Day Trip Adventure

All-Neighborhood Outing Goes to Bennett Place

​Just a few miles from our neighborhood, in an unassuming farmhouse along the original Hillsborough Road, the Confederate Army and the Union Army officially put down their arms in April 1865. Bennett Place is a quiet landmark to peace.

Neighbors gathered in April to take a guided tour of the North Carolina Historic Site, followed by lunch, as part of a Courtyards at Southpoint all-neighborhood outing. The Travel Club and the Social Committee collaborated to put the event together and are planning to offer more day trips in the future.

At Bennett Place, the docent led the group around the campus of the mostly rebuilt farm where James Bennett and his family once farmed, rented rooms, offered hired rides from Durham’s train station, and sold produce to those passing by on the road from Raleigh to Hillsborough.

The landmark only became remarkable because of a series of meetings just after the surrender up the road at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. When Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston met with U.S. Major General William T. Sherman, asking the Bennetts politely for use of their parlor only because of its convenient location, negotiations evolved into the largest surrender of the American Civil War. It sparked similar surrenders in Alabama, Louisiana and in the West.

The events in Durham are even more dramatic when put into the context of the time: Sherman had just learned at his camp in Raleigh of the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

The tour included the reconstructed historic buildings as well as a small, poignant museum and was followed by a barbecue lunch at Picnic.

You can learn more about Bennett Place, as well as information about visiting and special May events for Memorial Day, by clicking here.

Watch for upcoming neighborhood outings in the newsletter, on Slack and on the calendar.