The tenth in a series of posts highlighting the schools that educated African-American children outside the town of Wilson in the first half of the twentieth century. The posts will be updated; additional information, including photographs, is welcome.

Lofton School

Lofton School does not appear to have been a Rosenwald school.

Location: A 1936 state road map of Wilson County shows “Lofton” school on present-day Downing Road, just below Contentnea Creek.

Per sale advertised in the Wilson Daily Times for several weeks in the fall of 1951: “LOFTON COLORED SCHOOL in Black Creek Township, containing 1 3/4 acres, more or less, and more particularly described as follows: BEING on the Southerly side of the Aycock Road and the Westerly side of Contentnea Creek, just below the bridge; BEGINNING in the center of the road at the bridge, runs thence with and along the road South 73 degrees 45′ West 175.13 feet to an iron pin, a bend in the road, thence South 44 degrees 10′ West 317.58 to an iron pin, leaves the road and runs thence South 81 degrees 19′ East about 619 feet to the center of Contentnea Creek, thence with and along and up the line of said Creek to the point of beginning. Being the identical land described in a deed recorded in Book 108, at page 109, Wilson County Registry.”

Description: This school is not listed in The Public Schools of Wilson County, North Carolina: Ten Years 1913-14 to 1923-24, unless it is “Lovers” School, described as having “no house.” In such case, the school would have met in another building, such as a church. Clearly, however, there was a Lofton school building.

Known faculty: Annie Cooke Farmer Battle Dickens, Eloise Reavis Peacock.

Aerial view courtesy of Bing.com.