City Directories and History: Know locally as the John S. Stone home, this outstanding brick structure was designed as a raised basement cottage similar in style to hundreds of frame cottages from the antebellum period. However, as one author wrote, Mr. John B. Stokes, (farmer), after losing his first house by fire, is quoted as saying, he was going to build one which the devil couldn’t tear down. This statement was most likely made as a result of the Charleston earthquake of August 1886 having been widely felt in Chester and surrounding areas. But in 1886, before the new house was finished, Mrs. Will A. Hardin remarked that she would like to have a home just like the Stoke’s house. In 1886, without saying anything to her, her husband approached Mr. Stokes and made arrangements to buy the house and a good deal of land.
The house has solid brick walls both inside and out, approximately 14″ thick. The brick were hand made and the timbers cut locally. The plaster on the inside walls has lasted remarkably well and the ceilings, staircase, doors, mantels and flooring are all original. The two chimneys, which go up through the middle of the house help heat the main basement sections as well as the main floors. The four rooms in the basement appear to have been used for storage and cooking. The main level rooms were used as living quarters and the two large dormer rooms as sleeping quarters for children.
The John Stone family owned the home for many years and it was sold in 2007 to new owners who are working to restore the interior.
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Robert says
I believe I may be related to John Bradley Stokes as the Stokes family and the Terry family show up on many deeds together in the early 1800’s. I am a direct descendant of Stephen Terry d 1769 on Caney Fork Creek just up the road from John B. Stokes house.