CAPT. THOMAS THOMAS HOUSE circa 1851

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES (Pezzoni 1989): 105 Water Street - "Beaufort House" - Hall-parlor plan coastal cottage with later one-story side kitchen and dining room, porch ventilation chutes in main house porch ceiling, stair rising in read shed room, some original interior fabric but mostly from late 19th century. Beaufort captain Thomas Thomas bought the lot in 1851 and sold it a year later with a house on it. Local tradition asserts that the house was moved from Beaufort, NC. (NR)

Now closed in, the porch, most likely on the front of the house when constructed, once provided a unique ventilation system seen in early Beaufort homes; it allowed heat to be expelled near the roof and pulled cooler air into the rooms. The 105 Water Street house is on the corner of Moore and Water Streets.

Charcoal Portraits of Martha and Thomas circa 1840s

Beaufort resident Thomas Thomas, born in 1816, married Martha Dudley Murray on August 3, 1841. It is believed that they had sixteen children; only four of their children lived—Isabella, Samuel, Thomas Murray and William Alonzo.

Captain Thomas was a successful merchant with his own sailing vessels. His wharf-front building on Beaufort’s Taylor’s Creek was near the corner of Turner Street. In 1888, ten years before his death, a huge fire destroyed his wharf and numerous other stores and warehouses on the waterfront. Though the Swansboro "Beaufort House" was named for Thomas Thomas, the old sailor spent eighty-two years on the Beaufort waterfront, living and working in a two-block area.

At different times, this house was owned by Edward Ward Mattocks, his step-father Dr. Philip Koonce and his brother-in-law George Washington Ward.