Thomas takes vacation.

OFF FOR A HOLIDAY

Charlie Thomas, our faithful pressman, is off today on the Durham excursion. There are few colored people who are more highly esteemed by their employers than Charlie, who is now about fifty years old and has been working for us since he was a mere boy.

That attention to duty and sticking to one’s job always pays is exemplified in Charlie’s case, for he is raising a family and raising it right and in addition owns his home and has an income from the rental of property.

The best of all is that everybody likes Charlie and thinks well of him.

Wilson Daily Times, 9 August 1911.

The enumeration for whites.

I was looking for an African-American family in the Evansdale area when I ran across this notation in the 1910 census of Stantonsburg township. A closer look revealed that enumerator R.B. Barnes divided Enumeration District 110 into four sections — the white residents of the town of Stantonsburg, the black residents of the town of Stantonsburg, the black residents (who made up the majority) of the rest of the township, and finally the rest of the white residents.

No other township is enumerated this way and, in fact, I’ve never seen this imposed segregation in any other census record anywhere.

Lane Street Project: resetting and repainting.

In June 2023, New South Associates returned to Vick Cemetery to mark graves straddling two property lines with small painted wooden blocks. Though no one who’s been paying attention was surprised that graves lie astride and outside the cemetery’s modern boundaries, the little orange markers were nonetheless shocking visual proof that we still don’t know how many people lie in this public burial ground.

As we observed just a few days ago, since N.S.A. reported on their work in August, Wilson City Council spared even a glance at Vick.

Yesterday, R. Briggs Sherwood and Castonoble Hooks of Lane Street Project’s Senior Force worked in Vick Cemetery to repaint and reset faded and dislodged blocks. Thank you! The blocks were not intended to be permanent markers and inevitably have been jostled by the Cemetery Commission’s crew that regularly tends the grounds. (They are the ones who sprayed defoliant in small circles around each block to keep weeds from overrunning them.)

Cass, Briggs, and the Lane Street Project faithful have not forgotten the 4,224 who lie here. Have you?

Photos courtesy of Castonoble Hooks.

Darden class of ’49 holds senior banquet.

Wilson Daily Times, 23 April 1949.

1949 Trojan, the yearbook of Charles H. Darden High School.

——

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 412 Daniel Street, Harvey Rogers, 26; wife Martha, 25; and children Amos, 10, and Lena Mae, 7.

In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Harvey Rogers, 36, janitor at laundry and dry-cleaning business; wife Martha T., 36, domestic; and son Amos, 19, packer at tobacco retrying factory.

Penny March at Good Hope church.

Wilson Daily Times, 20 April 1948.

I had to look up “penny march.” Descriptions vary a bit, but essentially church members, usually children, would march up the aisle between Sunday School and worship service to bringing loose change for a special offering.

(What was Dillard’s orchestra, though?)

——

The last wills and testaments of Joseph Barnes (1824) and Sallie Whitehead Barnes (1833).

Joseph Barnes (1770-1824) and Sarah “Sallie” Whitehead Barnes (1770-1833) lived in far southwest Edgecombe County, an area that is now Wilson County.

Joseph Barnes made out his will in May 1824. Among his bequests, he gave his wife Sarah Barnes three enslaved people — Luke, Bob, and Rachel.

He also gave his daughter Nancy Barnes an enslaved girl named Forten and a boy named Frank; his daughter Penney Barnes, a girl named Hannah and a boy named Toby; his daughter Celia Barnes, a girl named Rose and a boy named Isaac; his daughter Treecey Barnes, a girl named Clark and a boy named Reddick; his daughter Temperance Barnes, a girl named Dinah and a boy named Jacob; and his daughter Martha Barnes, a daughter Milley and a boy David.

There was also this complicated provision:

As best I can decipher, Barnes was directing that Peter and Dick and some livestock be sold and the money divided among all but his youngest children. After that, it gets more confusing. The clear part: wife Sallie is to receive a life estate in “two negros Jack and Jude,” as well as three “hors craturs” (??), five cows and calves, a brandy still, cider casks, plantation tools, and furniture. All this property was to be sold at her death, and the proceeds divided among all his children except James and Dempsey.

——

Sallie Whitehead Barnes executed her will in December 1833.

Among other items, Sallie Barnes left her daughter Theresa Barnes Farmer two enslaved men, Ben and Bob, and her daughter Martha Barnes Bullock, enslaved people Luke and Rachel. (Luke and Rachel, whom Sallie Barnes had inherited from her husband, remained together. Were they a couple?)

And then, this curious bequest to son-in-law Isaac Farmer:

“I leave Isaac in [lieu] of Jack that I sold which was lent to me my life time to dispose of as they would with Jack had he not been sold.” My best interpretation: Joseph Barnes had bequeathed Sallie Barnes a life estate in an enslaved man named Jack. However, Sallie had sold Jack and had to provide an equivalent substitute for him in the form of Isaac.

I cannot with certainty trace forward any of these enslaved men and women.

Will of Joseph Barnes (1822), Will of Sallie Barnes (1833), North Carolina, U.S. Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.

The obituary of Annie Elizabeth Cooke Weeks.

Wilson Daily Times, 20 April 1943.

——

  • A. Elizabeth Weeks — Annie Elizabeth Cooke Weeks.
  • J.L. Cooke — Jerry L. Cooke.
  • G.E. Wyche — Georgia E. Cooke Wyche. Georgia Cooke Wyche died 22 February 1970 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 6 January 1882 to Henderson Cooke and Mariah D. Batchelor; was a widow; was a retired teacher; and lived at 916 East Green Street. J.L. Cooke was informant. She was buried in Olive branch cemetery, Wake Forest, North Carolina.
  • Rev. W.A. Hillard — William A. Hilliard.

The death of Rosetta Ellis McCoy, Exoduster.

In a post about the Littleton and Judie Ellis cemetery on today’s Forest Hills Road in Wilson, I asked if the Ellises had migrated to Arkansas with the Exoduster movement, then returned to Wilson. The death certificate of their daughter Maggie Ellis Darden reported that she was born in Arkansas in 1886.

Below, the death certificate of Rosetta McCoy, filed in North Little Rock, Pulaski township, Arkansas, states she was born 22 October 1887  in Wilson, N.C., to Littleton Ellis and Mary [is this a mistake?; maiden name unknown]. Thus we have additional evidence that Littleton Ellis and family made the long journey west, but returned to Wilson County before 1900.

In the 1880 census of Stantonsburg township, Wilson County: farmer Littleton Ellis, 45; wife Judah, 30; and children Bryant, 14, Martha, 12, Patsey, 10, Mary, 8, Bud, 6, Thomas, 4, Rose, 2, and James, 1.

On 28 November 1897, James McCoy, 21, of Toltec, Lonoke County, Arkansas, married Rosetta Ellis, 19, of same, in Lonoke County, Arkansas.

In the 1900 census of Williams township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: farmer James McCoy, 23; wife Rosetta, 22; and children Alberta and Birtrice, 1; also, Sarah Smith, 26, a cook.

In the 1910 census of Lafayette township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: on Witherspoon Road, farmer James McCoy, 33, born in North Carolina; wife Rosetta, 32; and children Bertrice and Alberta, 11; Willie, 9; Johnny, 8; Asillie, 6; Gus C., 4, and James M., 1.

In the 1920 census of Lafayette township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: on Keo Road, James H. McCoy, 47; wife Rosetta, 43; children Bertrice and Alberta, 21, Willie, 19, Johnnie, 18, James M., 11, Norah, 8, L.C., 7, Nathaniel, 5, Ruthie, 2, and Thomas, 6 months; daughter Rosa L. Huggins, 16, and son-in-law James Huggins, 19.

In the 1940 census of Lafayette township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: farmer Rosetta McCoy, 45, widow; children L.C., 17, Nathaniel, 15, Ruthie, 13, and Thomas, 10; and grandson Willie Henry, 8.

In the 1940 census of North Little Rock, Pulaski County, Arkansas: Rosetta McCoy, 63, widow, born in North Carolina; daughter Gertrude Duckery, 40, widow, maid; and grandchildren Rosetta Howard, 15, Artelia Howard, 12, James Duckery, 9, Famous Hall, 15, and Rosie Anne McCoy, 4.