Month: June 2025

“David was the Sixty-Minute Man!”

Just as Black Music Month draws to a close, I learn of a Wilson link to the foundations of both rock and roll and rhythm and blues music.

I’ve been interviewing elders for the past month or so — more about this later — including my father’s Darden High School classmates. I spoke with his good friend Herman McNeil late last week. Mr. McNeil grew up on Hadley Street and was the 11th of 13 children. The brother just above him was David McNeil — of the Dominoes!

The Dominoes’ iconic “Sixty-Minute Man” is considered by some to be the first rock and roll recording, and there is general accord that it was one of the most important to generate and help shape the new genre. Unusually, the bass is the lead vocalist in the song and though David McNeil wasn’t on the recording, he joined the group shortly after the song’s release in 1951 and took on the role of Lovin’ Dan, the Sixty-Minute Man, during his tenure.

More about David McNeil, who also sang with the Larks and the Ink Spots, soon!

Thank you, Mr. McNeil!

The sale of Milly (1855).

In June 1855, Stephenton Page Jr. of Wilson County, a slave dealer, conveyed a 19 year-old enslaved woman named Milly in trust to John Norfleet of Edgecombe County for the sole use of Zilla Ann Peel, “free from the control or management of [her husband] Henry W. Peel”. Page warranted that Milly was “sound in every respect, her eyes excepted which are known by both the parties to be defective, the defect being or supposed to be short or near sightedness.” The deed was registered in Edgecombe County in March 1859.

Deed book 27, page 856, Edgecombe County Register of Deeds, Tarboro, N.C.

 

Myrtle Jones is queen of Handel’s Chorus.

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 11 September 1937.

——

  • Myrtle Jones

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 808 East Nash, Butler Jones, 39, painter; wife Myrtle, 36; and children Gertrude, 12, Louise, 6, Joseph, 5, Ruth M., 3, and Willard, 3 months.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 1011 East Nash, owned and valued at $2500, Buller Jones, 49, building painter; wife Myrtle, 46; and children Gertrude, 23, cook, Louise, 16, Joseph, 15, Myrtle, 11, William, 9, and John, 8.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 1011 East Nash, Butler Jones, 59, painter; wife Myrtie, 51; sons Joseph, 25, Willard, 20, and John, 19, all painters; and William Tabron, 26, janitor at Carolina Theatre, wife Myrtie Tabron, 21, and daughter Patsy, 3 months.

In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 1011 East Nash Street, painter Butler Jones, 69; wife Myrtie, 67; son John H., 27, and his wife Lizzie M., 28; son-in-law William L. Tabron, 35; wife Myrtie, 30; and daughters Patsy, 10, and Julia, 9.

Notes from Mississippi: Aberdeen and slavery.

Monroe Democrat, 12 May 1852.

Why were Robert Adams and Wyatt Moye, slave traders from Edgecombe County, North Carolina, drawn to Aberdeen, today a sleepy town of fewer than 5000 people?

Again, John Rodabough, this time from his 8 April 1971 Aberdeen Examiner column “Part I Slavery”:

“That portion of Monroe County opened to settlement by the treaty of 1816 was a mixture of sandy-loam soils and hills covered with thick forests. It was connected to the outside world by a sometimes navigable river and an almost impossible road called Gaines Trace. This was land which did not attract the large plantation owner with his multitude of slaves. … However, the Chickasaw treaty which gave up the lands west of the Tombigbee River in 1832 greatly changed the situation.

“The Black Prairie, as it is often called was ideal for the plantation system. The thick black lime — impregnated soil was fertile and seemed inexhaustible. … Scions of eastern families rushed into the area, and … the slave population [increased] from 943 in 1830 to 4083 in 1840. … It was a land which in another decade would be a small replica of the Natchez District.

“In 1836 the city of Aberdeen was founded. … During the 1840’s the Aberdeen newspapers frequently had advertisements dealing with runaway slaves and notices of sales. In general it was a decade of fulfilling the processes begun in the 1830s.

“By 1850 the slave population was 11,717, and the white population stood at only 9418. By this time Aberdeen and the western half of Monroe County had become a part of the legendary Old South of thousands of salves toiling in view of the pillared mansion. A contemporary newspaper stated the county’s condition in these words:

The prairie is now one vast cotton field, with nothing to relieve the eye but its lengthy zigzag fencing — where no sound is heard to break the dull monotony of the oppressive silence, save the harsh command of the overseer or the sharp crack of his whip as he drives the sooty negro on through mud and rain. All is dreary, gloomy, and monotonous. On a cloudy day, it forcibly reminds one of the fabulous world of gloom, which borders on the river Styx. Is it not the shore from which many will take ferriage to Pluto’s dominions?

“[By 1850, Aberdeen] was not the second largest city of Mississippi and was rapidly overtaking Natchez, which was only slightly larger. As a result of its size and wealth, the city was considered one of the three permanent slave markets in the state. There was only one regular slave auction house, but many transactions took place at commission houses, certain street corners, and on the Courthouse steps. The slave auction house was that of Robert Adams & Moses J. Wicks; it was located on the southwest corner of Commerce and Walnut Street in a brick building. M.J. Wicks & Co. began advertising in Aberdeen in 1845 as a dry good and grocery house. It appears the firm entered the slave trade in January, 1848.

“By 1850 Robert Adams was associated with the firm, and he served as a purchasing agent in the East. The firm was dissolved and reinstated several times in the late 1850s, finally evolving into a banking partnership. Others important in the trade were: L.D. Leedy’s Action House, Hester & Lancaster; Wm. H. Kidd & Company, who hoped “to be able to please the most fastidious taste: Hampton & Herndon; Saunders & Bradley; and J.B. Franklin of Lauderdale, Tennessee, who advertised in 1852 that he was bringing 100 Negroes to the market at fair prices — ‘Small profits and quick sales is my motto.’

“Most of the Negroes brought in by outside speculators, or ‘speckled ladies’ as the Negroes called them, were sold at Clarke’s Corner, which is now the southeast corner of Commerce and Chestnut Streets. These transient vendors of slaves had to pay $1 for each slave exhibited and $5 for each slave sold in the city of Aberdeen.”

Notes from Mississippi: Wyatt Moye.

Among the documents I perused at Aberdeen’s Evans Memorial Library were local historian John Rodabough’s newspaper columns from the 1970s. Densely detailed and wide-ranging, Rodabaugh’s articles did not shy away from chronicling Monroe County’s roots as a center of Mississippi’s slave trade.

Let me remind you: Wyatt Moye (1793-1862) lived in Greene and Edgecombe Counties in the general vicinity of Stantonsburg. He served as Greene County sheriff for a while, then as an Edgecombe County legislator, where he sponsored legislation to create Wilson County. He was also a slave dealer. Working with other men from Edgecombe County, Moye was a trader and factor, moving “excess” or troublesome Black people from the Upper South to the Lower, where vast cotton fields awaited them.

The photograph of Wyatt Moye’s house, above, makes plain the abundant wages of human trafficking. In his 14 March 1972 “Port of Aberdeen” column, Rodabough described the house as “[t]he finest raised cottage of antebellum Aberdeen.” “The first floor was brick. The main floor above it was frame with a hipped roof. Brick piers supported the gallery of the main floor. A staircase rose from the walkway to that level. The floor of the lower porch was brick. Inside center halls bisected four rooms on each floor.”

As to Moye himself, Rodabough wrote, “Wyatt Moye was a partner in the banking firm of Cunningham, Moye & Co., which flourished in Aberdeen in the 1850’s. After his first wife’s death, he remarried in 1858 “and put his house up for sale. He moved to Memphis.”

Moye was also a director of Mississippi Mutual Insurance Company, which was incorporated in 1850. Among the lives it insured were those of enslaved people — to the benefit of their enslavers. Per Rodabough’s 31 August 1972 column: “In 1855 this firm was two doors from the northwest corner of Commerce and Locust Streets. On September 20, 1858, they purchased the building of Cunningham, Moye & Co., located [at] the present site of the western third of the First National Bank.” “Cunningham, Moye & Company was formed January 11, 1854, with a cash capital of $200,000. The firm was comprised of William R. Cunningham, Wyatt Moye, Robert S. Adams, and Moses J. Wicks.”

The Yazoo Democrat, 2 February 1853.

The I. Y. Johnson Home (Moye-Johnson) on the corner of Canal and Hickory Street in Aberdeen, Mississippi, built in 1855 by Wyatt Moye; Rodabough (John E.) papers, Special Collections Department, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State University Libraries (electronic version).

Lane’s Chapel F.W.B. Church buys a lot.

Deed book 97, page 245, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

On 23 December 1912, Major J. Lofton, for $18, sold the trustees and deacons of Lane’s Chapel Free Will Baptist Church a quarter-acre lot near Contentnea Creek on the north side of “the Aycock road, running from the town of Wilson.”

Neither Aycock Road nor Lane’s Chapel rang a bell, but I started wondering about Lofton. It’s not a common surname in Wilson County, but shows up on both an African-American graded school and a church. Lofton School sat on 1 3/4 acres on what is now Downing Street, just below Contentnea Creek. The deed for the property gives the road’s original name — Aycock — and it appears Lofton School stood on the other side of the bridge from Lane’s Chapel’s lot. Was it named for Major Lofton? And Lofton Chapel? It was a Free Will Baptist Church, like Lane’s. And we know its building was moved from elsewhere to its (or, rather, its successor’s) site on Bishop L.N. Forbes Street. Perhaps, as was commonly done, Lane’s was renamed Lofton for the grantor of the land it stood on near Contentnea Creek.

  • Major J. Lofton

In the 1880 census of Indian Springs township, Wayne County, N.C.: Robert Loftus, 34; wife Ednie, 34; and children Sylvester, 10, Robert, 8, Emma, 7, Benjamin F., 6, Alice A., 5, Major, 3, and Donas, 10 months.

In 1918, Major James Lofton registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 16 July 1876; lived on Route 3, Wilson; was a self-employed farmer; and his nearest relative was his father Robert Lofton.

Major Lofton applied for a marriage license for Sam Barron, 24, son of Ben and Mary Barron, and Jessie Lofton, 24 daughter of Robert and Evaline Lofton, both of Gardners township, Wilson County. The marriage took place in Wilson on 30 December 1919.

In the 1920 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farmer Major J. Lofton, 42, widower; mother Evaline, 71, widow; brother-in-law Sam Barron, 24; sister Jessie Barron, 24; and nieces Donnie, 13, Maybelle, 12, and Marie Barron, 10.

Major Lofton applied for a marriage license for Festus Simms, 29, and Maebelle Lofton, 18, both of Black Creek. The marriage took place in Wilson on 1 April 1925.

In the 1930 census of Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia: at the U.S. Penitentiary, Major Loften, 53, prisoner, born in North Carolina.

In the 1950 census of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: widower Lubie Oliver, 67; partner Major Lofton, 74, widower; and brother Henry Oliver, 50, truck driver.

  • S.C. Chadmon — Slade Chatman?

In the 1910 census of Cross Roads township, Wilson County: farmer Josiah Hinnant, 38; wife Mary, 34; stepdaughter Estella, 17, widow; daughter Sarah, 12; son Cleotha, 6; niece Lessie Locus, 13; and boarder Slade Chatman, 40.

In the 1920 census of Cross Roads township, Wilson County: farmer Slade Chatman, 52, widower.

In the 1930 census of Cross Roads township, Wilson County: farmer Slade Chatman, 52; wife Almenia, 27; and children Ned S., 7, Eddie, 6, Willie, 4, Bertie L., 2, and Charlie, newborn.

In the 1940 census of Gardners township, Wilson County: farmer Slade Chatmon, 65; wife Almenia, 37; and children Ned, 17, Ed, 16, Willie, 14, Bettie, 12, Charlie, 10, Joseph, 8, Ernest, 6, Ruby Lee, 3, and Freddie, 3 months.

In 1942, Ed Chatman registered for the World War II in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 30 June 1924 in Wilson County; lived on Route 1, Wilson; and his contact was father Slade Chatman.

In 1942, Ned Chatman registered for the World War II in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 15 June 1922 in Wilson County; lived on Route 1, Wilson; and his contact was father Slade Chatman.

In 1943, Willie Chatman registered for the World War II in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 4 November 1925 in Wilson County; lived on Route 1, Wilson; his contact was father Slade Chatman; and he worked at Carl Aycock farm.

In the 1950 census of Cross Roads township, Wilson County: farmer Slate Chapman, 73; wife Almenia, 48; children Willie, 24, Betty, 22, Charlie, 20, Joseph, 18, Earnest, 16, Ruby, 13, Luddie, 11, Virgina, 7, Dorthy, 5, and Sylva, 1; and granddaughter Alma, 1.

On 29 October 1951, Slade Chatman, 75, of Lucama, son of Jerry Chatman and Catherine Greene Chatman, married Almenia Chatman, 49, of Lucama, daughter of Reddick Simms and Bettie Boykin Simms, in Wilson.

Slade Chatman died 17 December 1954 in Lucama, Cross Roads township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was born 14 April 1876 in Craven County, N.C., to Catherine [maiden name unknown]; was married to Almena Chatman; worked in farming; and was buried in Dew Cemetery, Lucama.

  • Will Vick
  • James Johnston
  • R. Loftin — perhaps, Major Lofton’s father Robert Lofton.
  • Jesse Herring

First notes from Mississippi.

Obviously, I am terrible at taking breaks.

I’m in Columbus, Mississippi, this morning, about to head home. I came to search for traces of Wyatt Moye and Robert S. Adams, slavetraders who funneled enslaved people from eastern North Carolina, including what is now Wilson County, to the notorious slave markets at Aberdeen, Mississippi.

I spent Juneteenth copying deeds at Chancery Court; talking settlement of Mississippi, the internal slave trade, and convict leasing with a local brother looking at property records for his church; poring over old news columns at the public library; and dodging mad thunderstorms.

It’s hard, heavy stuff, but the warmth of the folks I’ve encountered have countered the weight. I’ll share some photos today and gradually write up what I’ve found.

Aberdeen is an old town by Mississippi standards and was a powerhouse in the antebellum era. From an outsider’s perspective, it doesn’t lean heavily into magnolias and Big House tropes though, even though it’s got plenty of both.

Tina Robbins at the Visitor’s Bureau provided a wonderful welcome to town and lots of helpful material, including an African-American history driving tour.

Paradise Alley was back of the main street, and the block in which Black folk once gathered for shopping and entertainment among their own. 

Slavetrading was good money. This was Robert S. Adams’ house in Aberdeen. 

The Tombigbee at sunset, Columbus.

I would pay good money for these kind of clearly delineated property records. Props to Monroe County.

Or these.

Both the Choctaw and Chickasaw have ties to this area. Waterways still flow with indigenous names — Tombigbee, Luxapallila, Buttahatchee, Boguegaba, Boguefala, Mattubby, Tubbalubba, Tallabinnela. And deed books reflect the transfers of property from Native people after the Chickasaw Cession of 1832.

Wyatt Moye’s house in Aberdeen. He later moved on to Louisiana to expand his human trafficking activity.

The Masonic Temple.

Home of Bukka White, and maybe Howling Wolf and Albert King.

Y’all know I love a vernacular headstone artist. This was the most remarkable marker of several in Monroe County’s Mount Hebron Missionary Baptist Church cemetery. The stone reads: Nubin White Jr. born Oct. 25 1935 Died Sept. 4 1980 He Drove The School Bus For Ten Years In Aberdeen He Work At Antional Cushion Spring Co.

Studio shots, no. 263: Lovett Barnes.

Lovett Barnes (1859-1934).

——

On 9 January 1879, Lovett Barnes, 20, and Etna Barnes, 18, both of Wilson County, were married in Wilson County.

In the 1900 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Lovet Barnes, 40; wife Edney, 39; and lodgers Charley Davis, 30; Jane Battle, 59; Lucy Carr, 22; and Alley Bynum, 16.

In the 1910 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: on Raleigh Road, farmer Lovette Barnes, 49; wife Edney, 40; hired woman Lucy Carr, 30, and her children Victoria, 8, Rebecca, 4, and McKinley, 17 months.

In the 1920 census of Taylor township, Wilson County: tenant farmer Lovett Barnes, 60; wife Edna, 60; children Victoria, 18, Rebecca, 15, Kenly, 12, and Clarence, 10; and Lucie Carr, 40, laborer.

In the 1930 census of Taylor township, Wilson County: Lovett Barnes, 70; wife Edna, 68; children Victoria, 28, McKinley, 21, and Clarence, 18; and granddaughters Clarence [sic], newborn, and Lizzie M., 10.

Lovett Barnes died 27 January 1934 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 5 August 1859 in Wilson County to Jannie Barnes; was married to Lucy Barnes; worked as a farmer; and was buried in Wilson.

Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com user armassey.