Lower Black Creek Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1783, was the second church organized in what is now Wilson County. (It closed its doors in 2010.) The church’s nineteenth and early twentieth-century records include names of enslaved and freed African-American members, who worshipped with the congregation as second-class Christians even after Emancipation.

This page records baptisms “under the Care of Elder Reuben Hays” from 1803 and 1808 and includes references to nine enslaved African-Americans. (Don’t let “servant” fool you.) As Primitive Baptists did not practice infant baptism, the nine were, if not adults, then nearly so, and thus were all born in the 1700s. Some may have lived to see Emancipation, but even if they remained in Wilson County, I have no way to identify them further.

• Dick, a servant
• Lewis, a servant
• Jane, a servant
• Dick, a servant
• Will, a servant
• Harry, a servant
• Beck, a servant
• James, a servant
• Salath, a servant

Copy of documents courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III. Originals now housed at North Carolina State Archives.