Month: July 2023

Lane Street Project: Sam Vick’s purchase of the lot.

As we know, in 1913, Samuel H. Vick sold the Town of Wilson the 7.84 acres that became Vick Cemetery. As the deed below shows, Vick had purchased this land in February 1908 from banker Franklin W. Barnes and his wife Matilda Bynum Barnes. 

Deed book 81, page 196, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office.

Notice that Vick’s purchase is described as about 10 acres adjoining the Rountree Church lot. In other words, Vick bought a large lot that he later subdivided. At an unknown date, he granted the two or so acres adjoining Rountree Cemetery to Hannibal Lodge, Odd Fellows, for use as its cemetery and conveyed the rest to the City for Vick Cemetery in 1913. The Odd Fellows never filed a deed for their cemetery (if the property were ever formally conveyed), but we now have a tighter window — between 1908 and 1913 — for the date of its establishment.

So, if Odd Fellows Cemetery was not established until some time after 1908, why do some of its grave markers show death dates before that time? Recall Wilson’s first Black public cemetery, Oakdale. Sam Vick was an ardent Odd Fellow. It may be that after the cemetery opened, he had the graves of his mother, father, and daughter Viola moved from Oakdale and reinterred in a new family plot. Chief Ben Mincey may also have done the same for his father and brother. 

Confederates and colored water.

I’ve talked about Wilson County’s courthouse monument before. There’s renewed pressure to remove it, but its apologists claim it’s not a Confederate monument at all. Rather, they say, it commemorates veterans of all wars. 

I’ll let y0u be the judge. 

Does the deceptively simple motif below seem familiar? It’s a Saint Andrew’s cross, a notable element of Confederate national and battle flags.

It’s engraved an astounding TEN TIMES around the monument, including the two locations below. (The rough indentation on the front of the plinth? It’s where the word COLORED was gouged out in the early 1960s. There was a water fountain where that little pyramid now sits. Isn’t that reason enough to get this thing out of the public eye?)

Two more. And so on.

The monument went up on Veterans Day 1926, paid for by the John W. Dunham Chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Thomas Hadley Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. It’s on public property, steps away from the county courthouse, a building symbolizing the power and authority of local government. 

Recent North Carolina law makes retiring these relics difficult — but not impossible. I urge Wilson County Commissioners to find a way. 

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2023.

Lane Street Project: why we need a survey map, pt. 3.

Friday, July 14. 12:15 P.M.

Well, this didn’t take long. This is the survey flag at the rear western corner of Vick Cemetery. I looked around for an iron pin, but didn’t see one.

The westernmost section of the back border. New South Associates did not GPR-survey this strip, but the adjacent ground shows grave anomalies.

There was heavy rain in the morning, and water was still standing in the shadow of trees standing at the cemetery’s edge adjacent to the path of Piedmont Natural Gas’ pipeline.

The mosquitoes.

I don’t know what to make of this mess of pink flags. An arrow points to the old iron pipe that once marked the corner. A foot away, the recent surveyor stuck a wooden stake. Is that stake the actual corner? Or is the corner the other wooden stake three feet rear right? And why are the fence and pine saplings festooned?

WE DEMAND A SURVEY MAP.

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2023.

Lane Street Project: in memory of Victoria Allen (1893-1940).

I’ve spoken of the database I am developing of likely burials in Vick, Odd Fellows, and Rountree Cemeteries. My spreadsheet draws upon death certificates, obituaries, and other sources — most distressingly imprecise. The term “Rountree Cemetery” on these documents may refer to Vick, Odd Fellows, or Rountree. Some documents broadly refer only to burial in Wilson. However, in the absence of official burial records for any of the cemeteries, we make do.

This series honors the men, women, and children who never had grave markers, or whose stones have been lost or stolen or destroyed. Graves believed to be in Vick Cemetery, which the City of Wilson stripped of remaining markers in 1996, will be identified with a Vick Cemetery logo.

——

Victoria Allen died 19 March 1940 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was 47 years old; was born in Wayne County, N.C., to Isom Sutton and Exie Rountree; worked as a laborer; was a widow; lived at 406 Bruton; and was buried in Wilson [most likely, Vick Cemetery.] Effie Wilkins, 617 West Hines Street, was informant.

Lane Street Project: July 20 city council meeting, public comment talking points.

Mayor Carlton Stevens recently indicated that Vick Cemetery would be on the agenda at the next city council meeting. Wilson doesn’t post agendas in advance (the most recent are for April 2023) and doesn’t post minutes at all (which is par for the general lack of transparency this government holds as a core value.)

Anyway, the next meeting is Thursday, July 20, at 7:00 P.M. on the third floor of City Hall, 112 Goldsboro Street East. (The entrance is at the side of the building.)

If you believe the City is mishandling Vick Cemetery, please let them know. As long as they can convince themselves it’s only me and Castonoble Hooks howling into the wind, they’ll keep their backs turned.

Here are the rules:

Please feel free to speak your heart and mind, but if you are interested, here are a few talking points that come to mind:

  • Transparency and accountability. To date, there have been none. Neither council, the Mayor, nor other city officials have sought to engage the descendant community and allies or have otherwise communicated the City’s intentions.
  • The fence. The fence is a non-starter right now. It is clear that graves lie across Vick’s modern property lines. Placing a fence inside the power poles (and on top of graves) is not an option. And, obviously, a fence outside the power poles is impossible, too. Also, there are better, less intrusive ways to protect Vick from dumping and car tricks.
  • The survey map. Why won’t the City order a survey map of Vick? Here’s why we need one. And once we get it, it should be filed with Wilson County Register of Deeds.
  • The graves. What are the plans for marking the graves? What is to be done about graves that lie in the current right-of-way (primarily between the power poles and the ditch)? Exhume them, DNA-test the remains, reinter in Rest Haven? Sponsor DNA testing for potential descendants interesting in trying to identify the deceased?
  • The GPR survey. (a) New South Associates should return to Vick to survey the unsurveyed areas at the edges of the cemetery. (b) Why did the City sit on the survey report until April 2023 when it was received in October 2022? Did city council avail itself of New South Associates’ offer to meet to explain the survey results? Why not? Only two council members attended the May 11 public forum about the report. Where were the other five?
  • The power poles. These poles are inside Vick Cemetery. And are standing in and among graves. How did this happen? What can be done about it? Should the power lines be re-routed? Will council initiate a cost inquiry and/or feasibility study?
  • The headstones. The City ordered Vick’s headstones removed in 1996. Where are they now? If the City doesn’t have them, what happened to them? We demand an independent investigation.
  • The law. State statue makes it unlawful to:
    (1) Open, disturb, destroy, remove, vandalize or desecrate any casket or other repository of any human remains, by any means including plowing under, tearing up, covering over or otherwise obliterating or removing any grave or any portion thereof.
    (2) Take away, disturb, vandalize, destroy, tamper with, or deface any tombstone, headstone, monument, grave marker, grave ornamentation, or grave artifacts erected or placed within any cemetery to designate the place where human remains are interred or to preserve and perpetuate the memory and the name of any person. This subdivision shall not apply to the ordinary maintenance and care of a cemetery.
    What is the City doing to insure it does not further violate this statute?
  • Funding. Is the City seeking grant funding for Vick?
  • Expertise. With whom is the City talking about how to move forward at Vick? [They certainly aren’t talking to me.] With whom is the City consulting? If no one, why not? Has the City sought the assistance of the State Archaeology Office? Is it reaching out to cities that have addressed similar situations, like Rocky Mount, Statesville, or Elizabeth City?

Lane Street Project: Vick Cemetery in the rain.

Wilson got more than an inch of rain this morning. Here’s what I found at Vick Cemetery as the rain was tapering off.

Saturated ground, standing water, run-off rushing through a cut in the ditch bank (that has been reinforced with riprap), New South’s orange stubs marking gravesites in the middle of this mess.

Lane Street Project: well, now, look at Rocky Mount.

Wilson keeps taking L’s when it comes to preservation of historic African-American cemeteries. I’d thought the City could seize this opportunity to be a leader in honest, enlightened approaches of addressing uncomfortable historical truths, but that title has been won. I know Wilson gets a little sensitive about Rocky Mount, its progressive neighbor to the north, but facts is facts.

In the 13 February 2022 Rocky Mount Telegram (a time in which Wilson City Council was griping and wringing its hands about spending $30,000 for a GPR survey), “City launches website about Unity Cemetery project”:

“People wanting to know more about Unity Cemetery and the efforts to restore and preserve the historically Black burial ground off East Grand Avenue in the eastern part of the city now have a go-to online link.

“That link, www.unitycemeterync.com, provides the story of Unity Cemetery, with a timeline and with a collection of present-day snapshots of the location. That link also provides contact information for what is being called the Unity Cemetery Restoration and Preservation Project.

“Unity Cemetery was incorporated in 1901 and is 18 acres in size.

“As family members either died or moved away from the Rocky Mount area, the location began looking more like a forest than a burial ground, although there have been cleanup efforts in the more recent past.

“The condition of Unity Cemetery increasingly became an issue in 2020 when resident Samuel Battle kept bringing up the subject during the public input phase of City Council regular meetings.

“Resident Tarrick Pittman began organizing a group that made a community cleanup effort of Unity Cemetery a reality on Feb. 6, 2021.

“Battle and residents Steve Cederberg, Steve Pridgen and Pridgen’s wife, Tracy, also had key roles in the cleanup effort. Other cleanup days followed.

“On March 8, 2021, the City Council spent about an hour of a work session discussing Unity Cemetery and went on to approve the adoption of recommendations by then-City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney and her team.

“Those recommendations included budgeting municipal funds to restore and preserve the burial ground.

“Overall, the long-range municipal capital improvement program, which extends from 2022-26, has $1.45 million in spending programmed for Unity Cemetery. [One. Point. Four. Five. Million.]

“Additionally during an Aug. 9, 2021, City Council work session, former Councilwoman Lois Watkins, as a consultant to the municipality regarding Unity Cemetery, told the council the municipality had successfully obtained extensive numbers of burial records from what was Stokes Mortuary.

“Watkins told the council she and others thought such records maybe were burned, destroyed or lost.

“The new website includes pictures of the Unity Cemetery Restoration and Preservation Project staff.

“That staff is comprised of Watkins, as project manager, Nadia Orton, who is a historian/genealogist, and Hap Turner, who is a heritage researcher.”

Please take a look at this website, folks. Explore it. It is a thing of beauty in both form and substance. Created and maintained by a municipality. Clap your hands for Rocky Mount.

Look at this!

Read the press release:

Can you imagine? I can. But I don’t believe. Not in Wilson, where city leaders won’t even spring for a survey map.

How do we change the narrative for Vick Cemetery?

The death of Emily Jones, age 105.

Wilson Daily Times, 10 April 1917.

Proclaimed centenarians were seldom actually as old as claimed. Census evidence suggests that Emily Jones really was perhaps 80-90 years old when she died.

Samuel Jones, who arrived in Wilson before 1889, was a long-time employee of tobacconist Ula H. Cozart Sr., co-founder of Centre Brick tobacco warehouse.

——

On 30 August 1866, Duke Jones and Emily Pinnell registered their marriage with a Warren County, North Carolina, justice of the peace. They had cohabited since 1 January 1857.

In the 1870 census of Township 7, Warren County: Daniel Jones, 44, farmer; wife Emily, 33; and children Samuel, 13, Jane, 12, Blake, 7, Joseph, 6, and Edward, 2.

In the 1880 census of Shocco township, Warren County: Duke Jones, 55, farmer; wife Emely, 55; and children Benjamin, 18, John, 16, and Ellick, 14.

On 24 December 1889, Sam Jones, 28, was issued a license to marry Julia Ann Boykin, 19, in Wilson County. They did not return the license.

In the 1900 census of Warrenton, Warren County: Duke Jones, 70, farmer, and wife Emily, 60.

In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: tobacco grader Samuel Jones, 45; wife Julia A., 29, tobacco grader; and children Nannie E., 7, William G., 3, Irena R., 5 months, and Maggie, 2. 

In the 1910 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: odd jobs laborer Sam Jones, 45; wife Julia, 39; and children Nannie, 17, cook, Willie, 13, grocery store delivery boy, Irene, 10, Sam, 9, Isar, 5, Magilena, 3, and May A., 1.

Emily Jones died 20 February 1917 in Warrenton, Warren County, North Carolina. Per her death certificate, she was born about 1813 in Raleigh, N.C.; was widowed; and was buried in Snow Hill Cemetery, Warren County. Informant was J.J. Jones, 701-19th Street, Washington, D.C.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 645 Green Street, laborer Sam Jones, 65, widower; children Rosa L., 7, Isier, 16, laborer, Maggie, 13, and Mary A., 10; daughter Mamie Garner, 25, and her sons Albert, 7, and Dick, 5; daughter Irean Lee, 19, and son-in-law Milton Lee, 23, house carpenter. 

Sam Jones Sr. died 1 February 1926 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 72 years old; was born in Warren County, N.C., to Duke Jones and Emlie Jones; was a widower; lived at 407 Carroll Street; worked as a night watchman for Planters Warehouse; and was buried in Rountrees Cemetery [likely, Vick.] Samuel Jones Jr. was informant.

Lane Street Project: why we need a survey map, part 2.

Take a walk with me.

This obviously was done in one take, so a few clarifications:

  • Estimating the height of the pole does not involve “triangulation.” But it’s definitely math.
  • I meant the central monument, not “the marker.” But actually, per GIS info, the monument area is about 126′ above sea level, whereas an area that straddles the border with Wright Farm is 130′. The lowest points of Vick, both along the fence at Odd Fellows, are 116′. None of Vick lies in a flood plain, but after heavy rain, water often stands in the low areas. Aerials taken in winter months, such as that on the County’s GIS website, reveal the muddiness of this area.
  • The ground isn’t “more dense” at gravesite, but it’s been disturbed and may have a different composition than the surrounding soil. The grass is definitely more lush. (Which is actually pretty disturbing to contemplate.)
  • Siri thought I was talking to her at one point.
  • The fire ants. Wow. I sacrificed my right ankle for this clip.