Month: September 2021

Notice of Taylor land sale near Stantonsburg Street.

Wilson Daily Times, 24 September 1935.

Trustee John F. Bruton posted a notice of the sale of a lot across from the Colored Graded School on which Eliza and Jordan Taylor had defaulted payment.

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On 7 August 1897, Jordan Taylor Jr., 21, and Eliza Taylor, 21, were married in Wilson by Baptist minister W.H.W. Woodard. Prince Smith, Annie Barnes, and Michiel Taylor were witnesses.

In the 1900 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: Jordan Taylor, 24, wife Eliza, 25, and son Greemond, 2, shared a household with Sallie Taylor 27, and her son Rufus Taylor, 13, and boarder Mary Jones, 17.

In the 1910 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: odd jobs laborer Jordan Taylor Jr., 31, wife Eliza, 30, laundress, and son Greeman, 12, with Mary Parker, 69, widow, whose relationship to Jordan was described as “proctor.”

Jordan Taylor registered for the World War I draft on 12 September 1917. He reported his address as RFD#6, Wilson, and his birthday as 15 December 1875. He worked as a ditcher for Sid Clark, his nearest relative was Eliza Taylor, and he signed his card with an X.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 304 Stantonsburg Street, Jordan Taylor, 48, wife Eliza, 37, son Greeman, 22, and son Dave, 13. [Where did Dave come from?] Jordan worked as a warehouse tobacco worker, Eliza as a tobacco factory worker, and Greeman as a street boot black.

On 24 March 1922, Greeman Taylor of Stantonsburg Street, Wilson, died of consumption. He was born 2 June 1898 in Wilson to Jordan and Eliza Taylor. He was single.

I have not found the family in the 1930 census.

Eliza Taylor died 25 May 1934 in Rose Hill township, Duplin County, N.C. Per her death certificate, she was 47 years old [actually, more than ten years older]; was born in Wilson County to Green Taylor and Kenzie Taylor; and was married to Jordan Taylor.

Jordan Taylor, widower, died 29 April 1957 near Dunn, Johnston County, N.C. His informant Ethel Sanders reported his birthday as 15 March 1874, and his parents as Jordan Taylor and Frances Smith. He was buried in Wilson.

The obituary of Louis Barnes.

Wilson Daily Times, 17 September 1935.

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In the 1880 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farmer Gray Farmer, 64; wife Barnie, 52; and children Lewis, 27, Nancy, 17, Caroline, 14, Gray, 13, and Spicey, 11.

In the 1900 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farmer Louis Barnes, 50; wife Jane, 40; and children Maggie, 17, Lucy, 16, Reese, 15, Oscar, 13, Hattie, 12, Grey, 10, Jimmy, 6, Wiley, 4, Henry, 3, Navis, 1, Charity, 7, and Mary Jane, 1 month.

In the 1910 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farmer Lewis Barnes, 57; wife Jane, 48; and children Lucy, 26, Hattie, 21, Gray, 20, Chairity, 18, James L., 16, Henry, 14, Navis, 13, Mary Jane, 11, Joe, 9, Needham, 7, and David, 2.

In the 1920 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farmer Lewis Barnes, 70; wife Jane, 58; children Maggie Bullock 35, widow, Lucy, 25, Lossie, 18, G. Mary, 17, Joseph, 16, Needham, 15, and David, 13; and grandchildren Charity, 5, and Oscar Bullock, 3.

Jane Barnes died 28 March 1924 in Wilson County. Per her death certificate, she was 65 years old; was married to Lewis Barnes; and was born in Johnston County, N.C., to Charity Cruddup.

In the 1930 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: widower Lewis Barnes, 73; children Charity, 27, Needam, 25, and David, 23; grandchildren Roscoe Barnes, 15, and Hannah Bullock, 17; and boarder William Richardson, 25.

Louis Barnes died 16 September 1935 in Gardners township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was 82 years old; was born to Grey Barnes and Bannie Barnes; and was a widower and a farmer. Lucile Batts was informant.

Snaps, no. 91: At home with friends, Los Angeles, 1950s.

Two of Walter S. and Sarah Dortch Hines‘ children migrated to Los Angeles, California, where they joined the city’s emerging mid-century Black high society. Elizabeth “Scottie” Hines Eason and her Texas-born husband Newell Eason were educators. Eason grew up in Los Angeles and attended UCLA and, after several years teaching at Shaw University in Raleigh, took his family back to California just after World War II. Scottie Eason’s brother Walter D. Hines and his wife Cadence Baker Hines, who met in Michigan, arrived in the late 1940s. Their friend, lawyer Walter Gordon, left a trove of photographs that captured the era, including this one:

On couch, left to right: Kenneth Levy, Honore Levy, Newell Eason, Scottie Hines Eason, Dr. Arthur Mitchell, Gloria Mitchell. Seated: Clara Gordon, unidentified girl, Cadence Hines, and Dr. Walter D. Hines.

The Shaw University Bulletin, July-August Edition, 1937.

“At home with friends, Los Angeles, 1950s,” Walter L. Gordon Jr./William C. Beverly Jr. Collection, UCLA Special Library Collections.

Studio shots, no. 186: Alice H. Jones.

Sixth-grade teacher Alice H. Jones (1892-1957). The Trojan yearbook, C.H Darden High School, 1949.

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Lucy Frances Jones died 18 February 1930 at Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina. Per her death certificate, she was born 19 October 1914 in Wilson, N.C., to J. Robert Jones of Virginia and Alice H. Albright of Davidson County, N.C.; was a school girl; and was buried in Raleigh’s Cross Roads, Guilford County.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 808 East Vance, owned and valued at $2000, widow Rosa Foster, 42, public school teacher; her children Carter, 16, Daily Times newsboy, and Naomi, 14; and roomers Alice Jones, 36, and Mamie Key, 20, public school teachers.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Alice H. Jones, 46, public school teacher, and son James R. Jones, Jr., 23, office building janitor. 

In 1940, James Robert Jones Jr. registered for the World War II draft. Per his registration card, he was born 2 January 1917 in Wilson; lived at 808 East Vance Street; his contact was his mother Alice Helena Jones; and he worked for Ernest C. Lucas, Lucama, N.C.

Alice Jones died 29 October 1957 at Duke Hospital, Durham, N.C. Per her death certificate, she was 65 years old; was born in Lexington, N.C., to John Albright and Alice Adams; was the widow of James R. Jones; lived at 122 Pender Street; and was a retired schoolteacher. Robert Jones was informant.

 

The last will and testament of Josephine J. Murphy.

Josephine J. Murphy of Wilson drafted a detailed will in 1946.

First, her executor should pay her debts and funeral expenses and rest a suitable monument at her grave.

Second, she gave “to the First Baptist Church located on the corner of Nash Street and Pender Street in the Town of Wilson, North Carolina” $100 to be used “for needed decorations and improvements on the interior.”

Third, $200 to Jenkins Orphans Home for Negroes, Charleston, South Carolina.

Fourth, sell her house and lot at 1006 Washington Street, Wilson, and pay half the proceeds to her niece Ovena Simmons Richardson. With the remaining half, “purchase country property for the benefit of my niece Josephine Simmons Williams, and her two children Printiss Williams, Jr., and Florida Anna G. Williams” in any location Josephine Williams chose. However, if either Richardson or Williams elected to live in the house within one year of Murphy’s death, the house would not be sold until vacated as a primary residence.

Fifth, all household items to be divided equally between nieces Ovena S. Richardson and Josephine S. Williams.

Sixth, Luke Lamb appointed executor.

Josephine J. Murphy signed the document on 23 July 1946 in the presence of Veda Lamb, Maxine Hudson, and P.O. Barnes.

Per Find A Grave, here is the suitable monument erected for Josephine Murphy in Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church cemetery, Bennettsville, South Carolina.

Last Will and Testament of Josephine J. Murphy, Wilson County Wills, Volumes 9-10, North Carolina Wills and Estate Records 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.

Lane Street Project: Who gets to speak for the dead?

“Underneath America lies an apartheid of the departed. Violence done to the living is usually done to their dead, who are dug up, mowed down, and built on. In the Jim Crow South, Black people paid taxes that went to building and erecting Confederate monuments. They buried their own dead with the help of mutual-aid societies, fraternal organizations, and insurance policies. Cemeteries work on something like a pyramid scheme: payments for new plots cover the cost of maintaining old ones. ‘Perpetual care’ is, everywhere, notional, but that notion relies on an accumulation of capital that decades of disenfranchisement and discrimination have made impossible in many Black communities, even as racial terror also drove millions of people from the South during the Great Migration, leaving their ancestors behind. It’s amazing that Geer survived. Durham’s other Black cemeteries were run right over. ‘Hickstown’s part of the freeway,’ Gonzalez-Garcia told me, counting them off. ‘Violet Park is a church parking lot.'”

I’m inspired — and encouraged — by Friends of Geer Cemetery and Friends of East End Cemetery and others doing this work for descendants. Please read.

“Whosoever live and believeth in me, though we be dead, yet, shall we live.”

Six weeks later, white man charged with murder of Lovett Cameron.

Wilson Daily Times, 16 May 1927.

Lovett Cameron died six weeks after Tom Moore struck him in the head with a glass bottle at Rose Bud crossroads, near the modern-day Bridgestone Firestone plant.

I have not been able to find Cameron’s death certificate or anything further about his murder.