Whether the Armistead House in Plymouth was a stop on the Underground Railroad remains up for debate.

But, that doubt isn’t derailing plans to turn the house into an Underground Railroad museum, said Willie Drye, a representative of Plymouth’s Small Town Main Street Committee and a writer for National Geographic’s online division.

“A document is being prepared by the state Department of Commerce,” he said. “The Main Street Program has been meeting for several months, and projects are related to business restructuring, such as to bring businesses to town and restoration of businesses in Plymouth.”

By adding the Underground Railroad museum to Plymouth’s Port O’Plymouth Civil War Museum and the Roanoke River Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, the town, one of the oldest in North Carolina, hopes to attract more businesses and visitors to the town’s downtown.

“We have a natural history that is unrivaled,” he said. “And we want to get the Armistead House up and going and to turn it over to an independent nonprofit of sorts, so they can take better care of it.”

Dorothy “Dot” Redford, retired director of the nearby Somerset Place, has doubts whether the Armistead House was part of the Underground Railroad.

Drye said 1850 census data show Robert Armistead, who lived in the house, owned 20 slaves.

“This raises questions about whether he would have allowed his property to be used to conceal runaway slaves,” Drye said. “Carl (Westmoreland, an Underground Railroad historian,) thinks it’s possible that Armistead’s slaves could have helped fugitive slaves without Armistead knowing it. But that’s going to be difficult to prove.”

Drye said because the house dates back to the town’s earliest days, the town wants to find a way to preserve it and turn it into a museum focusing on African-American history in northeastern North Carolina and perhaps Plymouth’s history.

He said Westmoreland thinks the fact that the house was owned by an African-American family from 1914 to the present (nearly a century) gives it a unique status in African-American history.

“He’s (Westmoreland) going to continue researching the history of the house and its owners, from Julian Picot in 1814 to the present,” Drye said. “We’re not going to turn away from a possible Underground Railroad connection in Plymouth, but finding a solid connection is going to take time, and we don’t have a lot of time to stabilize that house. So, we’ve got to start working toward some goal as soon as we can.”

Westmoreland will return to Plymouth from Cincinnati, Ohio, for a public presentation about why the house is so important to the community and the need to restore it.

Westmoreland, senior historian for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, has inspected the house to determine if it had a connection to the Underground Railroad.

“If another hurricane comes through before we are able to stabilize the house, I’m afraid there might not be much left,” Drye said. “There’s a lot that needs to be done before we can raise money to put a museum there. I don’t know that there’s a more historical building in North Carolina right now that has not been preserved. The building has so much history in it. … History in Plymouth and … eastern North Carolina really needs to be preserved.”

He said unless action is taken soon, the structure likely will fall down. If the Small Town Main Street Committee does develop a plan to save the house, it  would need to start raising money immediately to implement the plan, he said.

“We do need to make it into a museum of sort,” Drye said. “And the fact that a black family has owned it for nearly 100 years is wonderful. Because back then, in 1914 when the house was sold to Rueben Pettiford, it was uncommon for a white businessman to sell property to a black man.”

Drye said archeologists need to excavate under the house as part of the research that needs to be done.

“We need to figure out the exact origin and how the property was used,” he said. “Though Dot said she’s skeptical if it was used in the Underground Railroad, she still wants to find out for certain as well. Like any good historian, she definitely wants to find out the truth, just as we do.”

Because of at least two fires at the Washington County Courthouse over the years, Drye said, all records related to several properties in the town were lost.

Drye said a town meeting involving the Braye family will be held sometime in April. The Brayes, current owners of the house, live in Alabama. Velma Braye, sister of the last person to live in the house, plans to attend that meeting to preservation of the house.