State

The Jolly Ghosts of Como Ned Evans* 200-year-old ancestral I home is rich in history — also haunted. »!/ sti;i4ii:\ >1 л цен Sixteen years ago when W. E. (Ned) Evans and his wife moved front their small apartment in Murfreesboro, N. C. to a 200-year-old farmhouse in nearby Como, neither Ned nor his wife knew that their stately old home, which Ned had inherited from his grand¬ father, was haunted. The original home was built some¬ time around 1 760 by Ned’s great-great¬ grandfather on 5,000 acres of Hert¬ ford County farmland, granted to him by the King of England. The house contained four rooms. Hut each gen¬ eration to live in the house added a room, and by the time Ned and his wife moved in. the house contained seven rooms and three bathrooms. Ned added an eighth room, an enormous recreation room. 22 feet wide and 33 feet long. Ned, a rural mailman and peanut farmer, and his wife have spent the past 16 years restoring their home to its original condition. And today the home is described by a brochure about area homes of historical interest as, "Exemplifying typical early craftsman¬ ship — hand-carved mantels, hand- hewn from heart pine, mortised and pegged together, hand-carved window and door casings, hand-sawed weather¬ boards put together with hand-made nails.” In restoring their home, the Evanses have bought most of their furniture from a baptist preacher in Como, who runs an antique shop during the week. The Evanses’ home abounds with objects of historical interest. It features such multifarious articles as a musket made at Harper’s Ferry, a spinning wheel, an antique organ, some 18th- century furniture (similar to a set in The E»ontej‘ home ol Como, os seen fiom the ftont, on a sunny, summer oltcrnoon. The House is more thon 200 ycors old, ond hos been in the some fomily since the firs* doy it wo» built. Mr. ond Mrs. E»ons pose in their reercolion room with Somi, their French poodle, ond Ned's qronddaddy's !i*c gallon "demi- john" the |ug in which he kept his corn whiskey. On the -oil behind them ore three muskets, one ot which wos mode ot Horpcr's Ferry, ond the heod ot о deer which Ned shot on his term the Metropolitan Museum of Art), antique paintings, lamps and candle¬ stick holders, and a five-gallon jug — called a “demi-john” — in which Ned’s grandfather kept his corn whiskey. They Danced Til Dawn In times past, on Saturday evenings. Ned’s ancestors’ neighbors came from miles around and gathered in the front room of the old house. There they square-danced to fiddle music, fre¬ quently into the curly hours of the morning. As a result of all that square¬ dancing. when Ned moved into the house, the floors in the front room were so bowed and broken that he had to replace them. Hut the other floors in the original house, which includes three more rooms, a staircase and two long halls, are still beautifully intact. It is difficult to believe that these carefully polished hardwood floors are more than 200 years old. The records which would tell exactly when the house was built were de¬ stroyed during the Civil War. when Union soldiers set fire to the court¬ house at the county seat in Winton. Ned learned of the Union soldiers’ visit to Hertford County from "Aunt Sarah." A former Negro slave and THE STATE, October 15. 1971 13