1937 Beaufort, NC Post Office

     Below is the Clark-Duncan House, corner of Front and Pollock Streets, before it was moved eastward to make room for the 1937 Post Office. Built by Dr. Francis Moore Clark, the house was sold to Dr. Charles Lucas Duncan about 1910. 

     Dr. Francis Moore Clarke (1870–1918), son of Dr. Edward Clarke and Florence Mary Gibbs, was born in Middletown, Hyde County, NC. After graduating from UNC, he began his practice in Beaufort about 1893, married Eumeda Mann in 1896, and built this home about 1905; about 1910 he moved to Beaufort County and sold the house to Dr. Charles Lucas Duncan.

     Dr. Charles Lucas Duncan (1872–1937), son of Thomas Lucas Duncan and Annie Leecraft Perry, attended Trinity College and UNC Chapel Hill, where he met and married Virginia Clyde Mason (1876–1954) in 1900. They first lived at 207 Front Street and became parents of Annie Virginia, Grace Wilson and Clyde Mason Duncan. Dr. Duncan operated his medical office and Beaufort Drug Store on the NE corner of Front and Turner Streets. His dredge boat NeverRest was used to build the Beaufort-Morehead City causeway.  

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      On August 31, 1933, Wiley Higgins Taylor Sr. assumed the postmastership at Beaufort. He was to retain that office for fifteen years and nine months. The US Post Office at 701-703 Front Street was built in 1937. Federal employees Louis A. Simon and Neal A. Melick were supervising architects. 

 
The 1997 Ruth Little Survey described the 1937 Post Office as, "A Colonial Revival building has brick veneer in Flemish bond, sash with concrete sills and lintels and a cupola with Doric pilasters and arched louvers. The handsome front entrance has a double-leaf door with transom and segmentally arched hood on which is mounted a golden eagle statuette. The entrance is flanked by fluted Doric pilasters. The interior features marble wainscot."

 

 

Below are photographs of the construction.

 Courtesy the US Post Office historian's office in Washington, DC.

The Clarke-Duncan house, on the right, was moved from the corner of Front and Pollock 

to make room for the new Post Office.

On the left is the Old Inlet Inn to the west in the 600 block of Front Street - now the site of BB&T. Note the old water tower in the background.

West corner of Front and Pollock Streets showing the west side of the building. 

The south front side of the building faces Front Street on Taylor's Creek.

 

The interior features FOUR MURALS painted in 1940 by Russian artist Simka Simkhovitch; under Roosevelt's New Deal Arts Program, artists were given work during the Depression.