Armour-Adams House

Holt was part of the shift from an agrarian tradition to a town life centered on commerce and industry that was facilitated by the founding of Davidson College and the reactivation of the railroad. Arriving in the area in the 1820s, the Armour family lived on and farmed much of the land that later became downtown Davidson. Their property extended south along Main Street to the cemetery, west beyond the railroad lines, and east to where the College’s dormitories and Patterson Court now stand.  

In 1835, a group of Presbyterians decided to establish an institution of higher education imbued with their religious values for the youth of the region. When Davidson College opened in 1837, its campus featured several buildings for housing, educating, and supporting student life.  Twelve campus buildings had been erected by the end of the Civil War. The College drew new residents to town – primarily new students and faculty – but the reactivation of the railroad in 1874 quickened the growth of both the town and its population, establishing the community as north Mecklenburg County’s commercial center. Many were drawn to the thriving town in search of new opportunities in the fledgling merchant class that provided goods and services to the influx of new residents. The addition of the Helper Hotel and the Linden and Delburg cotton mills prompted entrepreneurs like Holt to launch a variety of commercial enterprises alongside the growing campus. 

The Folk Victorian architectural style of the Armour-Adams House evidences the effect that advances in transportation and technology had on middle class citizens and their ability to build more stylized dwellings. The Folk Victorian movement was unique in that it combined elegant Victorian-era architectural forms popular in the late 1800s with more simple vernacular styles, bringing more intricately decorative dwellings within the reach of the middle class. The burgeoning railroad industry offered easier shipping options, making lumber and machinery more accessible. Thanks to the introduction of such innovative tools as the mechanical jigsaw and lathe, such decorative features as Queen Anne-like scrollwork and brackets and turned porch supports became easier and quicker to produce, and therefore more readily available. 

In 1919, Holt sold the Amour-Adams House to J. Hope Adams who moved to town with his two adult children from York, South Carolina. J. Hope’s son Albert served as Davidson’s mayor from 1931 to 1933, and his daughter Margaret became part of the local movement to provide quality education for the town’s children. Margaret H. Adams started her lifelong career in education in 1930 and for decades while she and her family resided in the Armour-Adams House, she taught generations of first grade students in Davidson’s local schools.