112 West Seeman Street - Seeman House

Photo of the original form of the Henry Seeman house, ~1890.

Along with the James Manning house at 911 North Mangum Street, the Henry Seeman house represents the earliest development of (Old) North Durham as a suburb of the city center.

Trinity and Mangum, 1890s.

(Below in italics is from the 1984 North Durham National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

In spite of numerous alterations and additions to this two story Queen Anne style house with German siding dating from the early 1880s, much of its original character remains evident in such features as the polygonal bays and bracketed gable hoods with carved sunburst motifs. Henry Seeman, founder of Seeman Printery in 1885, purchased the house in the early 1880s upon his arrival in Durham. Seeman's print shop specialized in the printing of supplies incident to the sale of tobacco products. The Seeman family also started the Seeman Carriage Company which specialized in handmade vehicles. Originally, the yard occupied the entireblock, and the house exhibited a much smaller T-shaped form with an ornate one story wraparound porch. In later years, the east wing was extended, the original porch was replaced with a two- tiered porch supported by fluted posts, and numerous additions were constructed on the rear. I.L. Sears purchased the house from the Seeman estate for use as investment property, and in 1940, Sears had the entire house moved several yards to the northwest so that Henry Seeman, Jr. could enlarge his lot and build the brick' cottage at 108 West Seeman Street. In 1945, the house was sold to its [1984] owner.