Lane Street Project: prepping for Season 7.

Lane Street Project’s Season 7 is right around the corner, and we’re super excited about our plans for the next six to nine months. With the establishment of 501(c)(3) organization Friends of Lane Street Project to oversee fundraising and projects, we look forward to increased sustainability of our work. If you’ve driven past Odd Fellows Cemetery this summer, you will have noticed that we’ve been able to secure regular mowing of the front section and cleared the fence of tattered signage. (It’ll be updated and replaced!)

We recently posted a weather-resistant folder with information for volunteers working our cleanups, as well as signs affirming the liability waivers that all volunteers sign.

The Season 7 schedule will be released in October, and we’ll be reaching out schools, churches, and other organizations with information about ways to support the ongoing reclamation of this historic cemetery. Stay tuned for more information and, in the meantime, feel free to Zelle us a donation — friendsoflsp. Thank you!

John Bullock leases forty acres.

Deed Book 19, page 377.

John Bullock entered into a five-year agreement with Sallie Felton to rent a forty-acre farm in Wilson County. On 1 January 1882, Bullock agreed to pay Felton one thousand pounds of “the first picking of lint cotton” each year and to keep the farm in good condition.

Wilson County Register of Deeds of Office, Wilson County.

Isaiah P. Thorne, as imagined.

I am ambivalent about using artificial intelligence to restore photographs. Or, more specifically, I’m concerned about manipulated photographs supplanting original images and further blurring the line between reality and misinformation. However, the allure of AI-enhanced images is strong, as I often contend with blurry, poorly lit photographs in unnatural sepia or black-and-white tones. Photographs whose condition sometimes exacerbates the distance between us and our ancestors.

I have been experimenting with ChatGPT lately, feeding it queries and images to be restored and colorized. The results are somewhat haphazard, with many images weird and off-putting. Other times, the images are breathtakingly sharp and … alive. Black Wide-Awake exists to resurrect forgotten lives, and I believe these images are valuable to help us connect with the men and women we read about in these posts. From time to time, I’ll share the better ones here, clearly marked as AI-generated.

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Isaiah Prophet Thorne (1885-??), vaudeville artist, musician.

Oscar DePriest speaks to A.&T. students.

New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 30 May 1931. 

Oscar S. De Priest was the first African-American to be elected to Congress in the twentieth century — and the first ever elected outside the southern states. He served three terms from 1929 to 1935. In 1931, after addressing students at North Carolina A. and T., he posed with faculty, including professor Daniel C. Suggs.

Cpl. James Holden, also known as Harris, recuperates in England.

Wilson Daily Times, 14 July 1944.

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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Manchester Street, widow Mamie Holden, 31, tobacco factory worker, and children Daisy, 8, and James, 1.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: widow Mamie Holton, 51; son James Harris, 24; and nieces and nephews Daisy Mitchell, 27, and her children Gerlean, 4, Mamie, 9, Willie Jr., 12, and Thelma, 7.

In 1940, James Harris registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 2 June 1918 in Wilson; lived at 622 Suggs Heights, Wilson; his contact was mother Mamie Holden, same address; and he worked for Liggett & Meyers Tobacco Company.

The Prince meets the law.

Wilson Daily Times, 13 March 1937.

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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 515 Warren, barber Andrew Pierce, 35; wife Loss, 35; and children Alice, 15, Mayzie [Boisy], 11, Hellen, 7, Benford, 5, and Ruby, 3.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 1212 East Nash, Andrew Pearce, 44, barber; wife Lossie, 43, private family nurse; and children Boisy, 22, Hester, 17, Benford, 16, Ruby, 13, and Louise, 3.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 707 Vance, Andrew Pierce, 55, nurse at home (usually barber); wife Lossie, 55, in hospital; daughters Alice, 35, and Hester, 27; sons Boise, 29, cafe [cook?], and Binford, 14; daughter Ruby, 19, “cook school;” and grandchildren Randolph, 9, and Montheal Foster, 7, and Mickey Pierce, 1.

In 1942, Benford Pierce registered for the World War II draft at the D.C. Reformatory, Lorton, Virginia. Per his registration card, he was born 31 March 1915 in Wilson; lived at 1231 W Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.; and his contact was mother Lossie Pierce, 538 East Nash Street, Wilson.

To have and to hold said land, no. 6.

Abstracts of deeds recording the purchase of real property by African-Americans during the first fifty years of freedom:

  • On 21 March 1870, f0r $60, David Bullock purchased from Virginia C. Edwards two acres of land adjoining Henry Edwards and others in Wilson County. Deed Book 23, page 106.
  • On 22 October 1886, for $50, Amos Brice(?) purchased from R.B. Brinkley a one-acre plot in Toisnot township on the Wilmington & Weldon Rail Road south of the town of Toisnot [Elm City]. Deed Book 25, page 362.
  • On 16 December 1907, for $120, W.P. Singletary sold Sarah Coppedge a lot on the east side of Manchester Street near the Colored Graded Sch00l, being Lot 34 [of the Singletary plat.] Deed Book 81, page 488.
  • On 26 March 1909, for $675, Wilson Insurance & Realty Co. sold Olivia Simmons a lot on the northeast side of Railroad Street, designated Lot 3 of Section C of the B.F. Briggs Place plat. Deed Book 81, page 520. [This was one of two Railroad Streets, and its name was soon changed to Norfolk & Southern Street, then simply Norfolk Street. Simmons’ lot was in the Happy Hill neighborhood, which was razed for “urban renewal” projects. Its approximate location is marked with an X below.]

  • On 8 November 1912,  for $125, Allen and Zillie A. Moses of Wake County, N.C., sold M.S. and Annie L. Gilliam a lot on the south side of Robeson Street, being Lot 9 of Block 11 of the Rountree Place plat. (The Moseses were African American Wayne County natives.) Deed Book 106, page 255.

Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

Rev. Davis’ churches.

Mary’s Chapel, Scotland Neck.

Though most closely associated with Wilson’s First Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. Fred M. Davis helmed churches across eastern North Carolina. A newspaper obituary named these eight, most of which remain active churches: