Earle Town House is a historic house in

Greenville, South Carolina Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenville is located approximately halfway be ...

. It was listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on August 5, 1969, and is included in the Col. Elias Earle Historic District. Until the end of the 20th century, the house was widely believed to have been built about 1810 for Congressman Elias T. Earle; but Earle never owned the property. The house is more likely to have been built c. 1829-1833 by one Samuel Green or possibly as late as 1834 after the land had been acquired by Elias Drayton Earle, half nephew and son-in-law of Elias T. Earle. In 1856 James A. David bought the house and 35 acres. His son, Charles A. David (1853-1934)—a merchant by profession and essayist, humorist, and cartoonist by avocation—lived in it until 1922. David described it as a "rambling old affair" with a framework " mortised and put together with wooden pegs....The ceilings were so high, the only way it could have been heated in winter would have been to set it on fire." Earle-DavidHouse

In December 1927, the house was bought by Mary Chevillette Simms Oliphant, granddaughter of 19th-century novelist

William Gilmore Simms William Gilmore Simms (April 17, 1806 – June 11, 1870) was an American writer and politician from the American South who was a "staunch defender" of slavery. A poet, novelist, and historian, his ''History of South Carolina'' served as the defin ...

and the author in her own right of more than a dozen books, including a once widely adopted public school history of South Carolina. In the 1920s Oliphant had Greenville architect William Riddle Ward renovate the house to what she believed was its original Federal style, demolishing one wing, removing the colonnaded porch, and adding three rooms to the second floor. Some original features were preserved, including hand-hewn timbers, brick and rock supports, six-paneled doors, a hand-carved mantelpiece, and a

Palladian window Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

in the second story. Oliphant was able to have her house and nearby

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It is the main ...

listed on the National Register, the first buildings in Greenville to be so recognized. She also organized a successful petition campaign to dissuade local officials from running a proposed highway bypass through James Street.Dishman, 83.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in South Carolina Georgian architecture in South Carolina Houses in Greenville, South Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Greenville, South Carolina