Richard Pratt (d. 1788), identified as a bricklayer in Perquimans County in a deed of 1772, is one of the few early bricklayers of the Albemarle for whom work is known. He also farmed and ran a saw mill and grist mill near his home farm on Indian Creek. His frame house, the Richard Pratt House, still stands (on a new site) in Perquimans County. For that house, he probably did his own brickwork and had the carpentry work done by other local men. He may have been related to bricklayer Jeremiah Pratt of the same county. His work extended beyond Perquimans County into neighboring Chowan County, for at Pratt’s death in 1788, several projects were cited in settling his estate including some in Edenton: a chimney and cubboose (a type of cooking stove or oven) for Francis Randont, plastering and masonry work for Francis Pourie, and masonry for Michael Payne. Pratt’s orphan sons John and Joseph were apprenticed to joiner William Jones of Perquimans County in 1791.

• Dru Gatewood Haley and Raymond A. Winslow, Jr., The Historic Architecture of Perquimans County, North Carolina (1982).
• Perquimans County Records (Estates Papers, Wills), North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina.