1840s

Edmundson claims ownership.

“Underwritten by a ‘We the People’ grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Race and Slavery Petitions Project was a cooperative venture between the Dr. Loren Schweninger’s Race and Slavery Petitions Project and the Electronic Resources and Information Technology Department of University Libraries at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Project offers a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color. Designed as a tool for scholars, historians, teachers, students, genealogists, and interested citizens, the site provides access to information gathered and analyzed over an eighteen-year period from petitions to southern legislatures and country courts filed between 1775 and 1867 in the fifteen slaveholding states in the United States and the District of Columbia.

“The Race and Slavery Petitions Project contains detailed information on about 150,000 individuals, including slaves, free people of color, and whites, extracted from 2,975 legislative petitions and 14,512 county court petitions, as well as from a wide range of related documents, including wills, inventories, deeds, bills of sale, depositions, court proceedings, amended petitions, among others. Buried in these documents are the names and other data on roughly 80,000 slaves, 8,000 free people of color, and 62,000 whites, both slave owners and non-slave owners.”

Here’s document set 0686 (Accession #21284312): “Edgecombe County, North Carolina. In February 1830, Abner Eason borrowed $500 from Wright Edmondson,” signing a note for payment. In May 1830, Eason recalls, Edmondson asked him to put a lien on ‘Certain negroes,’ including Sampson, Nancy and her three children Fereby [Phereby], China [Chainy], and London to secure the note, offering him an additional $300 discounted at 20 percent. In early August 1830, Eason recalls, Edmondson told him to give him a ‘right to his negroes & let him have them to work & pay the interest on the money.’ In late August 1830, Eason recalls, Edmondson said that Nancy was afraid that her two children, Henry and Sherrod, would be sold to a speculator, and Edmondson proposed that the boys be exchanged for his slave Milly and he would pay Eason $240, the boys being worth about $500 and Milly $260. To all this Eason agreed. More than a decade later, Eason seeks to pay his debt and retrieve his slaves but Edmondson claims ownership. Eason brings suit.”

I immediately recognized Abner Eason and Wright Edmondson as slaveholding men who lived in the Saratoga-Stantonsburg area and requested a copy of the file. Many thanks to Project Director Richard Cox, who responded quickly with this file and a related one. More to come!

The sale of Mary and Warren.

Know all men by these presents that I Zachariah Gill Adm’r of Thomas T. Gill dec’d of the County of Edgecomb and State of North Carolina have bargained and sold unto Hilliard Thomas of the County and State aforesaid Two negroes named Mary and Warren for the consideration of the sum of Five hundred and Sixty three dollars and sixty cents in hand paid the receipt I do hereby acknowledge and therewith fully satisfied I do bind myself my heirs executors administrators and assigns forever to defend the right and title of said negroes as far as is vested in me as Administrator promise unto the aforesaid Hilliard Taylor his heirs and assigns forever against the lawful claim or claims of all or any person or persons whatsoever In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal Oct 6th 1849 Zachariah Gill Adm Test Jos. Barbee H. Etheridge

Edgecomb County Court The execution of the foregoing Bill of Sale is duly acknowledged in open Court by Zachariah Gill, the maker thereof for the purposes therein mentioned and is ordered to be registered. Test Jno. Norfleet clk

——

Judging by their combined price, my guess is that Mary and Warren were young children.

Hilliard Thomas is listed in the 1860 slave schedule of Joyners and Gardners district, Wilson County, with eight enslaved people — boys and men aged 12, 13, 40, and 74, and girls and women aged 13, 19, 38, and 57.

Deed book 25, page 317, Edgecombe County Register of Deeds, Tarboro, N.C.

Aldridge and Boseman links to Wilson County.

We have seen the notices Guilford Horn published in 1850 seeking the return of a runaway enslaved man named Harry. Horn lived four miles north of Wilson in what was then Edgecombe County (and is now roughly just west of the Bridgestone tire plant.) He suggested that Harry might be “lurking” in the Texas neighborhood of Wilmington, North Carolina, where Sally Bozeman, his free-born wife, had recently moved.

Two years earlier, Guilford Horn had stood as bondsman for John Mathew Aldridge, a free man of color, who applied for a license in Edgecombe County to marry Catherine Bozeman, a free woman of color and likely the sister or close kin of Sally Bozeman.

In the 1850 census of Wilmington, there’s no sign of Sally, but: Matthew Ollage, 28; wife Catharine, 19; and sons William, 6 months, and J.H., 5. [John Henry Aldridge was Mathew Aldridge’s son by a first wife whose first name may’ve been Tabitha. John H. Aldridge’s children James Aldridge and Nina Faison Kornegay Hardy settled in Wilson in the early 1900s.] By 1860, Mathew and Catherine Aldridge were in Buck Swamp township, Wayne County (west of modern Pikeville), closer to his kin in southern Wayne County. Twenty year-old James Bosman lived with them and, like Mathew, worked as a railroad hand.

The sale of Huldah, Hilliard, Alex, Fortune, Clarkie, Amos, Hardy, Rose, and Peg.

We have seen the will of Moses Farmer Sr., executed in 1844, and documents from his estate file, which was opened after his death in 1848. These records include references by name to 35 enslaved people.

Perhaps sensing failing health, Farmer was making moves to divest himself of property even before he made out his will. On 2 February 1843, Farmer gave his son Larry D. Farmer 320 acres on Buck Branch and Toisnot Swamp, as well as nine enslaved people — Huldah, Hilliard, Alex, Fortune, Clarkie, Amos, Hardy, Rose, and Peg. The deed of sale does not list their ages or relationships.

Deed Book 23, page 268, Edgecombe County Register of Deeds Office, Tarboro, North Carolina.

Pine Tree.

This marker on N.C. Highway 42 has long mystified me.

PINE TREE. Original center of Gardners township. Established by John Gardner. December 22, 1848.

Hugh B. Johnston Jr. described Pine Tree as the “community around John Gardner’s store about 20 years before and after the Civil War. On the Tarboro Highway about 6 1/2 miles E. of Wilson and 1 1/2 miles W. of Wilbanks.”

The records of Gardner’s 1857 estate, which was beset with claims and bad accounts receivable, do not note any enslaved property, but in the 1840 census of Edgecombe County, North Carolina, Gardner claimed one male aged 10-24, a female aged 10-24, and a female under age ten. In the 1850 slave schedule of Edgecombe County, John A. Gardner claimed ten enslaved people: women aged 50, 40, and 39; men aged 41, 23, 18, and 18; a boy aged 4; and girls aged 2 and 12.

Beyond these men and women, Gardner and Pine Tree would have been well known to enslaved people throughout what is now northeastern Wilson County.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, September 2024.

He may be around Stantonsburg.

The North-Carolina Standard (Raleigh, N.C.), 22 November 1848.

Rufus W. Edmondson, who lived in what was then far southeastern Edgecombe County, near Stantonsburg, sold a man named Cager to William T. Hopkins, who appears to have lived in Wake County, North Carolina. In October 1848, Cager stole away — perhaps to return “home.”

The last will and testament of Martha Simms.

Born in 1772, Martha Dickinson Simms was the daughter of Shadrach and Keziah Simms Dickinson. At her death in about 1848, Simms lived in an area of Wayne County in or very close to present-day Wilson County. In May 1845, she executed a will that included these provisions:

to daughter Elizabeth Whitley, two negro men Cader and Will
to daughter Zillah Simms, negro woman Delanah and her children Simon, Charles, Dick and Sara
to grandson Willey Simms, Harry, Lucy, Hannah

——

Harry and Hannah Simms and daughter Lucy Simms Woodard

Will of Martha Simms, Wayne County, North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.

Whereas.

To mark Wilson’s 175th birthday on January 29, 2024, the City’s Facebook page featured posts about the Mayor’s birthday proclamation; the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad; Wilson Energy; Wilson Fire/Rescue Services; Greenlight; and Buckhorn Reservoir. As with its Martin Luther King Jr. Day announcement — which was all about closures, said nothing about the man himself, and closed with a cheery “if you have the day off, take advantage of this long weekend and enjoy your well-deserved break!” — the City missed opportunities for inclusion in its write-ups about its honorees. At a minimum — especially during Black History Month — Ben Mincey and the Red Hots should have gotten a nod in the FRS post.

Let’s look a little closer at the proclamation though. The “whereas” is accurate, but I can’t see Wyatt Moye’s name without thinking of his other legacy, one that resonates in the blood of African-Americans from Wilson County to Louisiana.

So:

WHEREAS, Wyatt Moye was a slave trader who moved surplus enslaved people in coffles from North Carolina to the deepest South, and

WHEREAS, his business, which ripped men and women from their families and communities forever, made the incorporator of the Town of Wilson wildly wealthy.

There. Fixed it.

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.

James A. Barnes’ enslaved community.

We saw here the last will and testament of James A. Barnes, who died childless and dispersed 20 enslaved people among an array of relatives. What do we know of the 20? Not much.

Tom (to wife Sarah Barnes for her lifetime, then to choose his owner)
Mary (to wife Sarah Barnes, then to nephew Theophilus Bass)
Esther (to wife Sarah Barnes, then to nephew Theophilus Bass)

On 11 August 1866, Howell Darden and Easter Bass registered their cohabitation with a county justice of the peace and thereby legalized their 18-year marriage.

In the 1870 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: Howard Darden, 47, farm laborer; wife Esther, 38; and children Warren, 20, Eliza, 18, Martin, 17, Toby, 12, and Crawford, 1.

On 22 December 1871, Martin Darden, son of Howell Darden and Esther Jordan, married Jane Dew, daughter of Haywood and Jane Dew, at H. Dew’s in Wilson County.

On 29 December 1892, Henry Dortch, 52, of Wilson, son of Isaac Thorne and Bedie Artis, married Eliza Darden, 42, at Crawford Darden‘s in Wilson County. Free Will Baptist minister Daniel Blount performed, and Frank Woodard, Warren Darden, and Isom Sutton witnessed the ceremony.

Martin Darden died 22 December 1926 in Kenansville township, Duplin County. Per his death certificate, he was 74 years old; was married to Jane Darden; was born in Wilson County to Howard and Easter Darden; and worked as a farmer and blacksmith. Howard Darden of Fremont was informant.

Charles (to wife Sarah Barnes, then to nephew Theophilus Bass)

In the 1870 census of Stantonsburg township, Wilson County: farm laborer Charles Bass, 41.

On 16 January 1880, Charles Bass, 51, married Rhoda A. Jordan, 23, at C. Bass’ [probably Charles Bass] residence. Justice of the Peace David G.W. Ward performed the ceremony.

In the 1880 census of Stantonsburg township, Wilson County: farmer Charles Bass, 51; wife Rhoda, 23; and an unnamed four month-old infant daughter. [This child was Cornelia Bass Reddick.]

In the 1900 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Charles Bass, 71, widower, and son James, 10.

Amos (to wife Sarah Barnes)
Bob (to wife Sarah Barnes)
Silvia (to wife Sarah Barnes)
Ransom (to wife Sarah Barnes)
Rose (to wife Sarah Barnes)
Dinah (to Martha Tomberlin)
Jack (to McKinley Darden’s daughter Tresy Darden)

Perhaps, on 19 January 1869, Jack Darden married Vina Artist in Wayne County, N.C.

Howell (to McKinley Darden)

On 11 August 1866, Howell Darden and Easter Bass registered their cohabitation with a county justice of the peace and thereby legalized their 18-year marriage.

In the 1870 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: Howard Darden, 47, farm laborer; wife Esther, 38; and children Warren, 20, Eliza, 18, Martin, 17, Toby, 12, and Crawford, 1.