Month: January 2024

Grand Union Hall.

The 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory lists the Grand Union hall at Hines Street near Spring.

Here it is — “Lodge Hall (Negro)” — on page 20 of the 1913 Sanborn fire insurance maps of Wilson.

What was the Grand Union fraternal organization? It was not listed in the 1916 city directory, and I’ve found no other reference to the organization or its building.

Trouble.

Wilson Daily Times, 8 October 1918.

There is no listing for Woodard’s cafe in the 1916 or 1920 Wilson city directories.

Pepsi-Cola was invented in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1893. Its bottles made handy weapons.

A “dead policeman” was a speed-control device stationed in the middle of a street.

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Home cookin’.

Gizzards & Livers made the New York Times!

“Now living in Durham, N.C., [Kate] Medley, 42, has spent more than a decade collecting images for her book of photographs, ‘Thank You Please Come Again,’ which the digital magazine The Bitter Southerner published in December. The book began with a journalist’s curiosity, but ended up as a way for a daughter of the Deep South to make sense of the beautiful, brutal, complicated place she came from.”

To my dismay, the article didn’t identify the location of that iconic green building, so:

Anyway, even though Gizzards & Livers is not Black-owned (Palestinian-American, I’m told), I feature it here because:

(1) it sits at the corner of Hines and Lodge Streets, at the edge of a 125 year-old African-American neighborhood;

(2) it carries on the legacy of the little groceries and eating houses that fed working-class folk in Wilson’s tobacco warehouse district a hundred years ago; and

(3) that sign (which has since been freshened up) is classic Louis Thomas III! (Rest in peace.)

Up from Alabama.

Migrants from Georgia commonly settled in Wilson County. From Alabama, less so. Victor Thomas‘ family were an exception.

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In the 1920 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farm Leeman Thomas, 40; wife Louisa, 28; and children Bertha, 9, Lewa, 7, Joseph, 5, Zictor, 4, Alenda, 2, and Sarah, 4 months. All were born in Alabama except Sarah.

In the 1930 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: widower Lemon Thomas, 50, and  children Charlie W., 20, Joe, 18, Victor, 16, Orlanda, 14, Sarah, 12, and Beget, 7.

On 14 August 1937, Victor Thomas, 21, of Stantonsburg, son of Leamon and Louisa Thomas, married Ola Farmer, 24, of Stantonsburg, daughter of Gusta and Matilda Farmer, in Wilson. Marcellus Farmer applied for the license.

In the 1950 census of Stantonsburg, Wilson County: farmer Victor Thomas, 37; wife Ora, 38; and children Dorothy G., 15, Minnie L., 12, Bertha L., 11, Willie L., 7, Victor Jr., 5, Robert, 3, Romme, 2, and Erline, 1.

Victor Thomas died 30 May 1994 in Wilson.

Elks Club news.

Wilson Daily Times, 22 January 1944.

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  • Isham Bryant
  • Calvin Carr — Calvin Carr died 8 January 1956 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 5 September 1902 in Duplin County, N.C., to William Carr and Dora Brock; was married; lived at 309 Stantonsburg Street; and worked as a janitor. Lena Carr was informant.
  • S.C. Sherrod — Solomon C. Sherrod. Solomon Shearard died 6 February 1948 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 21 October 1878 in Wayne County, N.C., to Dempsey Shearard and Harriett Hill; was married to Josephine Shearard; lived at 802 East Viola Street; and worked as a laborer.

Lane Street Project: in memory of Robert Ashe Jr. (1949-1949).

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.

Robert Ashe, Jr., died 16 September 1949 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 20 May 1949 in Wilson to Robert Ashe Sr. and Josephine Avery and lived at 614 Darden’s Alley. He was buried in Rountree Cemetery, Wilson. [Baby Ashe may have been buried in Rountree Church Cemetery, but more likely was buried in what we now know as Vick Cemetery.]

Lane Street Project: distractions.

I heard that last week’s city council outburst about the courthouse’s Confederate monument also included a charge that Pender Street was named for a Confederate general and should be renamed. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But while living, breathing Wilsonians are still weeping for the desecrated graves of their loved ones, I am uninterested in the performance of outrage about 150 year-old street names.

Still, if you want to be mad about institutions and entities named for men complicit in upholding the institution of slavery, start with the city and county of Wilson, who were named for politician and Mexican War general Louis Dicken Wilson.

Louis D. Wilson (1789-1847)

Louis D. Wilson died in 1847. His will was simple — a couple of individual bequeaths, proceeds from property to care for the poor of Edgecombe County, and all his slaves to his sister Ann Wilson Battle. The sister died before he did, and her heirs, James L. and Mary A.S. Battle, duly stepped up to take their share of their uncle’s wealth. A court-appointed committee allotted to Mary A.S. Battle 17 men, women, and children — “Ben Jackson Frank Gilbert Willie Turner John Steller & child Rose Amandy Albert July Lucy Mary Mariah & child Providence & Martin valued at Six thousand two hundred & five dollars.” James Battle received another 17 — Ellick Guy Clinton Ephraim Henry Boston Edmond Bill Winney Nancy Dinah Martha Anicka & child Sabry Tener Bob & Mary valued at Six Thousand one hundred & fifteen dollars.” The siblings were given equal shares in one man, who was called Bill Hall. (Note that Wilson claimed 78 enslaved people at the time of the 1840 census. I have no information about the apparent sell-down between then and the distribution of his estate.)

I don’t know if any of these 35 people or their descendants have ties to Wilson, but I say their names as our spiritual, if not literal, ancestors. Their enslaver, of course, has the whole town and county named in his honor. I tell you this not because I want names changed. I tell you so you understand how inextricably tied to slavery the history of this city is.

Back to the subject at hand — Vick Cemetery.

Deed book 24, page 523, Edgecombe County Register of Deeds, Tarboro, North Carolina; credit for portrait of Louis D. Wilson here.

Mount Pleasant Baptist Church’s Spiritual Lecture Series.

I’m thrilled to take part in Mount Pleasant Baptist Church’s Black History Month Spiritual Lecture Series this year. On Saturday, February 10, at 11:00 A.M., in keeping with the theme Preserve Your Roots, Ignite Your Future, I’ll be speaking on “Saving Sacred Spaces: How and Why We Must Preserve African American Church History.” I hope to see some of you in Raleigh.