McKinley-Quay House

This is the house in which Cenie Elizabeth McKinley was born and reared. The house is outside Harrisburg, North Carolina. The description and photograph that follow are from Cornelia Wearn Henderson, The Descendants of James Stafford, 1957.

One of the early houses with which the family is associated and which is in good repair today is the one occupied by May Stafford Quay and the son and grandson of the late Mary Stafford Quay. We do not know the date of the construction of this house. However we do know that John McKinley, who was born in 1764 and died in 1827, lived in the house.

Tradition is that the logs were cut and the planks sawed and dressed on the place. The first house was a square log structure of two stories.

Outside stairs led to the upper level and the entrance was through the present door above the lower entrance, which is in the center of the front side.

The chimney was in the middle of the left wall with a huge fire place on the first floor and a smaller one on the second floor.

Probably one of the most interesting and unusual features of the house was the rainbow ceiling of the second story. The planks were soaked in water then bent and held in a vice until dry. As a result the half circle of the ceiling is unbroken by angles. As far as the family knows there is only one other local house with such a ceiling and this is the old Dr. Grier house at Rocky River, built originally by Sam Pharr.

The planks for sealing the house on the inside and for the flooring are long enough so that there are no seams.

As was the custom the kitchen was a separate building at the rear of the main house. Cooking was done on an open fire in iron vessels.

John McKinley's son Sandy was the next head of the household. He married Ann Allison Hope and later Elizabeth Catherine Morrison. He had a second cabin built next to the kitchen and this was used for a school. He employed a teacher to instruct his twelve children. This person lived in the home.

When the house was done over in 1840 a dining room was added to the rear of the house. Also with a dividing wall a hall was cut off from the large room and an inside stairway was built. Later on a dining room was attached to the left wall of the house, at a lower level, and the kitchen was moved to the opposite end of this room. The well was at the far side of the kitchen under a covered porch. Uncle Bob, Robert Clark Cochran McKinley, is credited with the construction of this addition. That is of special

significance to me since it is the only tangible contribution that he made to the family. He was far better known for his marvelous tales of daring as a soldier and spy in the Confederate Army and later with Jesse James when the West was wild and wooly. In each of his stories there was always the hero who saved the day and that hero was Bob McKinley.

With the addition of a dining room the former small room in the rear was used as a bed room. A parlor was added to the right side of the big room.

The third head of this household was Samuel McKee Stafford who married Mary Cornelia McKinley. He purchased the home place from the widow of Sandy McKinley. It was during his life that many of us visited our grandparents there. One of the pastimes enjoyed by children was bouncing on the joggling board. This very long board on its two supporting uprights stood on the porch against the wall then and the same one is still there today.

Mary Stafford Quay inherited the property and house on the death of her father. There her children and the children of May Stafford Quay have lived. Under the industrious hand of Aaron Foster Quay, husband to these first cousins Mary and after her death to May, the land was improved and made productive again. The house also was renovated and modernized. In 1926 the dining room was removed from the side and a new one with a kitchen was added to the rear. A first floor bedroom and bath were included in the changes. A second story bed room was also added.

With all the changes the rainbow ceiling remains intact. It is interesting also to know that the original log walls are so solid that present day carpenters were unable to cut through them.

Lloyd Quay, the present owner of the house, inherited the industrious and ambitious nature of his father. This together with his unbounded energy has brought about further improvement in the land. The results of his scientific planting have thus beautified the whole area.

The history of a house is made by the people who live in it. And so we have the house of John McKinley, his son Sandy McKinley, his daughter Mary Cornelia McKinley Stafford, her daughter Mary Letitia Stafford Quay, her son Lloyd Lester Quay and his son Lloyd Lester Quay Jr. Six generations of a sturdy family in a strong, substantially built house.

Attending family reunions in 1956 and 1963, I visited this house with my parents. As of today (2009) it is still occupied by descendants of John McKinley.