Davis-Duncan House and Duncan Family

The 1815 Davis-Duncan House on the West End of Front Street
Circa 1910 photo courtesy Jack Dudley, Beaufort - An Album of Memories
 
The Property and the Building of the House

This old gabled roof Caribbean-style home, with its unique position on the west end of Front Street facing Taylor’s Creek and Beaufort Inlet to the south and Gallant’s Channel and Piver’s Island to the west, has had a front-row seat to almost two centuries of Beaufort history.

In the early 1960s, the Davis-Duncan House was the first house to receive a historical plaque—it was dated 1790. Before Lou Register sold the house in 2003, she had a new plaque made, changing the date to 1728. More research has determined a more accurate name and building date—1815. 

For almost a century, the original 1713 waterfront lots on the west end, between Moore Street and Gallants Channel, were sold, divided and resold. Owners of the various lots included Thomas and Susannah Duncan, William Borden, Edward Fuller Jr., Robert Read, William Dennis Jr., Nathan Adams and perhaps others before them. On the original town plat, these lots were numbered 33 and 34, later changed to lots 110 and 110.

While preparing for her move to Texas in 2003, Lou Register found a scrap of paper in her “Grandpapa” Julius Fletcher Duncan’s desk; the desk originally belonged to Thomas Duncan IV. The paper read, “Thomas Duncan was born in 1700. In 1728 he...READ COMPLETE POST...