Wilson Daily Times, 24 November 1911.
That first sentence is difficult to untangle, but my take-away is that Texas Faison of Wilson was believed to have killed his wife (who lived in Richmond, Virginia, but regularly moved between there and Wilson?) in Richmond.
Wilson Daily Times, 1 November 1929.
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This suit is most interesting, in my view, because Camillus L. Darden, in his capacity as administrator of the estate of Evan Powell, was going up against R.G. Lassiter and Company, the roadwork behemoth.
Powell was born in far southeast North Carolina, 125 miles from Wilson. He had left Columbus County before he was 20, finding work as a furnace man at a Baltimore copper smelting company. He registered for the World War I draft in Maryland, listing his mother in North Carolina as his nearest relative. By 1920, he had returned home to Whiteville. When he arrived in Wilson is unknown, but he settled into a house on Hadley Street and took a job as a day laborer with R.G. Lassiter. On 28 December 1928, he was digging a ditch at a Mercer Street construction site when the trench collapsed, crushing him under the dirt. He was pulled free, paralyzed, but died two days later.
Darden’s lawyers pursued the case to the North Carolina Supreme Court, where Powell’s estate ultimately was awarded $5234.03, with costs and interest. The final account Darden filed shows payments for attorneys and other litigation expenses, a a nice commission for Darden, and the remaining 40% divided between Powell’s four siblings.
Wilson County, North Carolina, Property Settlement Records 1923-1931, http://www.familysearch.org.
Martha Newsome Harris Cotton (1890-1955).
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In the 1930 census of Bailey township, Nash County, N.C.: Martha Harris, 32, widow, farmer, and children [and stepchildren] James W., 14, Walter, 12, Mary, 10, Rosa, 8, and Leroy Harris, 7.
Walter Harris died 28 September 1936 at Mercy Hospital, Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 19 years old; was born in Wilson County to William Harris and Martha Newsome; was married to Maggie Harris; worked in farming. Martha Cotton of Bailey, N.C., was informant; he was buried in Nash County.
In the 1940 census of Town of Bailey, Bailey township, Nash County: lumber mill laborer James Cotton, 38; wife Martha, 38, maid; and son Leroy Harris, 18, lumber mill laborer.
Martha Cotton died 28 January 1955 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 1 June 1900 in Wilson County to Walter Newsome; lived in Bailey, Nash County; was married; and was buried in Rest Haven Cemetery. Mary Peppers, 121 Ward Boulevard, Wilson, was informant.
Mamie Durham died 18 February 1980 in Newport News, Virginia. Per her death certificate, she was born 1 February 1913 in Wilson County, N.C., to William Harris and Martha Newsome; was married to John T. Durham; and was buried in Rest Haven Cemetery, Wilson.
Photograph courtesy of Ancestry.com user Lawrence Brown.
News and Record (Greensboro, N.C.), 5 November 1917.
We’ve seen that Samuel H. Vick was an early and enthusiastic car collector, but who knew this early and enthusiastic? In 1919, the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office reported five cars registered to Vick — a Chandler, a Reo, two Hudsons, and a Cadillac. Two years earlier, however, he had lost an astounding 20 cars in a garage fire behind his commercial property on East Nash Street.
The 1913 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson shows a wooden structure behind the brick Odd Fellows building, which housed the Globe Theatre, and adjacent to the rear of the Hotel Union. It hardly seems large enough to have housed 20 vehicles, but may have been expanded between 1913 and the 1917 fire.
Pender’s Store was a small grocery operating at 129 South Goldsboro Street in the early 1920s. It likely employed an African-American porter or two, but probably had few African-American customers. Nonetheless, its Thanksgiving 1921 ad sheds light on the types of foods that would have appeared on the holiday table of a prosperous East Wilson family of the era.
Wilson Daily Times, 18 November 1921.
Wilson Advance, 25 November 1881.
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