During the Second World War many Chapel Hill porches were adorned with white flags with red borders and blue stars. Each one represented a family member serving in the war. But in November 1944, a flag with a yellow star hung from the porch of the Wagstaff House, located at 214 N. Boundary St. It told passersby the family had lost a loved one: Henry McGilbert Wagstaff Jr.

Wagstaff was a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and stationed aboard the U.S.S. Cabot when, on Oct. 29, 1944, an F-5 Hellcat fighter returning from a night mission smashed into the ship's deck in a fiery blaze, killing Wagstaff and the pilot. Wagstaff was given a burial at sea the next afternoon; the location of his remains are listed at latitude 15° 55.2" north, longitude 125° 38.2" east.

Wagstaff is honored on a monument at Fort McKinley in the Philippines. In the Chapel Hill Cemetery, the Wagstaffs erected another marker to remember their lost son.

Henry Jr., who was 28 years old at the time of his death, led a happy childhood in a home off Boundary Street. He was born in 1916 to Henry McGilbert Wagstaff Sr. and his wife, Mary. The Wagstaffs had built a traditional American-style home on a large plot at the corner of North Boundary and Rosemary streets in 1907. Upon entering the home it is easy to feel its southern charm. The younger Wagstaff spent his childhood studying in the front rooms bathed in light from the large windows overlooking the porch.

Henry's childhood was spent in Chapel Hill at a time when the university was quickly becoming one of the country's foremost institutions under the leadership of President Edward K. Graham. His father, Henry Sr., was a professor of history, one of the new bright new minds that Graham enlisted to enlighten the youth of North Carolina.

As the Wagstaff family grew, they decided to build a larger home and began a major project to move their house from its original location, to its present location at the corner of Boundary and North streets and built another grand home in its place. This amazing feat is hard to imagine, and it must have been a spectacular sight to the young Henry, who was just 9 years old when the house was moved in 1925. Visitors walking through the house today can see clues that the house that reveal it had been relocated. Some of the door frames sag, and the floor is slightly uneven with a kind of rolling sensation in the floorboards.

Wagstaff's death came as a shock to his family and deeply affected his father. The elder Wagstaff mourned deeply and died five short months after his son while writing a history of the university, which was never published. The Preservation Society hopes to keep the Wagstaff family history alive by featuring their home on this year's Holiday House Tour. The Wagstaff-Brown House will be honored with a Preservation Society historic house plaque at 2 p.m. Dec. 13.