John H. Aiken died 20 July 1914 in Wilson. He operated a livery stable at 125 South Goldsboro Street. Livery stables were the essential equivalent of parking lots and car rental offices, offering boarding, feeding, and care of privately owned horses and rental of horses, carriages, and buggies. Aiken’s wife Georgia Crockett Aiken served as administrator of his estate before resigning on 27 August 1914 and joining Aiken’s heirs — children Quince Aiken, William Aiken, Samuel Aiken, Nannie Eperson, John McDaniel, Gollie Aiken, Levi Aiken, Lizzie Aiken, and Alice Aiken — to request the appointment of W.R. Bryan.

Georgia Aiken’s inventory and final account, filed 29 August 1914, offers a detailed look at a successful black-owned business in pre-World War I Wilson. The inventory reveals a large, though heavily mortgaged, stock in trade — 13 horses, 14 buggies, 5 closed carriages, 2 single surries, and 4 wagons of various types. (There’s also a fifty-dollar debt to Aiken owed by veterinarian Elijah L. Reid.)

Receipts show that Aiken did a healthy business renting out his conveyances. In the last 15 days of July, Georgia Aiken collected almost $190.00 “for teams and buggies,” averaging $12.65 a day [$413.38 in today’s dollars].

Georgia Aiken also took in payments from Briggs Hotel and Wilson Hardware Company, both white-owned businesses, for boarding the companies’ horses.

Most of Aiken’s disbursements were wage payments to laborers William Best, Henry Best, Edward Mooring, William Selby, George Lane, and Dave McPhail. J.Y. Buchanan received four payments for shoeing horses; Hackney Brothers and C. Mack Wells were paid for hack repairs; A.J. Ford was paid for repairing a harness; and Thomas & Barnes for an unspecified repair.

Aiken paid bills from Carolina Telephone Company, Barnes-Graves Grocery Company, and J. & D. Oettinger. She paid two feed bills from C. Woodard Company and made seven payments to Quinn-McGowan Furniture Company, likely for the costs of her husband’s funeral. She also paid stable rent to S.M. Richardson and unspecified rent to S.H. Vick, as well as miscellaneous fees related to probate. Interestingly, Georgia Aiken paid $79.39 — quite a large sum — to T.S. Beatty of the Knights of Gideon lodge. What was this for?

Wilson [County, North Carolina] Property Settlement Records 1905-1923, http://www.familysearch.org.