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

• On 25 February 1878, A.W. Jones paid K.M. Jones, executor of the estate of Milly Jones, $300 for a half-acre parcel in the town of Wilson on Nash Street east of the railroad adjoining the lots of William Smith and Garry Edmundson. The purchase was recorded in Deed Book 14, page 174, Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

Milly Jones was the mother of A. Wilson Jones and Kernel Morris Jones.

On 26 September 1872, Morris Jones married Amanda Gillespie in Wilson.  In the 1880 census of Wilson, Wilson County: baker Morris Jones, 25; wife Amanda, 25; son Franklin, 6; and boarder Rosa Galespie, 16, a washwoman. In the 1905 census of Newark, Essex County, New Jersey: Morris Jones, 40, laborer, and wife Amanda, 42. In the 1910 census of Newark, Essex County, New Jersey: Morris Jones, 60, garden laborer; wife Amanda, 57; and son Frank, 38, concrete company driver.

In the 1880 census of Town of Wilson, Wilson County: on Nash Street, Wilson Jones, 22, shoemaker.

• On 1 February 1880, Jordan Taylor paid John T. and Elizabeth Barnes $115 for a quarter-acre lot in Wilson township near the town of Wilson adjoining Peggy Farmer, John T. Barnes and others. The purchase was recorded in Deed Book 18, page 467, Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

There were at least two adult African American men named Jordan Taylor in Wilson in this period.

• On 28 December 1881, Walter Kersey paid C.C. and Sallie Peacock $40 for a 100′ by 135′ lot on Stantonsburg Road near the town of Wilson adjoining John A. Clark and “Henry Ward (col).” The purchase was recorded in Deed Book 18, page 65, Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

Walter Kersey later migrated to Indiana.

• On 27 January 1882, Noel Jones paid J.F. Eatman $228 for 45 acres in Old Fields township on the canal in “the Mill Stone Swamp.” The purchase was recorded in Deed Book 18, page 258, Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

In the 1880 census of Old Fields township, Wilson County: laborer Noel Jones, 34; wife Sarah, 32; and children Josiah, 13, Charity, 12, Edith J., 10, Noel J., 6, and Asberry, 6.

Per William Powell and Michael Hill’s North Carolina Gazetteer, 2nd ed., “Millstone Creek rises in nw Wilson County and flows e approx. 5 mi. to join Juniper Creek in forming Bloomery Swamp. Named prior to 1783 for the fact that millstones were made from a type of stone found there.”