The seventeenth in a series of posts highlighting buildings in East Wilson Historic District, a national historic district located in Wilson, North Carolina. As originally approved, the district encompasses 858 contributing buildings and two contributing structures in a historically African-American section of Wilson. (A significant number have since been lost.) The district was developed between about 1890 to 1940 and includes notable examples of Queen Anne, Bungalow/American Craftsman, and Shotgun-style architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

As described in the nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District, this house is: “ca. 1908; 1 story; John Blount House; triple-A cottage with bracketed porch posts; Blount was a barber.”

John Blount, 24, married Jane Bryant, 21, on 4 March 1886, at Caroline Vick‘s in Wilson. E.H. Ward, Missionary Baptist minister performed the ceremony in the presence of Vick, Julius Watkins and Bettie Rountree.

In the 1900 census of Goldsboro, Wayne County: on William Street, John Blount, 38, and wife Jane, 35.

John Blount is listed in the 1908, 1912 and 1916 Wilson city directories as a barber living at 206 Pender. The 1912 directory lists his work address as 422 East Nash.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Hagarty Street [briefly, the name of Pender Street], barber John Blount, 48, wife Mary J., 44, and son Walter, 9.

John Blount died 29 October 1917 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born in 1863 in Greene County to Wright and H. Blunt and worked as a barber. Informant was J.W. Blunt.

In the 1920 Wilson city directory, Jane Blount is listed as a domestic living at 206 Pender Street.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 305 North Pender Street, Julius Parker, 50, coal company laborer; wife Mollie, 42; and children Pearl Mae, 23, and James O., 19.  In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory, Julius Parker is listed at 305 Pender with wife Mollie. His occupation was driver for Carolina Builders Supply Corp. Son James L. Parker, a student, had a separate listing at 305 Pender. (Julius Parker, 20, son of Jason and Annis Parker, married Mollie Ricks, 18, daughter of A. and Cherry Ricks, in Toisnot township on 25 December 1913. Elder B.W. Tippett, a Freewill Baptist minister, performed the ceremony at Jason Parker’s in the presence of S.S. Strickland, H.F. Boswell and Mc. Whitehead.)

In the 1959 and 1963 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city director Herman W. Edwards was listed as the occupant of 305 North Pender Street. His descendants own and occupy the house today.

Photograph taken by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2017.