In about 1861, the United States Coastal Survey issued a map showing the distribution of enslaved people throughout the South. As Susan Schulten noted in a 9 December 2010 piece called “Visualizing Slavery,” “[t]hough many Americans knew that dependence on slave labor varied throughout the South, these maps uniquely captured the complexity of the institution and struck a chord with a public hungry for information about the rebellion.”
Map Showing the Distribution of the Slave Population of the Southern States of the United StatesCompiled from the Census of 1860 —Sold for the Benefit of the Sick and Wounded Soldiers of the U. S. Army.
A close-up of eastern North Carolina shows that Wilson County, with a population 37% enslaved, lay at the western edge of the state’s heaviest band of slave-holding counties.
This headstone may mark the burial of someone who lived and died in slavery. It stands in a small cemetery in western Wilson County known to have been established for enslaved people and situated adjacent to the cemetery of the slaveowning family.
Though every large slaveholding farm probably had one, I know the exact location of only one cemetery in Wilson County established prior to the Civil War to hold the remains of enslaved people. (Please speak up if you can lead me to more.) Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick Cemeteries were not so-called slave cemeteries, but many men and women buried within them were born enslaved.
Five years after his death in India, Herbert Lee Simms‘ body was returned to Wilson for burial.
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In the 1930 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Marcella [Marcellus] Simms, 30; wife Tempie, 30; and children Annie M., 7, Herbert L., 5, and Guthra [Gertrude] M., 2.
In the 1940 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: cotton oil company truck driver Marcellaus Simms, 40; wife Tempie, 41; and children Annie Mae, 17, Herbert Lee, 15, Gertrude, 12, Doris O., 9, Robert L., 7, Roland, 4, and Willie Jr., 7 months.
Herbert Lee Simms registered for the World War I draft in 1941. Per his registration card, he was born 12 March 1923 in Wilson County; lived at Route 4, Box 39, Wilson; his contact was mother Tempie Simms; and he was unemployed.
The application for Herbert L. Simms’ military headstone.
The State Board of Health’s Moving Picture Car visited the Colored Graded School on the evening of 7 June 1917. It’s not clear what the “entertainments” constituted.
I find myself with an unexpected day off, so what better way to kick off the real holiday than chopping it up with Zella Palmer about family, Black history, and Wide-Awake Wilson?
Zella is chair and director of Dillard University’s Ray Charles Program in African-American Material Culture and renowned for her innovative work to preserve African-American food culture. Find out what she and I have in common — besides everything Black — this afternoon at 3:00 PM Eastern in our Instagram Live conversation @maisonzella!
In the summer of 1920, black and white residents of an Old Fields neighborhood joined forces to capture a white man allegedly stealing from black households and trying to “entice colored women from their homes into the woods.”
For fifty or so years after the Civil War, Wilson’s African-American community celebrated Emancipation Day on January 1. The day marked the issuance in 1863 of the Emancipation Proclamation and was decidedly symbolic, as that executive order could not be enforced on behalf of most of North Carolina’s enslaved. Instead, they were freed, as a practical matter, only after the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.
In Texas, freedom did not arrive until June 19 of that year, when a Union Army commander read General Order No. 3 upon arrival in Galveston. African-American Texans have been celebrating Juneteenth since 1866, and, after slowly gaining traction across the country over the last few decades, the holiday is now widely observed. (This very day, in fact, it’s on the verge of becoming a national holiday, which feels performative, if not downright gaslight-y, given where this country is on any and every substantive thing around Black history.)
Juneteenth is a new celebration in Wilson, but it picks up where an old one left off, and I love to see it. Starting June 18, The Spot, an after-school youth center in what was once the New Grabneck neighborhood, is presenting Walk In Their Shoes — “this project will reimagine our existing walking trail into an immersive storytelling experience. Students and families can attend during open walking times and use technology to hear real stories from real people in our community. Around the trail art installments created by SPOT students will give a visual insight to the story and bring it to life.”
On June 26, Mount Hebron Masonic Lodge No. 42 — chartered in Wilson in 1881 — is throwing a party in the iconic 500 block of East Nash Street featuring food, music, art, and dollops of history throughout. (Can you identify the five titans of East Wilson depicted at the top of their flyer?)
Charles Battle was a well-known blacksmith in late 19th century Wilson.
The 1897 Sanborn fire insurance map shows two blacksmith shops near Frank Daniels’ Cotton Gin. The one at left, most nearly opposite the gin, is likely Battle’s shop.
George and Rachel Bynum Scarborough, perhaps around the time of their marriage in 1906.
Rachel Bynum Scarborough and her children, probably circa 1940s.
The Bynums were among the dozens of Wilson County families who migrated to Lonoke County, Arkansas, in the late 19th century.
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On 30 January 1878, Lawrence Bynum, 23, married Edney Bynum, 16, in Wilson County. Lydia Bynum, James Ellis, and Millie Corbett were witnesses.
In the 1880 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: laborer Larence Bynum, 24; wife Edney, 19; children James, 1, and Mary J., 1 month; mother-in-law Liddie, 55; brother Isac, 22, and sister-in-law Anna, 17.
In the 1900 census of Richwoods township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: Lawrence Bynum, 55; wife Edna, 39; children Ed, 25, Mary, 19, Charlie, 17, Hattie, 16, Rachel, 9, Lewis, 6, Cora, 3, and Lawrence, 11 months; grandsons Mack and Romie Notsie(?), 3 months; and son-in-law Ed Notsie(?), 25, farm laborer. The four oldest children were born in North Carolina. [Next door: Haywood and Agness Armstrong, who also migrated from Wilson County.]
In the 1900 census of Richwoods township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: George Scarborough, 47; wife Millie, 37; and children Walter, 16, George, 15, Martin, 11, Charity, 8, Council, 8, Ava Mariah, 6, Jessie, 4, Fannie, 2, and Joseph, 11 months. The oldest four children were born in North Carolina. [The Scarboroughs were listed two households from the Bynums.]
On 26 November 1906, George Scarborough, 24, of Cobbs, Lonoke County, married Rachel Scarborough, 17, of Cobbs, Lonoke County, in Lonoke County, Arkansas.
George Orange Scarborough registered for the World War I draft in 1918 in Lonoke County. Per his registration card, he was born 25 January 1884; lived on Route 2, Scott township, Lonoke County; farmed for Smith Daniels; and his contact was Rachel Scarborough.
In the 1920 census of Walls township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: on Community Road, George Scarborough, 36; wife Rachel, 30; and children James, 11, Berthrie, 9. Other, 5, Elsie, 3, and Ugine, 21 months.
In the 1930 census of Richwoods township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: widowed farmer Rachel Scarborough, 40, and children James, 20, Arthur Lee, 12, Eugene, 10, Mable, 9, Maude, 7, Flora Bell, 5, George, 3, and Rosetta,
In the 1940 census of Richwoods township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: Jon Highway 31, ames Scarborough, 31; wife Louise, 18; mother Rachel, 51, widow; and siblings Eugene, 22, Mable T., 19, Modessa, 17, Flora Bell, 15, George Jr., 13, and Rosetta, 9.
Photos courtesy of Ancestry user LesBynum, who credits “Debra Jones’ personal collection.”
On 18 May 1904, Pink Watson, 26, of Toisnot township, son of Ned and Fannie Watson, married Alice Batts, 20, of Toisnot township, daughter of Gandy and Emily Batts, at Gandy Batts’ in Toisnot.
In the 1910 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: John Watson, 29, tenant farmer; wife Alice, 23; and children Annie, 3, and Festus, 4 months.
In 1918, Pink Watson registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County. Per his draft registration card, he was born 15 July 1879; lived at R.F.D. #5, Wilson; was a “cropper farmer” for Pete Batts; and his contact was wife Alice Watson. He signed his card with an X.
In the 1920 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: on Rocky Mount-Wilbanks Road, Pink Watson, 39; wife Alice, 35; and children Annie, 12, Lester, 10, Laura, 7, Annie Lee, 8, Gertie, 6, and Henry, 4.
Pink Watson died 16 June 1920 in Wilson township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was 40 years old; was born in Johnston County, N.C., to Fannie Graham of Elm City, N.C.; was married to Alice Watson; and worked as a farmer. Emily Batts was informant.
