James Thomas Bartley House Privy, ca 1893 “Post Office”

The James Thomas Bartley House Privy was originally located in the kitchen garden behind the home at 202 West Main Street. It is owned by the Swansboro Historical Association after being donated by Sue Ellen Dixon. It is now on the property of E. G. Smithson who is generously letting us keep it here. Moved from its location at the NW corner of Main Street, the building still has its historic NC Privy License. Note the Gilded-age 'vents’ –one of the vented windows now has a solid hinge less door. Bartley was a prominent local businessman - a retail merchant on Front Street- born in South Carolina on April 27, 1864, to Edward Bartley and Annie Keman. He came to Swansboro by way of Wilmington about 1893. He built the home for his bride - Georgia A. Smith, born to George W. and Missouri Smith, of Silverdale, NC, on August 23, 1870. His first store was just east of the Old Brick Store. His early "party boat" was named Little Georgia. Bartley was a former mayor of Swansboro but an unsuccessful candidate for Congress. His property, including a kitchen, the privy and another small building, were mentioned in local newspapers during construction.

Older residents remembered it as the little post office located on the corner. Tucker Littleton reported in 1980 that Mrs. Georgia Bartley was the first woman postmaster and served from 1907-1914. She used it for “mail call.” Littleton also said, “This tiny post office has one door and two side windows through which the mall used to be handed to the townspeople who gathered around when the mail arrived. Here Mrs. Bartley issued the first postal money order ever written by the Swansboro Post Office.” Other buildings also served as the Swansboro Post Office throughout the years. Those locations included the Cod Fish on Front Street, in the building beside the Old Brick Store and the Store itself, and the last post office in the National Register District-in the building at 208 W. Main Street.