I was asked a question that stumped me during one of my talks last week. “What was the building that housed the Independent School before it was a school?”
I recalled vaguely that Samuel H. Vick had purchased the building from famed brick maker Silas Lucas Jr., but not much more. Maybe something about the Methodist Church?
I found a deed quickly. On 24 October 1904, S.H. Vick paid Silas and Charity Lucas $1650 for a lot on Vance Street adjacent to property Vick already owned, “it being the same lot on which is situate a nineteen room house.”
Deed book 68, page 227, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson, N.C.
In the 1913 Sanborn fire insurance maps of Wilson, the building is labeled “Tenements”:
I can’t find the reference that I seem to recall about the building’s original use and will need to do some additional deed digging to find Lucas’ purchase. (By the way: Lucas was renowned as a brick maker. Not only are his reclaimed original bricks still sought after for renovation projects, the name “Silas Lucas” is now generically used to describe any soft, pinkish brick.)