The two-story plantation house was built in 1848 about 0.75 miles (1.21 km) west of present-day Knightdale, along the wagon trail that would eventually become U.S. Route 64.[2] It was built by Charles Lewis Hinton, a farmer, slaver owner, and state treasurer,[3] as a wedding gift for his son, David, and daughter-in-law, Mary Boddie Carr (sister of Governor Elias Carr).[4] David and Mary's daughter, the anti-suffragist Mary Hilliard Hinton, was born here. It was named for its position halfway between two other Hinton family properties: Beaver Dam and The Oaks.[5]
Other structures on the site included a carriage house, kitchen, smokehouse, potato house, well house, ice house, cotton gin, loom house, doll house, office, school, two stables, and several slave quarters. Of these, only the kitchen, school, office, and carriage and doll houses remain.
In June 2005, the house and surviving outbuildings were moved about 2 miles (3.2 km) north to make way for a large shopping center.[6] The move and Hinton family history are documented by Hinton descendant and film critic Godfrey Cheshire in Moving Midway (2007).[7][8]
^Cynthia de Miranda (December 2006). "Midway Plantation House and Outbuildings"(PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
