As part of October's A250 series on NC's vernacular architecture, we're highlighting PNC Protected Properties in North Carolina's Upper Piedmont.

Historically known as “back country,” the Upper Piedmont represents a region more closely tied to the Mid-Atlantic than to the Chesapeake and Tidewater. During the second half of the eighteenth century, thousands of settlers moved south along the Great Western Wagon Road from Pennsylvania, forming a patchwork of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, British Quaker, and German communities. They brought Mid-Atlantic traditions in architecture, foodways, crafts, and religion that differed from those of eastern North Carolina. Unlike the east, where rivers connected plantations to seaports and larger markets, the Upper Piedmont’s poor roads and limited markets favored small farms and home industries over large plantations. Building traditions included log construction, frequent use of stone, and fewer English-based decorative elements. Many Upper Piedmont properties protected by PNC like the ones shown here reflect the lives of small and middling farmers, merchants, and professionals who looked north to Philadelphia rather than east to North Carolina’s port towns. Learn more about them on our site!