Badham Family (fl. 1850s-1930s)

Variant Name(s):

Hannibal Badham, Jr.; Hannibal Badham, Sr.; Miles Badham I; Miles Badham II

Founded:

Edenton, North Carolina, USA

Residences:

  • Edenton, North Carolina

Trades:

  • Carpenter/Joiner

NC Work Locations:

Styles & Forms:

Gothic Revival; Queen Anne

The Badham family of carpenters, among the most prominent builders in late 19th century Edenton, included at least three generations: Miles Badham I (ca. 1811-1870s), his son Hannibal Badham, Sr. (1845-1918), and Hannibal’s sons Hannibal Badham, Jr. (1879-1941), and Miles Badham II (1877-1925). Their lives and work were researched and discussed by Thomas R. Butchko in Edenton: An Architectural Portrait.

The earliest known builder of this name was Miles Badham, whose name appeared among the workmen paid by planter James Johnston during the 1815-1817 construction of his plantation house, Hayes, designed by William Nichols near Edenton. It is not clear whether this man was free or enslaved, black or white. (There were several white men named Miles Badham in Chowan County from the 18th century onward, including a Myles Badham, aged 15 and probably white, who was apprenticed to Thomas Hankins at the cabinetmaker’s and joiner’s trade in 1792.) James C. Johnston did own at least one slave named Miles Badham. In an April, 1863 letter to his heir, Edward Wood, Johnston singled out a few of his slaves for special treatment or emancipation, including Aaron, Davy Blount, Maria, the elderly Osborne, and Miles Badham. He directed Wood, “I wish you to let Myles Badham, as he is called, work for himself and his family and children, live with you if it is agreeable to you and they are willing to do so; if not set them all free and let them shift for themselves, but I know they will be better off with you if they are satisfied.” By the time Johnston died on May 9, 1865, the Civil War was over and his slaves had been freed by law. If the Miles Badham whom Johnston freed was the same who worked on Hayes in the 1810s, he would have been quite elderly by 1863. More likely, he was a younger man of the same name, the Miles Badham born about 1811 and thus aged about 52 in 1863.

By 1870, when the first census after the Civil War was taken, there were several Badham family members living in Edenton. In that year, black house carpenter, Miles Badham I,aged about 59, was head of a household that included his wife, Mary, 58, and two apprentices, Aaron and Allen Badham, as well as a girl, Susan, 16, who was in school. Although he could not read or write, Badham owned $1,000 in real estate. Miles Badham I evidently conveyed his skills as well as his property to his descendants. His son, Hannibal Badham, Sr. (1845-1918), and Hannibal’s son, Hannibal, Jr. (1879-1941), became house carpenters, while Hannibal’s son Miles II (1877-1925) became a carpenter for the railroad. The family is regarded as being among Edenton’s leading builders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Their best known landmark, built by Hannibal Badham, Sr., is the imposing, towered Kadesh A. M. E. Zion Church (1897), a frame building in Gothic Revival style. It was home to an important congregation begun in 1866 from Edenton Methodist Church. Hannibal Badham, Sr., is also thought to have built other community buildings including the John R. Page Masonic Lodge (ca. 1890), named for another prominent black Edenton builder, and originally an Odd Fellows hall.

The Badhams also built residences, including their own homes. These are located on East Gale and East Church streets, some on land inherited from Miles Badham I. Most striking is the ornate Hannibal Badham, Jr. House (ca. 1900), which Hannibal Badham, Sr., built for his son in the Queen Anne style popular at the time. The elder Badham also built a house for his son Miles II, on land he gave to him. For his sister, Hellen Badham Blair, Hannibal, Sr., built in 1897 a 2-story house on a lot that was part of the land they inherited from their father, Miles. Hannibal, Sr., who married first Betsy Creecy, built his own family’s 2-story frame residence about 1880. After her death, he married in 1884 Evalina Williams Badham (1863-1935), a schoolteacher from New York who came to teach at a Freedman’s school. For her, Hannibal, Sr., erected a schoolhouse in the 1880s next to the family home. The Badham family also erected numerous other buildings in Edenton, which have not yet been identified.

  • Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina (1996).
  • Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).
  • James H. Craig, The Arts and Crafts in North Carolina, 1699-1840 (1965).
  • United States Census, Chowan County, North Carolina, 1860-1910.
  • John G. Zehmer, Jr., Hayes: The Plantation, Its People, and Their Papers (2007).
Sort Building List by:
  • Badham House

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, carpenters; Hannibal Badham, Jr., carpenter; Hannibal Badham, Sr., carpenter; Miles Badham II, carpenter
    Dates:

    1890s

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    114 E. Gale St., Edenton, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Residential

    Images Published In:

    Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).


  • Evelina Badham School

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, carpenters; Hannibal Badham, Sr., carpenter
    Dates:

    1880s

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    137 E. Gale St., Edenton, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Residential

    Images Published In:

    Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).


  • Hannibal Badham, Jr. House

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, carpenters; Hannibal Badham, Sr., carpenter
    Dates:

    Ca. 1900

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    116 E. Gale St., Edenton, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Residential

    Images Published In:

    Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).

    Note:

    The most elaborate of the houses built in Edenton by Hannibal Badham, Sr.


  • Hannibal Badham, Sr. House

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, carpenters; Hannibal Badham, Sr., carpenter
    Dates:

    Ca. 1880

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    133 E. Gale St., Edenton, NC

    Status:

    Altered

    Type:

    Residential

    Images Published In:

    Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).


  • Hayes Plantation House

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, carpenters; Dave Dickinson, plasterer; Benjamin French, plasterer; Miles Badham I, carpenter; Jim Millen, workman; William Nichols, architect and house carpenter; John Walker, workman; Joe Welcome, brickmason
    Dates:

    1814-1817

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    Hayes Plantation, Edenton vicinity, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Residential

    Images Published In:

    Catherine W. Bishir, North Carolina Architecture (1990).
    Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina (1996).
    Frances Benjamin Johnston and Thomas Tileston Waterman, The Early Architecture of North Carolina (1941).
    C. Ford Peatross, William Nichols, Architect (1979).
    John G. Zehmer, Jr., Hayes: The Plantation, Its People, and Their Papers (2007).

    Note:

    On Hayes’s construction, see Catherine W. Bishir, “‘Severe Survitude to House Building’: The Construction of Hayes Plantation House, 1814-1817,” North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Oct., 1991), reprinted in Catherine W. Bishir, Southern Built: American Architecture, Regional Practice (2006). For a history of the family and house, see John G. Zehmer, Hayes Plantation.


  • John R. Page Masonic Lodge

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, attributed carpenters; Hannibal Badham, Sr., attributed carpenter
    Dates:

    Ca. 1890

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    116 N. Oakum St., Edenton, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Fraternal

    Images Published In:

    Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).


  • Kadesh A. M. E. Zion Church

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, carpenters; Hannibal Badham, Sr., carpenter
    Dates:

    1897

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    119 E. Gale St., Edenton, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Religious

    Images Published In:

    Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).

    Note:

    Twin-towered, frame church in Gothic Revival style, built for congregation established in 1866.


  • Kadesh A. M. E. Zion Church Parsonage

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, carpenters; Hannibal Badham, Sr., carpenter
    Dates:

    Ca. 1900

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    121 E. Gale St., Edenton, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Residential

    Images Published In:

    Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).


  • Miles Badham II House

    Contributors:
    Badham Family, carpenters; Hannibal Badham, Jr., carpenter; Hannibal Badham, Sr., carpenter; Miles Badham II, carpenter
    Dates:

    Ca. 1896

    Location:
    Edenton, Chowan County
    Street Address:

    117 E. Church St., Edenton, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Residential

    Images Published In:

    Thomas R. Butchko, Edenton, an Architectural Portrait: The Historic Architecture of Edenton, North Carolina (1992).


    image/svg+xml Durham Greenville Raleigh ChapelHill Fayetteville Wilmington Winston-Salem Charlotte Asheville Goldsboro Greens-boro Edenton New Bern Salisbury Warren-ton ElizabethCity