According to family tradition the Bartlett Shipp house that originally occupied this site was deteriorated when John Franklin Reinhardt bought the property in 1876. Presumably, he made the decision to pull down the old transitional Federal/Greek Revival house and replace it with a new house--the one being nominated. However, he did not completely clear the site. It appears that he retained and reused a small one-story block of the old house; it is the ell of the present dwelling. The consistent surviving interior and exterior finish of this ell, traditional Federal/Greek in character, supports this theory. Inside the main block, Reinhardt also reused doors of Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival design, sections of wainscoting, and other moldings that were reshaped (7) as aprons under the broad six-over-six sash windoys. It is believed that all this woodwork came from the Bartlett Shipp homeplace.
Footnote
1. In 1818 Bartlett Shipp married Susan Forney, the daughter of Gen. Peter Forney who had established the Mount Welcome Forge. On 13 August 1822 Peter Forney deeded a tract of 249 1/2 acres to Bartlett Shipp. Whether this tract is the one on which Shipp built his "home place" that would later be the site of Reinhardt's Mount Welcome has not been determined; however, its position on Leeper's Creek and the reference to adjacent property m.rners and the "Fish trap" that appear on a plat made thereof in 1856 encourage that possibility. Thus, it is likely that Shipp built his house shortly thereafter--a supposition supported by the surviving architectural fabric--and occupied it until, according to tradition, he removed to the house built by his brother-in-law Jacob Forney from whence he removed to Lincolnton where he died. After the Shipp ell, the only reminder of the Shipp occupation of this site are the oldest crepe myrtles in the front yard.
Bartlett Shipp, lawyer and legislator, was born in that part of Surry County that became Stokes County in 1789 near the future site of Danbury, the son of Thomas and Hannah Joyce Shipp. The elder Shipp, a Virginian, was a veteran of the American Revolution; he was at Yorktown in 1781 but soon moved to Surry County. Largely self-educated, Bartlett Shipp taught school in his youth. During the War of 1812 he volunteered for service and became a private with the Stokes County regiment. After studying law under Joseph Wilson, Shipp practiced briefly in Wilkes County.
In 1818, about the time of his marriage to Susan, the daughter of Peter Forney of Lincoln County, he moved to Lincoln County. Shipp represented that county in the House of Commons for the terms 1824–25, 1826–27, 1828–29, 1829–30, and 1830–31, and in the Senate during 1834–35. In the house he served for a time on the Committee on Education and in 1830 supported a bill to prevent the teaching of slaves to read and write, but the measure was defeated. Although an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1831, he represented Lincoln County at the constitutional convention in 1835. In 1852, with F. M. Reinhardt, he bought an interest in the former Rehoboth forge near his home when it was known as the Reinhardt furnace.
Shipp and his wife were the parents of a son, William M., who became a jurist in Charlotte, and two daughters, Eliza (m. William Preston Bynum) and Susan (m. V. C. Johnson). He was buried in the Episcopal churchyard in Lincolnton.
Sources
↑ Will of Susan F. Shipp, Lincoln, NC. 22 Sep 1871. Archived at Ancestry.com: Lincoln, NC - Original Wills, Film Roll: Reinhardt, Conrad - Wilson, William. Img 746. Original document at NC State Archives, Raleigh, NC. Lincoln Co. Original Wills.
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DNA Connections
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