This letter to the editor of the New Berne Daily Times highlights a Republican celebration in Wilson in September 1872. Reconstruction was in full swing with all its promise of interracial cooperation, and Grand Marshal Washington Suggs led a parade through the streets of downtown.
New Berne Daily Times, 20 September 1872.
The 1872 map of Wilson shows Jack Williamson‘s blacksmith shop on Tarboro Street, west of Barnes Street. The approximate location is now a parking lot.
Williamson, born enslaved in the Rock Ridge area, came to Wilson shortly after Emancipation. His wife, Ann Jackson Williamson, learned blacksmithing and horseshoeing from him and worked alongside him and their son Charles Williamson.
Jack Williamson died in 1899.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2024.
The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph, 24 May 1885.
A recent email inquiry has made me take another look at the singing Williamson siblings, whom we met here and here and here.
The Charlotte Observer, 28 July 1881.
Edmund and Bethania “Thaney” Williamson and their oldest children were enslaved in Wilson County. (Edmund Williamson was enslaved by Hardy H. Williamson.) The family is not found in the 1870 census of Wilson County, but in 1880 they appear in Cross Roads township. The enumerator noted nine children at home — William, 25, Nicie, 23, Eliza, 22, Eddie, 21, Ally, 19, Pollina, 17, Dolly Ann, 15, Isaac, 12, and Raiford, 7. Six of the children — William, Eddie, Ally, Pollina, Isaac, and Raiford — were described as blind, and the occupation of the elder four was “gives concerts.” We know those four attended the North Carolina School for the Deaf, the Dumb, and the Blind, whose “colored” division opened circa 1869. Into the 1890s, the Williamson siblings toured the Southeast, singing and performing musical mimicry.
The Tarborough Southerner, 17 October 1878.
The Monroe (N.C.) Express, 22 July 1881.
Per an asylum enrollment book, William Williamson was born August 1853 in Wilson County to Edmund and Thanie Williamson. He was born totally blind. Two second cousins on his father’s side were also blind.
In May 1867, the Wilson County sheriff identified to a local Freedmen’s Bureau the names of “unfortunates,” including Wm. Williamson, 8, Edward Williamson, 12, Allice Williamson, 4, Pauline Williamson, 5, and Aquilla Williamson, 7. All were described as blind. (Aquilla apparently was a seventh vision-impaired Williamson sibling and likely died before 1870.) This identification may have led to the placement of four of the Williamson children in the North Carolina Colored Deaf and Dumb and Blind Asylum.
In the 1870 census of Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina: at the North Carolina Colored Deaf and Dumb and Blind Asylum, pupils included Ally, 9, Pauline, 6, William, 15, and Edward Williamson, 11.
William Williamson apparently toured with his siblings for decades. I have not found him in census records subsequent to 1880.
On 12 October 1903, Edmund Williamson drafted his last will and testament. Per his wishes, his “two blind sons William Williamson and Edmund Williamson” and his “blind daughter Leany Williamson” were to equally divide a life estate in all his real estate and then to successive heirs “to remain in the Williamson family forever.”
On 18 October 1891, David Barnes, 32, of Cross Roads township, son of Joshua and Maria Barnes, married Nicy Williamson, 35, of Cross Roads township, daughter of Edd and Bethany Williamson, at Edmund Williamson’s in Wilson County.
Nicie Williamson Barnes is not listed in her father’s 1903 will and apparently died before it was written.
Eliza Williamson is not listed in her father’s 1903 will and apparently died before it was written.
Per the enrollment book, Eddie J. Williamson was born June 1859 in Wilson County to Edmund and Thanie Williamson. He was born totally blind.
He is named as “Edward Williamson” in the 1867 sheriff’s letter.
In the 1870 census of Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina: at the North Carolina Colored Deaf and Dumb and Blind Asylum, pupils included Ally, 9, Pauline, 6, William, 15, and Edward Williamson, 11.
Edmund “Eddie” Williamson apparently toured with his siblings for decades. I have not found him in census records subsequent to 1880. He was alive as late as 1903, however, when he was named in his father’s will.
Per the enrollment book, Allie A. Williamson was born January 1861 in Wilson County to Edmund and Thanie Williamson. She was born blind, “totally or nearly so.”
She is named as “Allice Williamson” in the 1867 sheriff’s letter.
In the 1870 census of Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina: at the North Carolina Colored Deaf and Dumb and Blind Asylum, pupils included Ally, 9, Pauline, 6, William, 15, and Edward Williamson, 11.
Allie Williamson is not listed in her father’s 1903 will and apparently died before it was written.
Per the enrollment book, Pelina M. Williamson was born September 1862 in Wilson County to Edmund and Thanie Williamson. She was born blind, “totally or nearly so.”
She is named as “Pauline Williamson” in the 1867 sheriff’s letter.
In the 1870 census of Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina: at the North Carolina Colored Deaf and Dumb and Blind Asylum, pupils included Ally, 9, Pauline, 6, William, 15, and Edward Williamson, 11.
Pelina Williamson apparently toured with her siblings for decades. I have not found her in census records subsequent to 1880.
Pauline Williamson died 7 March 1925 in Griffin, Spalding County, Georgia. Per her death certificate, she was born “sometime in 1859” in Raleigh, N.C., to Edd Williamson and an unnamed mother; was single; worked as a musician; and was buried in the city cemetery. Mary Ella Moore was informant.
I have found no record of her in Georgia prior to her death.
On 20 April 1884, Jesse Seaberry, 25, married Dolley Ann Williamson, , at Ed Williamson’s in Wilson County.
On 22 May 1899, Bristow Brownrigg, 52, of Wilson County, son of Reddick Brownrigg and Annie Barnes, married Dolly Ann Seabury, 35, of Wilson County, daughter of Edmund and Thaney Williamson, Cross Roads township, Wilson County. S.H. Vick applied for the license, and Burket Woodard, Stephen Hadley, and Nellie Barnes were witnesses to the ceremony.
Per Edmund Williamson’s 1903, daughter Dollie Ann Brownricks [Brownrigg] was to receive a life estate in all his personal property, money, stock and crops, with her children Timothy, Bethania, and Lizzie Seabury [Seaberry] to receive the remainder.
On 24 December 1919, Madison Barnes, 64, applied for a license to marry Dollie Barnes, 54.
In the 1920 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Madison Barnes, 70; wife Dollie Ann, 53; and granddaughter Annie V. Vick, 8.
Dollie Ann Barnes died 19 January 1928 in Cross Roads township, Wilson County. Per her death certificate, she was 67 years old; was born in Wilson County to Edmond and Bethune Williamson; was married Matherson Barnes; worked as a common laborer; and was buried in Williamson Cemetery, Wilson County. Timothy Seabury, Lucama, N.C., was informant.
Elizabeth Edmundson died 21 November 1970 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 13 January 1887 to Jessie Seabury and Dollie Ann Williams; was a widow; lived in Lucama, N.C.; and worked in farming. L.V. Edmundson was informant.
Isaac Williamson died 1 September 1895 in Norfolk, Virginia. Per an index of death certificates, he was born about 1868 in North Carolina; was single; and worked as a musician.
Isaac Williamson is listed in the 1887-1889 Annual Report of the North Carolina Institution for the Deaf, the Dumb, and the Blind.
Raiford Williamson is not listed in his father’s 1903 will and apparently died before it was written.
Raiford Williamson is listed in the 1881-1883 Annual Report, but I have found no evidence to date that he, like his musical siblings, performed for a living.
From page 367 of the 1881-’83 Annual Report.
——
The Norfolk Virginian, 5 June 1879.
The News and Advance (Lynchburg, Va.), 21 July 1880.
The Daily Journal (New Bern, N.C.), 14 July 1891.
Enrollment Book, Negro Deaf 1873-1893, Negro Blind 1869-1893; Student Records; Box 1; General Records; State School for the Blind and Deaf; North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, N.C. (Thank you, Amanda Stuckey!)
Sampson Hinnant was near 60 when sold to his last enslaver in 1861. A year after freedom, he and Mary Boykin formalized their marriage. They apparently did not have children, and Hinnant died in 1878, leaving a small estate. His was one of a relative handful of estates of formerly enslaved people that entered probate in Wilson County in the decades after freedom.
Hinnant’s estate file contains only the record of the widow’s allotment paid to Mary Hinnant for one year’s support. In addition to the harvested crops on hand — potatoes, peas, wheat, “greens” — she received all their furniture, working tools, fodder, four head of cattle, five hogs, and eight barrels (of what?).
The census taker apparently missed the Hinnant household when making his rounds in 1870. Their cohabitation registration and this estate file are the only known documentation of their lives in freedom.
Estate File of Sampson Hinnant, Wilson County; North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.
The Carolina Era, 5 September 1872.
An anonymous letter writer complained of attempts by Democrats to lead astray African-Americans Republican voters in Black Creek township.
John Shallington was hanged on 12 April 1878 in Greene County, North Carolina, for the murder of his step-daughter Serena (or Lorena) Thompson. According to news accounts, Shallington and Thompson had been in a relationship (consensual?) for two to three years, and he had shot her in a fit of jealousy. Shallington fled and was on the lam for several weeks, pursued by both black and white vigilantes before being arrested in Wilson County.
An “esteemed correspondent,” apparently enthralled with Shallington’s person and exploits, provided breathy details — his ownership during his enslavement in Wilson County; his reputation for violence, craftiness, and superhuman strength; his physical description; his impassiveness at trial. As later reported, Shallington was hanged in front of a crowd of 2000 people in Snow Hill after asking from the gallows to be baptized.
Goldsboro Messenger, 11 April 1878.
George W. Stanton house, near Stantonsburg, built circa 1873 and demolished circa 2000.
George W. Stanton’s house was built during Reconstruction, and no enslaved people labored there. I am certain, however, that it was staffed with formerly enslaved people and their descendants.
Stanton, though a committed slaveholder, was one of a handful of Union loyalists in Wilson County during the Civil War. We have met him here and here, and we know that he enslaved Larry and (very briefly, before transferring them to his mother Gatsey Truitt Stanton) Harry, Violet, Eliza and her child, Ben, Dan, and Edy. I have not been able to identify the names of any others he held.
——
In the 1860 census of Saratoga district, Wilson County: G.T. Stanton, 46, farmer, and children G.W. Stanton, 25, farmer, who claimed $3400 in real property and $4538 in personal property [which would have been mostly enslaved people], D.M., 12, and Celestia N., 10.
In the 1860 slave schedule of Saratoga district, Wilson County: G.W. Stanton claimed seven enslaved people, who lived in one house — men aged 72 and 36; a boy aged 8; a woman aged 38; and girls aged 14, 10, and 3. (These ages suggest a single, multigenerational family, but we cannot determine this definitively.)
Per the 1870 federal mortality schedule, Violet Stanton died in September 1869 of scrofula. She was 59 years old and a widow.
Perhaps, in the 1880 census of Sparta township, Edgecombe County: farmer Ben Stanton, 32; wife Leer, 25; and sons Gray, 9, and William, 5.
Luvennia Artis died 11 May 1924 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was 70 years old; was a widow; lived at 177 Narroway; was born in Wilson County to Haywood Moye and Eliza Stanton; and worked as a laundress. She was buried in Wilson [probably, Vick Cemetery.] Luvennia Artis perhaps was the child of Eliza noted above.
Photo courtesy of Wilson County Genealogical Society 2004 Calendar: The Families of the Stantonsburg & Saratoga Area.
Harper’s Weekly was famed for its lithographs. Though none are known to depict Wilson County scenes, several feature tableaux that would have been typical of the area. This engraving from a sketch by Mary L. Stone, published 20 April 1872, shows two African-American women at the counter of North Carolina country store. One wears a head wrap and large gold hoop earrings and a short jacket over layers of skirt. She is barefoot. The other woman, who appears to be handling cloth or some other merchandise, is bare-headed and wears a long, full dress and boots.
Thanks to J. Robert Boykin III for sharing this image.
Acclaimed Primitive Baptist preacher London Woodard made out his last will and testament on 14 November 1870.
After directing a “decent burial,” Woodard itemized the household goods and farm implements left to his “beloved wife,” Penelope Lassiter Woodard.
His three sons, William, Hardy, and Haywood Woodard, were to divide his land equally and receive one beehive and one axe each.
Daughter Treasy Woodard received the late nineteenth-century equivalent of a bedroom set.
The rest of his property was to be divided among his children Howell, Elvin, Rose, Pharibee, Sarah, Amos, Harriet, London, Treasy, and Penina Woodard.
Priscilla Joyner was born in Nash County, not Wilson, but close enough for her life story — and the context in which it unfolded — to be of particular interest to Black Wide-Awake readers.
“Priscilla Joyner was born into the world of slavery in 1858 North Carolina and came of age at the dawn of emancipation. Raised by a white slaveholding woman, Joyner never knew the truth about her parentage. She grew up isolated and unsure of who she was and where she belonged—feelings that no emancipation proclamation could assuage.
“Her life story—candidly recounted in an oral history for the Federal Writers’ Project—captures the intimate nature of freedom. Using Joyner’s interview and the interviews of other formerly enslaved people, historian Carole Emberton uncovers the deeply personal, emotional journeys of freedom’s charter generation—the people born into slavery who walked into a new world of freedom during the Civil War. From the seemingly mundane to the most vital, emancipation opened up a myriad of new possibilities ….
“… Uncertainty about her parentage haunted her life, and as Jim Crow took hold throughout the South, segregation, disfranchisement, and racial violence threatened the loving home she made for her family. But through it all, she found beauty in the world and added to it where she could.”
Priscilla Joyner’s family in the 1860 census of Dortches township, Nash County, N.C. She is believed to have been the daughter of Ann Liza Joyner and an unknown African-American man.