On 15 October 1853, Penny Lassiter paid Hilliard Thomas $242 for 106 acres of land on “the Tarboro road,” i.e. today’s N.C. Highway 42. To date, this is the earliest found purchase of land by an African-American woman in what is now Wilson County.

Deed book 26, page 258, Edgecombe County Register of Deeds Office, Tarboro, N.C.