January 10, 2007

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            Forestville was the major village in what was called the Forest District, now Wake Forest Township, in the late 1700s, early 1800s. It probably grew up because it was on a major north-south path along a ridge between Smith Creek and Richland Creek at a point – and this is speculation – where Forestville Road cross the path as it went from eastern Wake County to the Falls community. That path was later the middle road north from Raleigh.

            By the 1820s, the community was vibrant enough to support a Masonic lodge, number 97, and the Macedonia Academy with John Purifoy [sic], Samuel Alston and Williams Alston on its board of trustees. There were stores and businesses such as Alston’s Store, named the first post office in the village in 1838, with William Alston as the postmaster.

            The tax rolls for 1837 show that all property in the Forest District was in large tracts, but they were beginning to be sold for various reasons. William Alston and David Crenshaw sold four acres along what is now Friendship Chapel Road for the right-of-way for the state’s first railroad, the Raleigh & Gaston, and for the station and railroad houses. The railroad began operation in 1840 with the cars traveling on wooden stringers topped with pig iron.

            Before that, though, on Dec. 30 of 1837, James S. Purefoy, one of John’s sons, was the first to own less than 100 acres. (There were only about 40 landowners in the district.) On that date he bought one acre from Jesse Kemp. It was listed for taxes on Jan. 1, 1838 as having no value, just a squiggle in that column, and a tax of 16 cents. A year later the tax listing was for a value of $500 that included two slaves and the tax for $3.40. Deeds for the house Purefoy built in 1838, which still stands, say the street now called Friendship Chapel was then called Front Street. It led to the railroad station where the station master often had to be called back to his duties by an impatient whistle because he had gone squirrel hunting.

            In 1839, James Purefoy, who was to go to be a successful Baptist minister, businessman and a 45-year trustee for Wake Forest College, was named the postmaster.

            Forestville Baptist Church was the first church building in the area, completed in 1860, and became the church for most of the college faculty and the businessmen who were putting up stores along White Street in Wake Forest.

            The college began trying to have the railroad station moved in 1852, but it did not happen until 1874, when the trustees paid $2,000.03 for the move.

            In 1872 there were at least eight mills grinding corn and flour, there were six general stores, one liquor store, a shoemaker and the Masonic lodge in Forestville. One of the mills was operated by Foster Fort’s heirs (Foster Fort was James Purefoy’s father-in-law) on what was then called Kemp’s Spring Branch but has since been shortened to Spring Branch. There are still a few remnants of the mill.

            Forestville was incorporated as a town in 1879, a year earlier than the village up the street was chartered as the Town of Wake Forest College.

            Forestville had 116 residents and its area was a square a quarter-mile in each direction from John R. Dunn’s store house. That charter was repealed in 1885, but the town was re-chartered in 1899 and remained a town until 1917.

            The corner of Forestville Road and South Main Street – called Powell Road for many years because it led from the ferry and then the bridge Jesse Powell built across the Neuse River – has been home to many stores through the years. One belonged to John R. Dunn, who sold it to James L. Phillips, who was also the postmaster. That store burned in 1916.

            The lore in Forestville was that an even older store building across the street housed one of the first, maybe the first, printing presses in Wake County. That building was destroyed in 1924.

            On that same lot was a well supplied by seven springs which never ran dry even during the worst drought. The parking lot for an office building covers the well site now.

            Much of the former town has also disappeared or been covered over except for the church and three houses.