“I ran away & came to Newbern during war,” he said.

Solomon Edmundson was born in Greene County about 1846 and reared in Wilson County. At the time he applied for an account at the New Bern branch of the Freedmen’s Bank, he was working as a waiting man for George W. Nason at the post office. He had not seen his father Gerry since the war ended and was not sure whether he used the surname Edmundson or Lane. It is not clear where Solomon’s mother and siblings lived. However Solomon himself appears in the 1870, 1880 and 1900 censuses of New Bern, Craven County. In 1870, he was a 23 year-old hostler sharing a dwelling with Alexander Sears, 48, a white postal clerk. In 1880, he lived alone and worked as a bill poster. In 1900, he remained alone, working as a bill poster and carpet layer.

Freedmen’s Bank Records, 1865-1871 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.