In 1880, seven of the 22 paupers living in Wilson County’s poorhouse were African-American — Cary Williams, 65; Sampson Odam (“sore leg”), 89; David Rountree, 75; Mary Applewhite, 50; Mourning Privett, 52; Sallie Selby, 54; and Doublin Short, 75. Rountree appears in the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County, as a 67 year-old farm laborer living alone. The others’ whereabouts in 1870 are unclear.
The Ward-Applewhite-Thompson House is a historic plantation home located near Stantonsburg, Wilson County’s oldest incorporated town. It was built about 1859 and is a boxy two-story, three-bay, double-pile, Greek Revival-style frame dwelling. It has a shallow hipped roof and wrap-around Colonial Revival style porch with Doric order columns added about 1900. Attached to the rear of the house is a gable roofed one-story kitchen connected by a breezeway.
“Country doctor” David G.W. Ward bought the property in 1857 and probably built the house two years later. (In the 1890s, his heirs sold it to heirs of W.H. Applewhite.) Situated on the confluence of Whiteoak and Goss Swamps, the old road to the coast (now Highway 58), and Contentnea Creek, the county’s only navigable waterway, “this well-watered, flat an fertile tract … was a prime site for the home of an important planter.” D.G.W. Ward, who was also a farmer and merchant and was active in local civic and social affairs, was such a man.
Though he could hardly have worked his vast acreage otherwise, as usual, the Nomination Form glosses over Ward’s slave ownership. In a discussion of his residency, a footnote mentions that Ward is listed with 46 slaves in the 1850 Greene County slave schedule. In the 1860 census of Greene, he is credited with owning 54. Among them were Sarah Ward and her children Henry, Mittie and Appie, who were his children, too. Ward owned extensive property in both counties and likely maintained quarters in both. Certainly, his slaves labored across county lines.
Ward-Applewhite-Thompson house, February 2014.
The Civil War set D.G.W. Ward back, but not for long. When he died in 1887, he stood possessed of more than 1900 acres in Wilson and Greene Counties.
Wilson Advance, 22 August 1889.
For a personal account of my history with this house, see here.
I am fairly certain that this plat lies in east Elm City at or near the Highway 301 interchange, but I do not know the exact location.
First Missionary Baptist Church of Elm City is an African-American congregation dating back to 1875.
Willie Jake Harris (1916-1974) was the son of Will and Neely Bynum Harris. His wife Annie Mae Harris was born about 1921.
Mary Bynum, born about 1897, married Marcellus Lawrence in 1915 in Wilson County.
Johnnie Hagans (1904-1993) was the son of Biscoe and Vesta Mae Joyner Hagans. He married Carrie Battle in 1926 in Wilson County.
Walter Clyde Whitehead (1909-1969) was a white businessman and school board member in Elm City.
Plat Book 4, page 135, Wilson County Register of Deeds.
I, Arch Daniel, of the County of Wilson State of North Carolina being of Sound mind and Memory but considering the uncertainty of my Earthly Existance, do make and declare This my last Will and Testament and form Following to Wit
To Say
First that my Executor Hearafter named shall provide for My Body a decent burial Suite to the wishes of my Relations and friends and pay all funeral Expenses to gather with my Just Debtes to those and to Whomsoever owing out of Monies that may first come into his hands as a part or parcel of my estate to satisfy all of Debtes at my death
Item Firste
I give and divide to my Beloved wife Learh all of my Tract of Land whear I live containing of Sixty acres more or Less I give my said wife Learh all of personal property of Each and of Every Kind to the value of five cents that I may be in possession of at my death to have and to hold the life time and widowhood
Item Second
I give and Bequeath to [her?] Bodily heirs after the Death of my Self and wife all of my real estate and All of my Personall property to be Equal devided a monge the aforesaid heirs If They can be heard from at that time It is my will that there be no division in any of my Estate less than ten years to give my heirs that has not been heard from since the Surrender time to Come in for there equal parte of my Estates
And Lastly
I Do hearby constitute and appoint my friend Thos. A. Thompson my lawful Executor to all intents and purposes to execute this my last Will and testament acording to the true intent and meaning of the Same and every part and claim There of nearby revoking and declairing utterly avoid all other wills and testaments bye me Before maid
In witness whearfore I the Said Arch Daniel hereunto Set my hand and Seal this 29th day of March A.D. 1875 Arch (X) Daniel {seal}
Signed Sealed published and Delivered bye the Said Arch Daniel and to be last will and testament In the presents of us who at his Requests and in his presents do Subscribe our naims as witnesses Thereunto /s/ Elias Barnes, M.V. Pate
——
Arch Daniel and Leah Daniel had been married 35 years when they registered their cohabitation in Wilson County on 27 August 1866. In the 1870 census of Crossroads township, Wilson County, 65 year-old farm laborer Arch Daniel and 54 year-old wife Leah shared their home with Isaac, 12, and Margrett Daniel, 8. The children were likely their grandchildren.
Isaac Daniel, 21, married Zillah Odum, 21, on 14 March 1875 at Black Creek. Fifteen days later, ten years after Emancipation, Arch Daniel made out his will.
Margaret Daniel, 16, married Lenard Barnes, 23, on 3 May 1877 at Arch Daniel’s home. Arch died not long after, and his will was proven in court on 18 July 1877. Apparently, none of his lost children returned, and Leah Daniel and Rebecca Pate were declared his sole heirs. Leah remained on the land and is listed in the 1880 census of Crossroads township with grandson Wm. Henry Pate, 7.
Rebecca Pate, widow of Richard Pate and daughter of Arch and Lear Daniel, died in 1935 in Crossroads at the reputed (and exaggerated) age of 108.
Isaac Daniel died 1937 in Crossroads. His death certificate lists his birthday as 10 January 1857 and his parents as Archie Daniel (who was actually likely his grandfather) and Rebecca Pate. It also lists two deceased wives, Polly Ann Artis and Katherine Pace. (But not Zillah Odum.)
North Carolina, Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998 [database on-line], Ancestry.com.
[I come across a lot of painful material in researching for this blog, but this about broke my heart. A decade after Emancipation, Arch Daniel’s will requests that his estate settlement be delayed ten years in order to give his children — lost in the slave trade — time to come home. — LYH]
Frank Lincoln Mather, ed., Who’s Who of the Colored Race, vol. 1 (1915).
Hill’s Wilson, N.C., City Directory, 1916-17.
State assistant agent for Negro schools William F. Credle prepared this 1926 report on Wilson County’s Rosenwald schools. Yelverton School was in far eastern Wilson County, just northeast of Saratoga in the protruding corner formed by the boundaries with Edgecombe and Greene Counties. Evansdale, presumably, was in Evansdale community, a few miles northeast of Black Creek and north-northwest of Stantonsburg. New Vester, presumably, was at or near New Vester Missionary Baptist Church, northwest of Rock Ridge in the western part of the county. Saratoga and Stantonsburg Schools were located in their eponymous towns.
For a history of the establishment of Wilson County’s 14 Rosenwald schools and a comprehensive assessment of the two remaining, Sims and Yelverton, see this report.
Department of Public Instruction, Division of Negro Education, Correspondence of the Superintendent, Rosenwald Fund, State Archives of North Carolina [available at http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/ref/collection/p16062coll13/id/288]
Wilson News, 21 September 1899.
Ignore the snark, which was par for the course for newspapers covering African-American social and cultural events. This is a fascinating peek into early East Wilson’s social circles.
Monroe N. Work, Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the American Negro, 1918-1919.
Wilson Daily Times, 24 October 1910.
Carpenter Gray A. Farmer married Argent R. Blount on 15 March 1876 at Smith Knight’s residence in Wilson County. The couple had at least seven children: Eleanor J. Farmer Hooker (1876-1944), Charlie Gray Farmer (1878-??), Rosa Farmer McCollum (1884-1947), Roberta Farmer, Gladys Farmer (1888-1910), Bernice Farmer Hooker Suber (1890-??), and Hattie Farmer (1891-??). Gray Farmer died circa 1892. Argent Farmer apparently died about 1910.
Very literally, in the case of East Wilson.
This map is borrowed, with all credit due, from the website of Preservation of Wilson, a non-profit organization working to revitalize Wilson’s architectural and cultural heritage.
