brown, who inherited the plantation from his aunt, renovated the house.[5] Brown is the fifth generation of his family to live at Adelphia.[8]

In August 2011, winds from Hurricane Irene caused an 125-year-old oak tree to fall on the grounds of Adelphia.[9]