JOHN P. ROGERS HOUSE – 1901

106 Walnut Street

The National Register describes the house as a three-bay I-house, with center hall plan, one-story ell, and a reworked two-tier front porch. John Patterson Rogers (1861-1938), carpenter, apparently built the house in 1901. He had married Sallie Ann Hatsell (1863-1941) and by the time they moved into the house they had three children: Fredrica (age 10), Edna Mae (age 6) and John Patterson, Jr. (age 3). Within three years a fourth child was born, Brian.

Prior to completion of their new house they had been living next to Sallie Ann’s parents, Brian and Nancy Hewitt Hatsell in Swansboro. John, Jr. was listed in the 1920 census as a carpenter, following his father’s footsteps. His oldest sister, Fredrica, eventually married Carl Tolson, who drove a freight truck to New Bern. This was in the early days prior to a bridge over the White Oak River.

Their daughter, Helen, married Harry Hamilton, an engineer at Camp Lejeune where Helen had a civil service position. Edna May married George Alfred Merritt, who became a Captain in the Coast Guard by the time of his retirement. By 1941, both John and Sallie Rogers had died and Edna May and George Merritt lived in the house after his retirement, with Mae (as she was called) surviving George into the 1950’s.