Somerset Place Driving Tour Stop #9: Creswell
Introduction
Author-Uploaded Audio
Text-to-speech Audio
- Proceed straight on 6th Street to the four-way intersection. Turn left onto Main Street and park on your right. The Town of Creswell has deep connections to Somerset Place. It began as the Cool Spring Post Office in 1826 but was not incorporated as a town until 1874. At that time, the town was formed around 10 acres of land owned by Washington and Jenny Harvey Bennett, who had been formerly enslaved at Somerset Place, and most of the town’s founding population consisted of formerly enslaved people from Somerset Place and the adjacent Pettigrew plantations. Creswell’s first constable, Ransom Bennett, Sr., was also born into slavery at Somerset Place, and several skilled artisans from the plantation practiced their trades in town.
- To return to Somerset Place, continue straight on Main Street and follow the brown signs. To return to U.S. Route 64, turn back onto 6th Street and proceed for half a mile to the highway interchange.
Images
Main Street in Creswell
Main Street in Creswell
Main Street in Creswell
Main Street in Creswell
Ransom Bennett, Sr.
Sources
Elizabeth Burgess Lucas Modlin, Helen Frances Bickel Jones, and Shirleyan Beacham Phelps, eds., Washington County, NC: A Tapestry (Plymouth, N.C.: Washington County NC Board of Commissioners, 1998).
Dorothy Spruill Redford, “So Changed, So Changed” (report, Somerset Place State Historic Site, 2006).
Image Sources
Somerset Place State Historic Site
Somerset Place State Historic Site
Somerset Place State Historic Site
Somerset Place State Historic Site
Somerset Place State Historic Site