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[ Newcomb-Berryhill House ]
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[ Newcomb-Berryhill House ]
Fourth Ward was a "walking-scale" neighborhood in the late 1800's and
early 1900's. Horse-drawn streetcars did not arrive in Charlotte until
January, 1887, and the first trolleys or electric streetcars did not
enter service here until May, 1891. Even after that, or at least until
the 1920's, most folks did not own automobiles. When they needed to go
somewhere, they walked. That's why there were no driveways between the
houses. That's why commercial, industrial, and residential structures
often existed side by side.
Fourth Ward was filling up with homes in the 1890's, as Charlotte became the leading cotton mill town in the Carolinas. On July 25, 1898, the Charlotte Observer reported that 37 residences had been completed in Fourth Ward during the previous 12 months. These new residents needed some place close by where they could purchase groceries.
Wilson M. Crowell owned and operated Star Mills, a grist and feed mill and a grocery store on East Trade Street. He recognized the opportunity in Fourth Ward and bought a lot at Ninth and Pine Streets on December 17, 1896, for $300. A neighborhood branch of the Star Mill Grocery opened in this building in 1897. Crowell specialized in selling ground corn meal -- the Star Mills brand, of course. To supplement his income, Crowell put an apartment on the second floor of his store building. It's still there. See the entrance on the left front?
In 1899, Crowell sold the property to a competitor, Andrew M. Beattie, who had a grocery in First Ward, on East Seventh Street. Beattie needed a manager for his Fourth Ward outlet, so he hired Earnest Berryhill, who knew nothing about the grocery business but who lived in the big house diagonally across the intersection. Friendly, generous, and a devoted family man, Berryhill took to the grocery business like a duck takes to water. In October, 1907, he bought the property and changed the name to Berryhill Store. He ran the store until his death in February, 1931. Every morning Earnest and his wife, Gussie Newcomb Berryhill, and their black helper, Amzi Rosman, welcomed customers, asked about their children and relatives, and discussed politics -- all except Amzi, of course. That's the way things were in those days.
In 1960, John Berryhill, Earnest's son, converted the old store building into a Laundromat. It closed in 1973. In the late 1970's, the Crowell-Berryhill Store was restored, first as a grocery and now as a restaurant. Alexander Michael's doesn't sell Star Mills corn meal, but the food is worth a stop. Ask for the table in the nook by the front window.
Standing in front of the Crowell-Berryhill Store, look diagonally to your right across the intersection of Ninth Street and Pine Street at the Newcomb-Berryhill House.
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