05/30/2026
"Kentucky" Smokehouse History
The Chatham County Historical Association recovered, restored, owns, and maintains the early 19th century smokehouse located on the property of the Chatham County Agriculture and Conference Center in Pittsboro. Restoration of the smokehouse was one of CCHA's most ambitious preservation projects.
CCHA’s smokehouse project had its start in mid-2014, when the Chatham County Historical Association was granted access to the parcel in Pittsboro on which Chatham County’s new Agricultural Center was to be built in order to assess and document the various structures and ruins on the property. For several months, volunteers researched and documented the history of the property and the structures and remaining ruins. The earliest owner shown in Chatham County records was Mary Watters, daughter of Continental Army General James Moore, and wife of Colonel William Watters, who also served in the Continental Army. In 1825 Mary Watters sold the 99-acre property to her son-in-law, Frederick Jones Hill, a physician, planter, and legislator known for his early legislation to establish public schools in the state. Raised in New Hanover County, he, like several other wealthy Wilmington families of the period, had ties to Pittsboro. Hill, his father, and three uncles owned elaborate summer homes in and around Pittsboro. The records are unclear whether Frederick Jones Hill built his summer home, “Kentucky,” on the parcel he purchased from his mother-in-law Mary Watters, or whether it was built prior to his purchase of the property. The Kentucky property was eventually inherited (in 1874) by William H. Moore, a presiding elder of the Methodist Church, and to whom both Hill and wife Anne had family connections. Until the property was purchased by Chatham County in 2012, it had been handed down in the Moore family through several generations.
The smokehouse was the most intact of the architectural remains on the property and the Chatham County Historical Association hoped that it could be saved and stay on the property as a reminder of the county’s agricultural past. The County Commissioners agreed that if the CCHA would restore the structure, it could be located on the Agricultural and Conference Center property when construction was complete.
First, the structure had to be removed from the property and stored until restoration work could begin. Months of work followed, all contributed by volunteers or paid for with donations to the restoration project. The smokehouse now stands on the Ag Center property where it can be viewed by visitors. More details about the smokehouse, its history, and the restoration project, as well as other architectural features of the "Kentucky" property, can be found on our website: https://chathamhistory.org/Preservation-Smokehouse
