Month: November 2019

I never drove off any.

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Wilson N.C. Dec 22 1865.

Capt. G.O. Glavis, Capt.

I have received your communication by the hands of Mary. I of course do not know what kind of statement has been made to you; but I will make one myself. I have settled with all my employees to their satisfaction. As soon as it was announced that negroes were free I offered wages to those who could earn anything, and expressly told the others I could not give them wages, among these were Mary and Sukey. Mary had 3 children and she was not fit for steady hard work. She was worked as she saw fit. One of her children was sick one month during summer. I employed a physician to attend him, during all this time the mother did not go to work at all. I furnished their diet, houses and all their clothes until they left. The other Sukey has two children and an aged grandfather & mother the last two have not worked for a great many years, and this grand daughter spent a good deal of her time in attention upon them & her children.

I further state that I never drove off any. Who have gone did so of their own accord.

Respectfully &c., J.H. Adams

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In the 1860 slave schedule of Wilson County, North Carolina, Jesse H. Adams is listed as the owner of 31 enslaved people living in six dwellings. In the population census, Adams is described as a farmer, but he was also proprietor of the newly opened Adams Hotel.

I am unable to identify Mary, Sukey or their families.

North Carolina Freedmen’s Bureau Field Office Records, 1863-1872, Goldsboro (subassistant commissioner), Roll 16, Unregistered Letters Received Aug 1865-Feb 1868, http://www.familysearch.org

Sepia Serenade.

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Wilson Daily Times, 7 September 1948.

In this Historymakers.org interview, educator/musician/poet Carl W. Hines Jr. spoke of his early musical influences in Wilson: “I discovered rhythm and blues early in my youth and in my hometown, there was one station that played Black music for an hour or two during the day. CPS [Sepia] Serenade was the name of the program, and us teenagers would listen to [Sepia] Serenade during that time, and then we would listen to Nashville, Tennessee, Randy’s Record Mart [WLAC], I don’t know if you know about that, but, this was the days before rock and roll, so, we would listen to Randy’s Record Mart late at night, and we would hear rhythm and blues, the Black music of the day.”

Sepia Serenade was one of two radio shows hosted by Theodore “Ted” Hooker, first on WVOT, then WGTM by the early 1950s. Hooker was Wilson’s first African-American on-air personality, and his one-hour programs were first to showcase “race music.”

Sent to the roads.

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Wilson Times, 17 November 1911.

In this follow-up to “Teck got shot,” we get a close look at the way justice was administered (and reported upon) in 1911.

First, the Times flatly pronounced Herbert “Goldie” Horton guilty of shooting Ed Walker. The trial, however, had been on the charge of carrying a concealed weapon. The “trial for shooting … Walker will be deferred until Ed. recovers or dies.” On the basis of testimony from Jake Tucker, Annie Lewis and Elijah Saunders — testimony that sounds much more relevant to the shooting than mere concealed carry — Wilson’s mayor convicted Horton and sentenced him to four months on a road gang.

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  • Herbert Horton
  • Edward Walker
  • Jake Tucker — Jacob Tucker was also a key witness in the inquest into the homicide of James A. Hunt and the robbery of Neverson Green‘s grocery.
  • Annie Lewis — perhaps, in the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 555 Spruce Street, Ed Lewis, 49, odd jobs laborer; wife Nancy, 37, private family cook; sister Sue, 19, factory laborer; and daughter Annie, 16, private family cook.
  • Elijah Saunders

Efficient, painstaking and polite superintendent marries.

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Wilson Mirror, 19 November 1890.

Frank Oscar Blount married Nettie Amanda Steward in Philadelphia in 1890.

Nettie S. Blount of 926 Lombard Street, aged about 30, died 2 April 1892 in Philadelphia. She was buried in Philadelphia’s Lebanon Cemetery.

The estate of W.E.J. Shallington (or: “Hines has gone to the Yankees.”)

When Dr. W.E.J. Shallington died without a will at the end of 1860, his widow Sarah Shallington relinquished her right to administer his estate to David L. Hardy. The Shallingtons had minor children, and Hardy had the unenviable task of managing the estate to provide income for the family during the entirety of the Civil War.

Dr. Shallington held six people in slavery, and on Christmas Eve Hardy hired all of them out through 1 January 1862. Willis went to William Hamlet for $156.00; Hines to Gray B. Sharp for $60.00; Ann to widow Shallington for the nominal sum of $1.00; and Critty and her two children to Hamlet for $31.00. J.D. Rountree rented the Shallingtons’ house and lot in Wilson for $15.00

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Though the account is not in the estate file, Hardy likely rented out the group 2 January 1862 through 1 January 1863 as well. The process repeated on 2 January 1863, with Willis, Hines, and Critty and her children going to J.H. Bullock and Ann remaining with Sarah Shallington. George Barefoot rented the house and lot at a cut rate.

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The following year, the hiring out took place at Joyner’s Depot [Elm City] for the period of 28 December 1864 to 28 December 1865. (Or so the parties intended. Events at Appomattox would intervene.) Willis, Critty and her children went to Jordan Winstead at inflated rates (reflected also in the house rental); Ann, to Sarah Shallington. Hines, perhaps smelling freedom in the air, had “gone to the Yankees.”

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With no enslaved labor to tap as a resource, by 1869 D.L. Hardy’s account of rentals contained a single line item: “6 March 1869, To amt rec’d for rent for house & lot from David Strickland cold. [colored] to Jany 1st 1870 $14.00. The house was vacant for 2 months as I could not rent it out at the 1st Jany 1869 on satisfactory terms.” Strickland renewed his lease on 1 January 1870 at an increase of four dollars a month.

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In the 1860 census of Coopers township, Wilson County: Roda Shallington, 69; [daughter-in-law] Sarah, 36; and Mary Ann, 15, Caroline, 12, and Fredrick Shallington, 1. Roda claimed $5000 in personal property, and the rest of the Shallingtons, $3800. (This constant amount likely represented their (anticipated) inheritance from recently deceased W.E.J. Shallington.)

In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: David Strickland, 30, farm laborer; wife Fillis, 28; and children Isaac, 2, Amanda, 12, and Samuel Strickland, 8; William Farmer, 1; and Jane Mosely, 9.

There are no Shallingtons, black or white, listed in the 1870 census of Wilson County. (In fact, I have found none of the men and women listed in W.E.J. Shallington’s estate using the surname Shallington.) However, in the 1880 census of North Wilson township, Wilson County, widow Sallie Shallington, 55, is listed as a member of an otherwise African-American household: Aaron Edmundson, 31, well digger; wife Ann, 26; and their children Earnest, 5, and Hattie, 3. (The census taker, perhaps startled by the unexpected arrangement, wrote a W over the B he initially recorded for her race. Also, this may be the Ann hired out above, if that Ann were a child.)

Estate Records of W.E.J. Shallington, North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.

Dr. Ward challenged Jim Crow.

Indiana History Blog published Nicole Poletika’s detailed look at Dr. Joseph H. Ward‘s role in challenging segregation as the head of Tuskegee, Alabama’s Veterans Hospital No. 91 in the 1920s and ’30s.

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Dr. Ward is on the front row, center (next to the nurse) in this 1933 photograph of Veterans Hospital staff.  Photo courtesy of VA History Highlights, “First African American Hospital Director in VA History,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

For more on Dr. Ward, who was born in Wilson about 1869, see here and here and here and here and here.

[Sidenote: Dr. Ward was not born to “impoverished parents” per the article, though it is possible that he himself gave this gloss on his early life. Rather, his father was Napoleon Hagans, a prosperous freeborn farmer in nearby Wayne County, and his mother was Mittie Ward, a young freedwoman whose family moved into town after Emancipation from the plantation of Dr. David G.W. Ward near Stantonsburg.]

Hat tip to Zella Palmer for pointing me to this article. She is Dr. Ward’s great-granddaughter, and they are my cousins.

State v. Moses Bynum and Martha Snead (1870).

In August 1870, Moses Bynum, with J.W. Smith, posted a bond to insure Bynum’s appearance in Wilson County court to face an adultery charge.

Jack Privett and Jinsey Privett were subpoenaed to appear as witnesses against Bynum and Martha Snead.

In the 1870 census of Cross Roads township, Wilson County: South Carolina-born farm laborer Jack Privett, 40; wife Quincy, 32 [probably Jincey]; and daughter Malvinia, 4; plus Adeler Privett, 18, and her likely children Jane, 3, and Eli, 9 months.

Laura Sneed, 19, of Wilson County, daughter of Moses Bynum and [illegible] Bynum, married Burnis Hinnant, 21, of Wilson County, son of Amos Hinnant and Lindy Hinnant, on 3 September 1888 at Henry Dudley’s residence in Cross Roads township.

Mollie Hinnant died 4 August 1954 in Kenly, Johnston County. Per her death certificate, she was born 11 September 1878 in Wilson County to Moses Bynum and Martha Snead and was a widow. Mrs. Lossie Shaw was informant. [Her marriage license and the 1910 census of Cross Roads township, Wilson County, suggest that Laura “Mollie” Bynum Hinnant was in fact born about 1869, which is consistent with her parents’ prosecution.]

Adultery Records –1870, Miscellaneous Records, Records of Wilson County, North Carolina State Archives.

The estate of William Woodard.

Having “sworn on the holy Evangelist of Almighty God,” on 10 December 1851, three commissioners met at Elizabeth Woodard’s house to divide William Woodard’s enslaved property — consisting of 55 men, women and children — among his heirs.

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Lot no. 1, drawn by Elizabeth Woodard — Amy $500, Liz $150, Lewis $250, Mary $350, Harry $400, Dennis $100, Plas [Pleasant] $400, Jim $500, Sarah $450, Siller $50, and Mintus $75.

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Lot no. 2, drawn by Patience Woodard — Esther $200, Mandy $350, Thain $350, Randol $100, Rachel $500, Tom $700, Ned $450, Nancy $500, Sal [$0] and Richard [$0].

Lot no. 3, drawn by William Woodard — Piety $550, Charlot $550, Ben $700, Jenny $150, Mariah $300, Hiliard $300, Mintus Jr. $100, Jonathan $500, and Edy $350.

Lot no. 4, drawn by Warren Woodard — Bont [Blount] $800, Peggy $500, Vinus $125, Alford $600, John $400, Cherry $500, and Jessy $400.

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Lot no. 5, drawn by James Woodard — Morris $700, Gray $400, George $650, Silva $500, Rody $550, Amos $125, London $150, and Harriet $100.

Lot no. 6, drawn by Calvin Woodard — Rose Jr. $200, Rose Sr. $200, Elizer $500, Arch $750, Liberty $700, Dark $500, Beck $200, Phereby $200, Ned $100, and Simon $100.

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The houses of William Woodard and his extended family today form the Woodard Family Rural Historic District. As noted here, the 55 enslaved people listed in William Woodard’s inventory did not include all the family’s slaves. Also, though some of the lots may have included groupings of mothers with young children, it is clear that some small children were separated from their nuclear families. Most adults were married to spouses enslaved by a different owner.

Here are the families I have been able to identify among William Woodard’s enslaved and their whereabouts in the years after Emancipation.

  • Rose Woodard Artis and her children John, Jesse, Gray, Ned and Tamar

Rose Woodard was allotted to Calvin Woodard; her free husband Arch Artis is listed as a member of that household in 1860. Evidence concerning this family was set forth here. Based on her age, Rose likely had more than the five children I have identified. Ned, who was about 5, was allotted to Calvin Woodard as well. John and Jesse, who were likely a few years older, went to Warren Woodard, and Gray, to James Woodard. Tamar Woodard, then about 4, is not listed in the distribution.

  • Pleasant Woodard and sons Lewis and Harry

Pleasant Woodard and her sons were allotted to Elizabeth Woodard.

On 7 December 1867, Lewis Woodard, son of Louis Shallington and Pleasant Woodard, married Bathsheba Tyson, daughter of Blount Petteway and Netty Ellis, at Saint Timothy’s in Wilson.

In the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Lewis Woodard, 25; wife Tebetha [Bathsheba], 24; and son Henry, 6.

On an unspecified date in 1867, Harry Woodard, son of Lewis Shalington and Pleasant Woodard, married Dellah Woodard, daughter of Ben Woodard and Phereba Woodard, in Wilson County.

In the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer

  • Easter Woodard and daughter Peggy

Easter Woodard was allotted to Patience Woodard; her daughter Peggy Woodard to Warren Woodard.

On 13 March 1870, Peggy Woodard, daughter of Easter Woodard, married Ebenezer McGowan, at Warren Woodard’s in Wilson County.

  • Mintus Woodard

The designation “Jr.” in this list seems to have meant “younger” rather than a parent-child relationship. I have no evidence of the relationship between Mintus Jr. and the Mintus distributed to Elizabeth Woodard (who was either very young or very old, judging by his assigned value).

On 29 December 1866, Mentus Woodard married Sarah Barnes in Wilson County.

In the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Mentus Woodard, 22; wife Sarah, 20; and children John, 2, and Lawyer, 2 months. (William Woodard Jr. was next door.)

In the 1880 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Permentus Woodard, 31; wife Sarah, 31; and children John, 12, Lawyer, 8, Cora, 6, London, James, and George, .

  • Hilliard Woodard

On 11 January 1868, Hillard Woodard, son of Mose Barnes and Winney Woodard, to Rose Ellis, daughter of Benjamin Bynum and Netty Bynum, at William Woodard’s.

In the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Hilliard Woodard, 25, and wife Rose, 20.

  • Jonathan Woodard

Jonathan Woodard and Margrett Woodard registered their 10-year cohabitation on 15 August 1866.

In the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Johnathan Woodard, 38; wife Margarett, 27; and children Everett, 9, Gray, 7, Sarah, 6, Amos, 3, Emma, 2, and Minnie, 2 months.

  • Rhoda Woodard and children Amos, London and Harriet

Rhoda Woodard and her children Amos, London, aged about 4, and Harriet, about 1, were allotted to James Woodard. Rhoda married Howell Woodard, son of famed Primitive Baptist preacher London Woodard and his first wife, Venus.

In the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Howell Woodard, 52; wife Rodah, 40; and children London, 23, Harriet, 20, Venus, 19, Ferebee, 17, Virginia, 17, Mary, 14, Sarah, 13, Penelope, 12, Rodah, 10, Puss, 6, John, 8, Kenny, 5, Fanny, 1, and Martha, 1 month.

On 19 January 1872, Amos Woodard, son of Howell and Rhoda Woodard, married Fanny Barnes in the Town of Wilson.

  • Morrison Woodard

Morrison Woodard and Martha Thorn registered their 16-year cohabitation in Wilson County on 31 August 1866.

In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: carpenter Morrison Woodard, 47, wife Martha, 32, and children Nancy, 18, Arche, 17, Cherry, 15, Rosa, 13, Frances, 8, Jane, 7, John, 4, Martha, 1, and Mary, 2 months.

In the 1880 census of Wilson township (south of the Plank Road), Wilson County: farmer Morrison Woodard, 56, wife Martha, 45, and children Frances, 17, Jane, 15, John, 13, Martha, 11, Fena, 8, and Maggie, 3.

  • Blount Woodard

Blount Woodard and Dilcy Ruffin registered their 20-year cohabitation in Wilson County on 8 August 1866.

In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: Blount Woodard, 43, farm laborer; wife Dilsey, 60; and children Webster, 15, Nelly, 19, and Alice Woodard, 13; plus Eliza, 19, Haywood, 9, George, 4, Alice, 6, Willie, 1, Bettie, 7 months, and Lucy Ruffin, 2 months.

  • Rachel Woodard

Rachel Woodard and Harry Newsom registered their 10-year cohabitation in Wilson County on 31 August 1866.

  • Liberty Woodard

In the 1870 census of California township, Pitt County: Lib Woodard, farmhand; wife Charlotte, 35; and children Nancy, 17, Lorenda, 16, Lucinda, 6, Buck, 4, and Puss, 1 month.

On 24 June 1882, Liberty Woodard, age illegible, son of Liberty Woodard and [mother’s first name illegible] Woodard, married Rosa Dilda, age illegible, daughter of Curtis Cotten and Ann Scarborg, in Falkland township, Pitt County.

  • Charlotte Woodard

On 28 March 1866, Charlotte Woodard married Haywood Bynum in Wilson County.

In the 1870 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farm laborer Haywood Bynum, 35; wife Charlotte, 39; and daughter Virginia, 17.

  • Rose Woodard Jr.

As noted above, the designation “Jr.” in this list seems to have meant “younger” rather than a parent-child relationship. At this point, I have no evidence that Rose Jr. was the daughter of Rose Sr., above. I had believed Rose Jr. to be the Rose Woodard, 19, (daughter of Morrison and Martha Woodard), who married Arch Harris, 23, on 19 October 1876 in Wilson County and whose children are listed in the 1880 census of Stantonsburg township as James, 3, Martha, 1, and Morrison, 2 months. However, Rose Woodard Harris was born about 1857, much too late to have been included in William Woodard’s property distribution.

Estate Records of William Woodard, North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.