The William Covington family located in Stokes County from Rockingham about 1800 after William married Jane Davis of Red Shoals in 1804. From the beginning, it was a household of three because they were accompanied by Covington’s mother, Nancy, born in 1756. It is logical to assume that William and Jane built the home, perhaps even by the time of the birth of their first child, Bethania in 1805.
Jane Davis Covington (1781-1871) was the daughter of James Davis, Sr. (1753-1844) and Margaret Dunlap, (1761-1838). Davis had acquired a land grant in Stokes County on the north side of Dan River in 1789 after he had fought in the Revolutionary War. His father is reported to have come to Stokes County from Dingwall, Scotland through Augusta County, Virginia. Since William was dead by 1792, it appears the original William Davis house was built between James’ Land Grant (1789) and William’s death in 1792. In 1804, the elder James Davis was taxed for 3,050 acres and six slaves, on the Dan. That would indicate that in the last decade of the 18th century he had completed his house, operated a grist mill, lumber mill, and ran an ordinary or inn at his homestead and most of his twelve children had been born.
In 1817, William Davis’ grandson, James Davis, the younger, married Elizabeth McAnally the fatherless daughter of the late Jesse McAnally and Elizabeth Morgan and they are said to have built across the Dan River within sight of her parent’s home. There is a map of Rose Bank the James Davis, Sr., plantation that appears to have been made about 1870 to divide his property. It details a house on the north of the river, two stories with a double porch across the front and rear extender rooms. The building of the James Davis House, which became known as “Red Shoals,” had apparent bearing on the building of the Covington House nearer what was called the Meadows District to the west. The Red Shoals house burned about 1914 and was replaced with the present farm house, called today the Pitzer house. The drawing has a striking resemblance to the Covington House minus the front porches.
If the Covington house was built about 1805 when William married Jane Davis, it was at that time two rooms upstairs and two down without a hall and two-over smaller back rooms accessed by a narrow stair and small hall. Across the full 36-foot length of the front was an upstairs and downstairs porch to a height of 9 feet to the eve. There were chimneys on each end of the house and a boxed-in main stairwell in the west front room. A boxed stair went to the full attic over the front rooms from the west bedroom. The exterior was painted weather board with a wood shingle roof. The interior walls were covered in wide planks down to the chair rail and bottom wainscot. Originally the ceiling was exposed, trimmed beams. The floors were four-inch grooved planking. The interior was without further decoration except for very plain fireplace mantels. Doors were hung with large strap hinges and English-made box door locks. Windows were 4 over 4 at the ends including the attic. The Federal style with ample verandas had the country look of an Inn, inviting to the traveler and restful in the summer.
William Covington died in 1837 and he and his son John Davis Covington were the first to be buried on the knoll beyond the house. Within two years his eldest son, James Madison Covington, married Sally Golden Hill, daughter of Joel Hill and Mildred Golden of Germanton. The use of the title Colonel Covington has in recent years been attributed to this son but a letter in 1835 appears to speak of William as Colonel. James Madison Covington and his wife began a family and his three younger sisters were still at home as were James’ grandmother, Nancy and Mother Jane. It was time for a larger house so James added another 26 by 20 room to the east extending the front elevation to 62 feet which is as the house appears today. He also covered the chimneys with ashlar veneer which was tan stucco with scored, white lines making it look like blocks. The interior was in a later style with wide baseboards and plaster walls, double paneled doors and six over six paned windows. On the exterior, the double porch was extended across the full length of the front. The interior was in a later style with wide baseboards and plaster walls, double paneled doors and six over six paned windows. There is a clear definition of the beginning of this edition and no effort to balance the windows or doors on the older portion, even choosing a single-step chimney instead of the double step as on the west.
James Madison or “Matt” as he was better known, remained master of the house through the Civil War and the trials of Reconstruction. After his mother’s death in 1871, and the settlement of his parent’s interests, he gained full title to the house. He died in 1888 and the ownership of the house from there seems to have almost been communal as far as his children and grandchildren were concerned. In the first part of the 20th century it was called, the Blackburn house, as his granddaughter Sarah M. Covington married Joel I. Blackburn. In 1932, widow Blackburn gave the Attorney Reeves Brown a Deed of Trust for $4500 and he took title at her death. In 1936, he sold the farm to Rufus C and Laura Mounce for $4300 and in 1946 it was purchased by Jones Oakley. In the summer of 1947, Grace Taylor, daughter of the late Spotswood B. and Nellie Moon Taylor of Danbury, married Stanley Leigh Rodenbough, a widower living in Winston Salem. They scoured Stokes and Rockingham Counties for a home to restore to accommodate Grace’s collection of antiques and settled on what they would call Covington. Overgrown and practically open to the elements, Grace and Stan began mostly cosmetic work to bring the house back to the condition it had enjoyed before the Civil War. Gene Pepper in the Danbury Reporter, editorialized that they would “improve and modernize it for their home.” But he mused, “the spirit of old times still haunts the long porches and the white columns of the restful verandas of Covington House.” Grace then was elected the first women legislator from Stokes County and the lone female member of that body. As a novelty in North Carolina politics, newspapers enjoyed writing about this woman politician who had restored an Antebellum home.
Another female trailblazer of the 50’s appeared and made the friendship of the Rodenboughs. She was Miss Caroline Covington, granddaughter of “Matt” Covington. She could remember her childhood at the old house. According to an article in the Saturday Evening Post titled, “Miss Covington Tames the Young,” she operated a classic young person’s dance and finishing studio in ritzy Westchester County, New York. She had been training about a thousand teenagers of the wealthy each year for over forty years, in ballroom dancing and etiquette. It was this new friendship that brought a considerable donation to the completion of the Stokes-Reynolds Hospital in Danbury dedicated to the Memory of Colonel James Madison Covington.”
I remember well that first year, 1947 when my brother, Leigh, and I spent the summer living in the house. We used an outhouse, and had an ice box on the back porch. At night as we lay in bed, we heard the old boards creaking making creaking sounds like other people walking around in the house. One night Leigh sat with a sword and I sat with a Japanese rifle he had brought back from Japan.
Grace and Stan added a room across the back of the old portion of the house with an upstairs porch from which they could overlook the walled garden, greenhouse and orchard that were Stan’s special interest. When Grace became ill, they added a one-story room behind the extended east end so that she could have a downstairs bedroom. When Grace died in 1967, Stan sold Covington to an executive with Piedmont Airlines and the house has been sold several times since. With each new owner, the work that the Rodenbough’s did on Covington was improved upon and augmented. The largest improvement was a stand-alone masonry garage to the west.
Charles D. Rodenbough 