The author, Steve Bailey, is outreach coordinator at the Anson County Historical Society. 

The Robert Troy House at 210 Hall St., on the corner of Hall and Leak Avenue in Wadesboro, is the oldest inhabited house in Anson County. It was built about 1795 and has a long and interesting history, having been the home of three North Carolina legislators, two bank presidents, a prominent doctor and a sheriff of Anson County.

Around the turn of the 20th century, it was the hub of social life in the county, as is apparent from a close reading of the newspapers of that era. The upstairs ballroom, specifically, was the focal point of many festivals.

Robert Troy was almost certainly responsible for the construction of the house in 1795. He was a lawyer and a member of the North Carolina General Assembly. He was born in Pennsylvania on Oct. 20, 1776, and died in Wadesboro at his home on April 25, 1807, and devised the home to his wife, Rosa Anna Harrington, whom he married Jan. 21, 1801.

The property consisted of 310 acres which stretched southeast of the homeplace almost to what is now Twin Valley Country Club property. Somewhere along the way the house and the property acquired the name “Montcalm.” It is clear that the dwelling was the “plantation house” for Montcalm Plantation.

On March 22, 1850, James A. Leak purchased the house along with 77 acres. This meant the tract extended back to roughly where Hwy. 52 South is now located. Leak was a bank president and a member of the General Assembly. He was also a prominent and successful merchant. His son was later the president of the Bank of Wadesborough and continued in his father’s tradition as a successful hardware store owner.

Dr. Elijah Andrew Covington (1838-1915) acquired the property on June 16, 1914. He was one of the leading physicians of Wadesboro. His office was located where the Ashe-Covington Medical Museum is, on the corner of East Wade and South Washington streets in Wadesboro.

Along this time period, the entire property had been acquired by a land development company known as the Mont Calm Land Co. and registered as a subdivision of the same name in the Office of the Register of Deeds. The house flourished as a “social hub” during the time of Leak and Covington.

On Dec. 10, 1920, William Sidney Braswell, sheriff of Anson County, purchased the house and lived there until his untimely death. He was sheriff from 1918 until 1926. He made one more attempt to become sheriff in 1928 but was defeated in the election and died on Nov. 16, 1928. He was buried beside his wife in Eastview Cemetery on Old Lilesville Road.

On March 28, 1934, Kathleen Dunlap Atkinson (1883-1967) and her husband Leland Guy Atkinson (1879-1961) purchased the old home. The Atkinsons are also buried at Eastview Cemetery.

On March 10, 1952, the Atkinsons sold the home to Octavious McRae Covington (1917-1988), who was a son of Dr. James Madison Covington,  one of Wadesboro’s doctors in the first half of the 1900s who worked downtown. Octavious, who was also a grandson of Dr. Elijah A. Covington, lived at his Hall Street residence until his death on April 28, 1988. He, too, was buried at Eastview Cemetery where many of his Covington family ancestors are buried.

After a series of transactions, the old home was purchased on May 11, 2001, by Lauri Altieri Thomas and her husband Thomas L. Thomas Jr. They have restored the property to its current fine condition and divided it into apartments.