Always on the lookout for the unusual, we sighted a round building made of stone and decided to stop by to investigate. What we discovered was that this small home was built by Oliver Nestus Freeman who was a local black stonemason in Wilson. He built about ten homes in the area, two of which are within a block of the round house. Mr. Freeman had originally wanted to build a house all of glass but his daughter convinced him that a glass house would be impractical, so he decided to build a home shaped like the round houses in the train yards of Europe. In a sense, Mr. Freeman was an early proponent of recycling, because he used saplings for studs in the walls and used stones, rocks, bricks, glass bottles, string and anything else he could find to create the walls of the house.
The Freeman Round House Museum is staffed by volunteers and admission is free. Inside you'll find pictures and newspaper articles on Mr. Freeman and other well-known black businessmen from the early 1900s. The volunteers are knowledgeable and friendly. The gentleman working the day we were there also named the spider I found outside--a "writing" spider according to him, which will write your name in its web. He also told us to go to Parker's down the street on Bypass 301 for some really good barbecue. We'll check that out later.
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