Location: NC 308 (Sterlingworth Street) at Watson Street in Windsor
County: Bertie
Original Date Cast: 1989
The Winston ancestral home in Windsor is associated with several siblings of the prominent eastern North Carolina family. That home, known locally as “Windsor Castle,” was built in 1858 by lawyer Patrick Henry Winston (1820-1886). Born there were five Winston children, three of whom attained prominence within the state.
The oldest, George Tayloe Winston, was president of the University of North Carolina (1891-1896), of A. & M., i.e., North Carolina State University (1899-1908), and later of the University of Texas. Francis Donnell Winston was a judge, attorney, and lieutenant governor (1905-1909). Robert Watson Winston (1860 –1944) was a writer, public speaker, attorney, and judge. At age twenty-nine he became a judge of the Superior Court, serving in that position for five years. At the end of that term, in 1895, he settled into law practice in Durham, moving to a Raleigh firm in 1912. His services were much in demand, as an attorney and as a public speaker. “Judge Winston” penned numerous magazine articles, among them several on the subject of race, and books, including biographies of Andrew Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and his Chapel Hill teacher Horace Williams.
The fourth brother, Patrick Jr. owned and edited the Albemarle Times but left the state and eventually became attorney general of the state of Washington. Their only sister, Alice, married Frank S. Spruill of Rocky Mount. The Winston family home, a two-story Greek Revival structure, remains in Windsor and is today owned by Monroe Bell.
References:
Alan D. Watson, Bertie County: A Brief History (1982)
The Windsor Story, 1768-1968 (1968)
Who Was Who in America (1990)
Robert Watson Winston, It’s a Far Cry (1937)