Found - Historic Fenner House in New Bern NC

Digital Photo by A. Vaupel

Old Fenner House 
217 Hancock Street
New Bern, NC

Wow!  With the help of someone who works in the City of New Bern's GIS and mapping office, I now know the physical location of "Lot 89," the site of the old Fenner house.  The house on Hancock Street in New Bern, North Carolina, was purchased about 1769 by Richard John Fenner and Anne Coddington Fenner, my fifth great-grandparents.  I descend through their granddaughter Rachel Fenner, who married William Neatherlin and eventually migrated around 1800 to Amite County in the Mississippi Territory.  After finding the lot number of the property in an online excerpt of the book, The Fenner Forebears, I set out to find the actual house. And thanks to a very dear friend of mine who lives in New Bern, I also have a photo of the house itself.  The house is a rather large frame structure built in the colonial style and located on a street where the remnants of train tracks down its center can be seen.  Currently, the house is undergoing some renovation, including a new coat of paint that closely matches the red metal "storm" roof commonly seen on historic houses in New Bern. According to my contact in the GIS office, the property is currently owned by the Fenner Family Fund Partnership.

Fenner Family of New Bern NC - The Search Continues

Last week, I ran across the name of a book about the Fenner Family, The Fenner Forebears.  Privately published in 1987 by Ruth Leslie Barrett, the book is currently out of print. So on a whim, I called the New Bern Historical Society in New Bern, North Carolina to see if the organization might have a reference copy.  A helpful person who answered the historical society's phone quickly referred me to the Kellenberger Room of the New Bern-Craven County Public Library.  Although the library has a well-organized web site that includes includes online access to reference materials in the Kellenberger Room, I decided to phone the library rather than research online.  Not only did I want to locate an actual copy of the book, I wanted to ask a researcher some direct and specific questions about Richard John Fenner and his wife Anne Coddington Fenner, since I strongly believe these early residents are my Irish-immigrant ancestors. 


My phone call to the Kellenberger Room was promptly answered by a pleasant male voice identifying himself as "Victor Jones."  (According to the website, Victor T. Jones, Jr. is the Department Head.)  Not only did Mr. Jones  confirm that a copy of the Fenner book mentioned earlier in this post is located in the reference room, he volunteered to photocopy pertinent pages of the book and provide me with the copies. Also, Mr. Jones promised to contact me by email within a few days to provide me with answers to the questions I asked, including the actual street address of the old Fenner house (allegedly Lot 89 of the Town of New Bern) and the burial locations for Richard John Fenner and Anne Coddington Fenner.