Month: October 2021

Studio shots, no. 187: Ida Brown Locus Ellis.

Ida Brown Locus Ellis (1907-1969).

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In the 1910 census of Currituck township, Hyde County, North Carolina: lumber swamp laborer Columbus Brown, 29; wife Fannie, 22; and children Bertha, 4, Ida, 2, and Leonard, 5 months.

In the 1920 census of Currituck township, Hyde County, North Carolina: farmer Columbus Brown, 44; wife Fannie, 34; and children Bertha, 14, Ida, 11, Leonard, 9, Jeff, 7, Lucey, 6, Marvin, 2, and Louissa, 1.

On 10 May 1926, Pete Locust, 21, and Ida Brown, 17, both of Greene County, N.C., married in Wilson County by Free Will Baptist J.E. Brown in the presence of Will Jordan, Frank Ward, and Harry Ellis.

Haywood Ellis died 8 April 1959 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 28 December 1907 in Greene County to Calvin Ellis and Mary Speight; was married to Ida Ellis; lived at 104 Powell Street; and was a grocer.

Ida Locus Ellis died 17 February 1969 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 7 August 1907 to Columbus Brown and Fannie Hudson; was a widow; lived at 400 South Pender Street; and was a grocery store operator. Elnora Finch was informant.

Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com Anthony Williams.

Dr. Elijah L. Reid, the old reliable.

Another ad for veterinarian Elijah L. Reid‘s vaunted wart cure. Reid, who grew up in northwest Wayne County, had settled just across the county line in Moyton, a village adjacent to Stantonsburg.

Wilson Daily Times, 1 October 1897.

Twenty years later, Reid had taken his talents ten miles up the road to Wilson and advertised as “the old reliable Veterinary Surgeon” with an office at his home at Elba and Viola Streets.

Wilson Daily Times, 2 October 1917.

Wilson, N.C., Sanborn fire insurance map, 1913.

Clippings courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.

Elm City in 1923.

I regularly mine Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Wilson for information, but only now have discovered the 1923 maps of Elm City. Sheet 4 covers the town’s historic African-American east side. Three inserts show streets beyond the borders of the map.

Though the street grid has not changed much in a hundred years, the names of Elm City’s streets have.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Elm City, N.C. (1923).

Tarboro Road is now East Langley Road. The “First Baptist Church (Colored),” founded 1875, remains an active congregation, now known as First Missionary Baptist Church of  Elm City. The building now sits perpendicular to the road.

Corker Street is now Tyson Lane. The Elm City Colored Graded School stood near its intersection with Church Street.

Wilson Street retains it name. A lodge hall — Masons? Odd Fellows? — stood near the current location of Wynn’s Chapel Church.

Further east on Wilson, the First Presbyterian Church (Colored), which would gain national attention nearly 40 years later when targeted by the Ku Klux Klan.

Sheet 5 shows the area south of Elm City’s business and residential center. The Free Will Baptist Church (Colored) beneath J.D. Winstead Cotton Gins was Wynn’s Chapel in its original location.

Elm City, Wilson County, N.C., Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Library of Congress.

Thrown from a wagon.

Wilson Daily Times, 1 October 1915.

  • Andrew Hardy — This appears to be Andrew Hargett. 

Andrew Harget registered for the World War I draft in 1918 in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 9 January 1896 in Craven County, N.C.; he lived at 602 Spring, Wilson; his father was born in Beaufort County, N.C.; he worked for Barnes-Graves Grocery Company, Nash Street, Wilson; and his wife was Geneva Harget.

Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.

Southern chivalry?

This short bit appears in a Cleveland Gazette column reporting Cincinnati, Ohio, happenings:

Cleveland Gazette, 4 August 1894.

What happened here?

Joe Ward of Indianapolis is Dr. Joseph H. Ward, though he was not yet a doctor in 1894. In fact, he was newly graduated from high school and just about to commence his medical studies. This passage from an 1899 Indianapolis Freeman feature mentions Ward’s return to North Carolina after graduation.

I am surprised that Mittie Ward Vaughn was in Wilson as late as 1894 — I’d assumed she was in Washington, D.C., with her daughter Sarah Ward Moody‘s family. I’m more intrigued, not to say perplexed, by the reference to an incident involving his wife.

First, Joseph Ward had a wife in 1894? His first marriage of which I am aware was to Mamie Brown in Indianapolis in 1897. It ended in divorce. Then, in 1904, he married Zella Locklear.

Let’s assume there was an earlier wife, though, and the incident happened to her. (In other words, the encounter was personal, not a third-party incident to which Ward was reacting.) Mrs. Ward sassed a white woman for whom she was working (in Wilson?), the white woman’s husband “smacked down” Mrs. Ward, and Mrs. Ward was arrested and fined $12.50 for her impertinence???

I have not found any references to Ward’s visit in Wilson newspapers, but will continue to search for further details.