Market House (Fayetteville, North Carolina)


The Market House is an unusual combination town hall, town market building, and town focal point, in the very heart of Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina. It was built in 1838 on a site previously occupied, until it burned in 1831, by the old state house, or Old Town Hall; Fayetteville was capital of North Carolina from 1789 to 1794. It has an arcaded open ground level, and a meeting hall above, a form believed to be unique in the United States, but with precedents in England. It served both functions until the early 20th century, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1973. The upper floor now houses a museum.
Enslaved people were sold at this central location, although the significance of this is disputed; they were sold in front of every court house in the state. Because of its reputation as a slave market, on May 30, 2020, Black Lives Matter protestors attempted to burn it, but did only minor damage.

Description and history

The Market House is located in the rotary at the center of the junction of Green, Person, Gillespie, and Hay Streets, in downtown Fayetteville. It is a two-story brick building, with an open arcaded ground floor and a large meeting space on the second floor. It has a hip roof, above which rises a tower that houses a belfry and clock, and is topped by a dome and weathervane. The arches that form the arcade are symmetrical arrangements of round and lancet-pointed arches, framed in stone. Portions of the arcade extend beyond the second floor block, creating single-story sections that are topped by balustrades.
The Market House was built in 1838, on the site of the building that had housed the state legislature 1788–1793; it was one of many buildings destroyed by a devastating 1831 fire. The ground floor was used as a market space until 1907, and the upper level as town hall until 1906. Faced with the prospect of demolition, a private organization was formed to take over maintenance of the property. The Market House Museum is located on the second floor and features 'rotating monthly, special-emphasis Market House exhibits'. A study completed by Duke University professor John Cavanagh noted that ″sales were spaced on the average about two months apart, if that frequently, and in most instances very few slaves were involved in each transaction".
The building is believed to be a unique example of a British form, and its design may have been based in part on similar English halls found in South Shields, Stockton-on-Tees, and Abingdon-on-Thames. Buildings with similar function include Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, which originally had an arcaded ground floor until its 1806 expansion, and the City Market in Charleston, South Carolina, which retains its arcaded ground floor. Both of these buildings are also National Historic Landmarks.
During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, the market place was set on fire by protesters. The fire damage was minimal.

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