Alfred Moore Scales was born in 1827 to Dr. Robert and Jane Bethel Scales and is a direct descendent of the Scales family who founded Madison. Mr. Scales graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1846 and was admitted to the State Bar in 1851. Built on a lot behind 307 Carter Street in 1856, this one room structure is believed to have been built to serve as Mr. Scales’s law office. An 1856 advertisement in the Madison Newspaper places Scales’ office on this lot.

Alfred Moore Scales was a Brigadier General in the Army of the Confederacy and was Governor of the State of North Carolina from 1885-1889. Mr. Scales practiced law in Madison from 1850-1867, during which time he served as a County Solicitor, a member of both the NC House of Commons and the House of Representatives, a Presidential Elector and as an Elder of the Madison Presbyterian Church.

The building was used as a storage facility for many decades; however, the original use as an office is sustained by the fine finishings under the eaves, the interior lathes and traces of plaster.  The building fell into a state of disrepair until a movement by the Historic District and Properties Commission in 1979 forced the relocation of the building from its original site to Academy Street beside the Presbyterian Cemetery.