Minister Robert Campbell - On Franklin Street (clip)
Interviewed by George Barrett and Kathryn Wall on October 28, 2022
Minister Robert Campbell (RC): …and my uncles.
Kathryn Wall (KW): What are some of the notable places that stand out once you are making that trip, of their work?
RC: Well, there are several homes if you take the long journey around, there are some houses on Jones Ferry Road. It all depends on what end of Jones Ferry Road you start on. If you start over there by Turners Creek, you’ll see some of his handiwork, but here in Chapel Hill, there’s several stone houses that are still standing and the combination of my grandfather and his sons and some of the other craftsmen in Chapel Hill. Some of the housing work of Mr. G[] Evers and Mr. Van Thompson, Mr. Joe Fearrington and Mr. Joe Fearrington’s father Rufus and his brothers basically was carpenters and their handiwork was in some of those houses based on some of the designs of my grandfather but also that Mr. Riggsbee also. He was not just a plumber, he was an electrician; and so his handiwork is in some of those houses. But then as you go down Franklin Street, where I think the restaurant now is 7-11 right there beside McDonalds, I forget that.
George Barrett (GB): 411 West?
RC: Yeah, some of his brickwork along with Handy and Jacob and Leo helped build that building then you go on down towards Eastgate. The old Eastgate building, believe it or not, Alfred Parrish Jr. helped build that, but he was trained by my grandfather how to lay bricks. But he ended up doing most of his work for the Sparrow Brothers. The Sparrow Brothers, believe it or not, they learned how to lay bricks under the tutoring of my grandfather and Handy and Leo Campbell. But I think the tallest building that probably is still standing is probably the old part of the Memorial Hospital. My uncles and my grandfather also helped do that. But then as you take a journey around UNC campus, there are stone walls that they helped put together, especially the ones that you see that are attached to what we call the hand-stacked walls. Those are the ones that do not have the mortar mix to hold the stones together, but most of those that have the mortar mix and the grapevine joint on them my grandfather and his sons and his brothers [did].
