Depending on when you read this, the “Unmasking of Harper House” is either tomorrow night (Thursday), tonight (Friday) or you missed it. After an extensive renovation, Hickory’s most significant historic home will be open to the public again. If you want an experience of what it was like to be part of the last two centuries, come see. The event is from 7-10 on Friday, October 30, but you can come most any time for a tour. Here’s what awaits.
The home was built in 1887, the year after its builder, Daniel Webster Shuler came to town, talking big about the bank he was going to start, as well as all the other projects he had in mind to put the fledgling former tavern on the map. Much of that he accomplished. Shuler spearheaded a new hotel, a track for horse racing, a new lumber company, an opera house (which he personally managed) and oversaw construction of his showplace home at 310 North Center, just down from Frye Regional Medical Center.
Shuler might have been the most famous man Hickory ever saw, except for one small fact. The bank he started went bust in August of 1890. The lynchpin of the Shuler empire in town turned up sour and his influence went with it. How did he react? He fled to his house where either by heart attack or melancholy (Victorian for suicide) he died in the upstairs bedroom.
However, if you read the newspaper six weeks after his death, a story appeared that asserted he had faked his own death. According to his brother, he fled to Australia to escape the debt and collect on his life insurance. Duped bank depositors didn’t know what to think. Shuler’s widow, Maud, took the couple’s three children back where they had originally come, in Michigan, leaving the house abandoned.
Maud returned once, offering to make good on the losses if she could control management of a new bank, First National of Catawba County. When the vote went against her, she returned to Michigan. A few months later, she secretly had her husband’s remains removed (if they were actually there) back to Michigan. The full story of what actually happened remains a mystery.
And that’s not the only wayward spirit to crossover to the Great Beyond in that house. Several others are documented including the second owner, Elizabeth Thornton. Check out a series of reels on the happenings of the house at the Historical Association of Catawba County’s website or find them on one of your favorite internet platforms (as well as one’s you don’t like).
Better yet, come to the celebration on Friday night. Get a personal tour of the site and see what Victorian Hickory was all about. The Shulers, the Thorntons and the Harpers will all be there, each telling a unique story about their time. See them unmasked and experience a place 140 years in the making.
Photo: Your formal invitation.
