Rosedale
(ca. 1815)
Rosedale was the home of generations of the Frew, Caldwell, and Davidson families for more than 150 years.
3427 N. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28206
Completed in 1815 by Charlotte postmaster and tax collector Archibald Frew (1772-1823), the Federal-style home now known as Rosedale once stood on 911 acres of timber and farmland five miles outside of the small town of Charlotte. Frew’s neighbors often referred to the house as “Frew’s Folly” because as many of them believed such an elaborate home in that mostly rural area would likely bankrupt Frew. Their speculation proved prophetic, as economic difficulties nearly caused the Frew family to lose their home. A loan from Frew’s brother-in-law – North Carolina state senator (and later U.S. congressman) William C. Davidson (1778-1857) – saved Archibald, wife Ann Cowan (1782-1857), and son Archibald Jr. (1811-1885) from foreclosure and eviction.
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Following the elder Archibald’s death in 1823, the house and property remained under William Davidson’s ownership. In 1833, he passed the house and 486 acres of the original 911-acre tract to his son-in-law Dr. David Thomas Caldwell (1799-1861), the husband of William’s daughter Harriet Elizabeth (1806-1845). Dr. Caldwell was the great-grandson of Reverend Alexander Craighead (1705-1766), the first pastor of Mecklenburg County’s first church, Sugaw Creek Presbyterian Church. Since then, descendants of the Frew, Caldwell, and Davidson families have called Rosedale home for over 150 years. As those families relied upon enslaved labor to maintain their agricultural operations for much of that time, Rosedale was also the home of at least forty-six identified enslaved persons prior to the abolition of slavery. In 1986, the last remaining members of the Davidson family to live in Rosedale – Mary Louise Davidson (1916-1996) and her sister Alice Caldwell Davidson Abel (1926-2008) – sold the house and the remaining nine acres of family land to the Historic Preservation Foundation of North Carolina. Restoration work began on the house that same year, and in 1993, Historic Rosedale opened its doors to the public as a living museum, the oldest Federal frame home still standing in Charlotte.
The restored Rosedale property includes the historic house, a recreated blacksmith shop, and extensive gardens maintained by Rosedale’s inhabitants for decades. In 1926, Claire Louise Heagy Davidson (1891-1958) – wife of Baxter Craighead Davidson (1875-1947), who lived most of his life in Rosedale with his uncle Robert Baxter Caldwell (1838-1919) and aunt Mary Alice Rachel Caldwell (1844-1904) – initiated the development of a formal garden adjacent to the location of the property’s original garden. In 1948 she added a rose garden within the boundaries of earlier gardens, and then began work on the original garden site in 1956.