“They’re all working that way down there.”

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Wilson Daily Times, 1 March 1939.

It took me a minute to figure the alleged fraud out.

Southern Tobacco Company required its stemmers to process 25 pounds of tobacco per day. If they struggled to make quota, the company told them to bring in someone to help. (Southern President James I. Miller denied knowing anything, of course. Southern was an affiliate of J.I. Miller Tobacco Company and shared its South Tarboro Street facility.) The “buddy” was not officially employed by Southern, but worked under the actual employee’s name and Social Security number and got a cut of the employee’s pay. Everybody did it, workers insisted. The problem came when the buddies filed for unemployment benefits, claiming they had earned no wages. Moses Hodge had not reported that Theodore Bell had given him half of his paycheck, and the hammer dropped.

Five people were charged and found guilty of defrauding the Unemployment Compensation Commission.

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  • Mose Hodge — in the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 315 Finch, owned and valued at $600, tobacco company stemmer Moses Hodge, 27; wife Macy, 20, tobacco company stemmer; children Loula, 7, and Connie Lee, 2; and mother Lula, 71. In 1940, Moses Jack Hodge registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 22 October 1912 in Durham, N.C.; his contact was wife Macy Thompson Hodge; he lived at 315 Finch Street; and he worked for Farmers Oil Company, Barnes Street.
  • William Henry Thomas — in 1940, William Henry Thomas registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 21 August 1918 in Wilson; lived at 524 South Lodge Street; his contact was wife Margaret Obery Thomas; and he worked for Export Tobacco Company.
  • Burley Ford — in the 1930 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farmer Burley Ford, 27, and wife Mary, 28.
  • Lela Hines — in the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 208 South Vick, owned and valued at $1000, Raiford McPhail, 75, janitor at Fidelity building, widower; lodger Robert Sherdon, 50, carpenter; and lodger Lela Hines, 45, laundress at laundry.
  • Emma Crosland
  • Theodore Bell 
  • William “Tweet” Ellis
  • Cleo Barber — in the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 6-8 Daniel, rented for $7/month, Sam Clarke, 32, electrician at “town department”; Cleo Barber, 29, lodger, tobacco factory hanger; and “lodger’s son” Maskar Barber, 13.

Lane Street Project: O’Neal Cemetery, Hampton, Georgia.

Though I will always be of Wilson, I have lived in Atlanta nearly all of my adult life. It is very much “home” for me, too, and is a bottomless well of African-American culture and history that often informs the way I process research and work related to Black Wide-Awake and Lane Street Project.

I’ve begun visiting metro Atlanta’s historic African-American burial grounds. How have they weathered exploding population growth, shifting demographics, outmigration, land loss, and other pressures? The ninth in a series — O’Neal African Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery in Hampton, Georgia.

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During all the time I’ve been in Atlanta, I’ve never been to Atlanta Motor Speedway. Getting to O’Neal required that I skirt the racetrack’s hulking oval on an access road that dead-ended into Lower Woolsey Road. Flaggers controlled that intersection, the first glimpse of the massive construction project that has the cemetery in a chokehold. Traffic was being funneled through a single lane that crept past the site of what will be yet another enormous data center in Henry County.

After a half-mile or so, I spotted O’Neal A.M.E. just inside the tree edge. The church was founded during the early Reconstruction years by freedmen, but this building — or its shell, anyway — may date somewhat later. I’m not a student of African-American vernacular building practices, but it appears to be constructed primarily of a cement stucco over an irregular wall built from chunks of quartz and other fieldstone. There is also evidence of bricks used to form lintels over the windows and to outline a faux arch over the front entrance. Without doubt, O’Neal was built with the congregation’s collective labor, using materials ready to hand.

O’Neal A.M.E. Church, front elevation. A few charred bits of wood found in a rear addition to the main structure suggest a devastating fire. 

Through the front window looking back toward the nave. There are no internal structures remaining.

The interior of the church.

The front portico, sealed with modern cinderblock.

Were the parallel lines visible at the top of this image made by a notched trowel?

A chunk of quartz encased in mortar in an exterior wall.

Across the road: what I came for. I scrambled up a five-foot embankment to gain the forest floor. Ahead of me, the remaining headstones of O’Neal church cemetery leaned and listed. The oldest marked grave dates to 1871; the last to the 1950s.

Most of the headstones I saw were professionally made and impressive. O’Neal clearly was a congregation with prosperous families.

Thomas A. Fortson’s monument.

“Prof. Thomas A. Fortson A.M. Ph.D. Was Born Jan. 1, 1854 And Died May 13, 1901. He Was Charitable.” Georgia native Fortson is listed as a teacher in the 1900 census of Nashville, Tennessee. He taught at Walden University, formerly known as Central Tennessee College, which housed Meharry Medical College.

Rows of head and foot stones.

Ceasar Fortson Mảr. 29, 1830 June 30, 1900 Gone, But Not Forgotten. Fortson appears in the 1900 census of nearby Woolsey district, Spalding County.

William G. Alexander. Aug. 11, 1902 May 17, 1909 A little time on earth he spent. Till God for him His angel sent. (In the background, you can just see the orange safety fencing separating O’Neal cemetery from the data center construction site, which wraps around it on three sides.)

A broken vault cover.

Y’all know I love a vernacular headstone. There’s a cross carved into the top section; then 1925 in the middle; then OLLIE, a pierced heart, BORN OCT. 3 1900, [illegible]. 

An ornamental wire fence outlining a family plot.

Fieldstone markers.

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2026.

Map of the Town of Wilson, 1928.

Here’s a closer look at East Wilson. The streets north of Vance, except Lipscomb, were white residential, as were Railroad Street and Pettigrew Street (not labeled) south of Nash.

Town limits ran just behind Darden (then Wilson Colored) High School at roughly today’s Blakewood Street; south roughly along today’s Wainwright Street to Nash Street (at Freeman Round House Museum); then at a diagonal across Finch, Lane, New Bern Streets, etc.

Note School Street (named for the Colored Graded School), which became Elvie Street.

Just west of the railroad were a working-class white neighborhood centered along Factory Street (which no longer exists) and a working-class black neighborhood, Happy Hills, centered at Banks and Lodge.

Town of Wilson (1928), Maps, Wilson County Records, North Carolina State Archives.

Get to know your people; or, it’s reunion season.

Effenus Henderson (left) is an internationally known human resources and diversity thought leader. Wade J. Henderson (right) is, among other things, former president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. About 15 years ago, the two met at National Urban League conference.

“You’re from North Carolina?,” asked Wade. “My father was from Wilson.”

“You need to talk to Lisa,” said Effenus.

Wade did. And in 2016, there we all were, in Dudley, North Carolina — birthplace of our grandparents — at the Henderson Family Reunion.

Wade’s grandfather Jesse “Jack” Henderson and my great-grandmother Bessie Lee Henderson were siblings. Jack came to Wilson around 1908, and my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks, Bessie’s orphaned daughter, arrived a few years later. Wade’s father Dempsey Lee Henderson was born in Wilson in 1927, and my father Rederick C. Henderson in 1934.

——

Is your Wilson County-based family having a reunion this summer? I’d love to feature it here — and add your reunion flyer or program to my collection!

Photo in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson, 2016.

Haywood Sauls and wife Betsey Sauls vs. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company.

In May 1911, Betsey Sauls took the extraordinary step of suing Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company for serious injuries she suffered at Black Creek depot. The law firm of James H. Pou and William A. Finch, well-known in the state for their high-profile civil and criminal litigation, filed on her behalf (and her husband Haywood Sauls‘, as was required by law for married women at the time.)

In a nutshell, on 3 May 1909, Betsey Sauls bought a train ticket to travel from Wilson to Black Creek. The train overshot the depot at Black Creek, but announced “All off for Black Creek!” as usual. As Sauls attempted to disembark, she fell from the train and was injured.

Pou and Finch asserted that by stopping beyond the usual location, Sauls was forced to step down from an excessive height and near a side track with sharp, exposed sills (the long, heavy timbers used as a foundation for crossties.) As Sauls stepped down, the train suddenly began to move backward, throwing Sauls to the ground.

Pou and Finch further asserted that A.C.L.R.R. had failed to provide a stepstool customarily provided for older passengers faced with a higher-than-usual descent.

Sauls was 65 to 70 years old, was “corpulent,” and not used to train travel. The knee injuries she sustained were serious, painful, and — she believed — permanent. She had difficulty walking and sleeping, could not work, and was forced to use a stick or crutch. She also had back and hip pain.

Sauls was now “an invalid and sufferer” of both physical and mental anguish. She could not visit family, friends, or church and had incurred considerable expense for medical treatment.

Sauls sought $5000 in damages.

In a brief, spare decision, the judge G.S. Ferguson awarded Sauls $500 (roughly $17,000 in 2026 dollars.)

Civil Action Papers, Wilson County (N.C.) Court Records (1909), http://www.familysearch.org.

600 East Green Street, re-re-revisited.

The J.D. and Eleanor Reid house has been in distress for decades, as shown in these photos taken for the East Wilson Historic District nomination process.

N.87-12-269-271, Judge D. Reid House, 600 E. Green Street, East Wilson Historic District, Wilson, Wilson County, Survey and National Register Branch, State Historic Preservation Office.

Young Kent struck and killed by automobile.

Greensboro Daily News, 17 May 1939.

The “Wilson County negro” was a nine year-old boy.

Ned Kent was born 1 January 1930 in Wilson County to Isiah Kent and Clyde Pettieford; lived at Route 1, Wilson; and was a student. He was taken to Woodard-Herring Hospital, where he was pronounced dead of a fractured skull.

Haywood Sauls passes century mark?

Winston-Salem (N.C.) Sentinel, 15 October 1923.

Claims of ages of one hundred or more raise my eyebrow. They are unreliable enough to warrant cross-checking with other sources.

Tracing Haywood Sauls proved an unexpected challenge. Available records reveal more than one man named Haywood Sauls in the area.

Lee H. Sauls claimed Haywood was born 17 February 1821 according to family records. (Do those records still exist???) Lee Sauls’ grandfather Etheldred Sauls (1801-1859) lived in the Nahunta area of northeastern Wayne County, but had close ties just across the county line in Black Creek township. Etheldred Sauls executed a will and died in 1859. The will named 19 enslaved people, including Haywood, whose age was not listed. Haywood was allotted to Etheldred’s son Lawrence J. Sauls for the benefit of daughter Elizabeth Sauls Becton.

On 29 August 1866, formerly enslaved Haywood Sauls and Fannie Newsome registered their four-year cohabitation in Wayne County, North Carolina. Another Haywood Sauls registered a 40-year cohabitation with Lidia Sherrard in the same county on 2 September 1866.

In 1868, James P. Hooks, son of Solomon and Sarah Hooks, married Mariah Sauls, daughter of Hawood and Silvey Sauls, in Wayne County. James P. Hooks changed his name to Patrick Sherrod by the 1870 census. He, Mariah, and a child lived next door to “Howard,” 80, and Lindy Sauls, 65, in Goldsboro, Wayne County, that year. I believe Howard and Lindy are the Haywood and Lidia who married in September 1866. By 1880, Howard/Haywood apparently was deceased, but Sidney Sauls is listed with Patrick and Maria Sherrod. Celia Williams may have been another of this Haywood. She died 20 November 1913 in Township #13, Edgecombe County. Per her death certificate, she was born 20 November 1851 in Wayne County to Hawood Sauls and Sidney Sherod. This Haywood Sauls does not appear to be the man referred to in the article.

In 1874, Haywood Sauls and his wife Fannie were named among the heirs of his father-in-law Elijah Cox.

In the 1880 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: wagon driver Haywood Sauls, 46, and wife Fannie, 56.

Fannie apparently died 1880-1890 and, on 12 April 1890, Haywood Sauls and Lishia Yelverton were married in Wayne County.

Lishia died soon after and, on 23 May 1893, Haywood Sauls, 50, of Black Creek township, and Bettie Saunders, 45, were married at Haywood Sauls’ residence in Black Creek.

In the 1900 census of Fremont, Nahunta township, Wayne County: farmer Haywood Sauls, 66; wife Bettie, 53; and daughter Delber, 15.

In the 1910 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farmer Haywood Sauls, 74, and wife Betsey, 60.

In May 1912, Betsey Sauls executed a will leaving her property to her husband Haywood Sauls and son Frank Sanders. [Betsey Sauls had received a significant settlement in a tort suit a few years prior. More about this later.]

Bettie/Betsey Sauls died within months, and her husband quickly remarried. On 5 September 1912, Haywood Sauls, 77, of Wayne County, married Frances Davis, 40, of Wayne County, in Fremont, Nahunta township, Wayne County.

In the 1920 census of Buck Swamp township, Wayne County, N.C.: farmer Marcellus Sauls, 53; wife Fannie, 46; and father Haywood, 83, widower. [Marcellus Sauls died 19 December 1937 in Cross Roads township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was 70 years old

Over the next few years, a few human-interest articles appeared in North Carolina newspapers noting Haywood Sauls’ great age and revealing his penchant for baseball and the Tobs. One mentions Sauls selling photographs of himself at the 1923 Wilson County fair. (Do any survive??)

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 11 October 1923.

Wilson Mirror, 21 October 1924.

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 27 April 1925. 

Greensboro (N.C.) Daily News, 29 April 1925.

Heywood Sauls died 8 January 1927 in the Wilson County Home, Wilson township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was 101 years old; was a widower; and was buried in Wilson County.

Sauls’ death certificate places his birth in 1825, a few years after the February 1821 claim. However, census and marriage records indicate a birth year between 1834 and 1843, averaging 1836. This would have made Haywood Sauls actually about 90 when he died in early 1927, still an extraordinary age for a man who’d grown to adulthood in slavery.

“Our loss is heaven’s gain”: a tribute to Sallie Barbour.

Wilson Daily Times, 29 April 1942.

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  • Sallie Barbour
  • Nancy Wilkins
  • Magnolia Farmer — in the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 207 East Street, Robert Farmer, 48, Farmers Cotton Oil laborer; wife Magnolia, 45; and daughter Marion Z., 16, washing and ironing..