From the Samuel H. Vick family’s archives, two receipts for payments made by patriarch Daniel Vick. The first reflects taxes he paid for 1883 “Graded School — Colored” in the amount of $5.52.
The second is a receipt for payment of $12.14 to Alpheus P. Branch, merchant, banker, and founder of Branch Banking & Trust (now Truist.)
Thank you for sharing, Vicki M. Cowan!
We know little about 19th-century African American schools in Wilson County. There were at least 19 and probably many more, but to date we can only firmly identify five. These quasi-public schools predated Rosenwald schools by decades, but at least a few, like Rocky Branch, Howard, and Stantonsburg, survived to be upgraded with Rosenwald funds.
Here’s a running list of the schools I’ve identified.
#1 Unnamed school, Stantonsburg township, per deed reference, Stantonsburg and Moyton Road.
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
#12 Rocky Branch school, Springhill township, per an 1896 deed reference to “the lot belonging to district No 12 of the colored free school … on the Buck horn and Kenly Road” adjacent to the “colored Christian church lot …”
#13
#14 Unknown school, Black Creek township, per reference in an 1881 news brief.
Wilson Advance, 11 February 1881.
#15
#16
#17 Howard School, Taylors township, per deed.
#18
#19 Unknown school, Toisnot township east of Elm City, per a 1898 deed reference: “Parcel of land known as Colored School lot District no 19. Situated on the East Side of the Public road leading from Elm City to the old Tarboro and Raleigh road, adjoining the lands of [Redmond Winstead] containing one acre or less.”
Deed Book 50, page 283, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
Wilson Times, 20 March 1896.
The Laborers’ Agency did not specify for whom they could secure positions, but laborers, cooks, nurses, and washers in Wilson in 1896 were overwhelmingly African-American.
Wilson News, 1 June 1899.
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Fire tore through downtown Wilson in May 1897 after Briggs and Flemmings’ prize house went up in flames. The first edifice of Saint Mark’s Episcopal church was among the casualties.
Wilson Times, 14 May 1897.
Wilson County Public Library’s local history room holds volumes of transcribed minutes of meetings of Wilson’s late nineteenth-century board of town commissioners. The fits and starts of the town’s initial efforts to establish a public cemetery for African-Americans can be found in these pages.
On 1 August 1892, “Chas. Battle and Danl. Vick were appointed a committee to see where and at what price they could buy a suitable piece of land for a Colored Cemetery and report at the next meeting of the Board.”
On 5 September 1892, “Chas. Battle and Danl. Vick, the committee on the Colored Cemetery made their report, recommending two places. It was moved and carried that a committee of three be appointed to examine the said places and recommend a purchase. D. Herring, W.T. Sanders and Dr. A. Anderson were appointed as said committee.”
Four months later, on 2 January 1893, “The Committee on the Colored Cemetery recommended the purchase of the Peacock land, to the extent of about six acres. It was moved and unanimously carried that the Committee be authorized to make the purchase.” This land was not purchased, and another year passed.
On 23 February 1894, “It was moved and carried that Dr. Anderson and E.N. Mercer be appointed a committee on the Colored Cemetery, with instructions to have the same completed as early as possible.”
Four months later, on 26 July 1894, yet another committee: “It was moved and carried that the Mayor appoint a Committee to look into the matter of securing a Cemetery for the Colored Citizens of the Town.”
A year later, on 28 June 1895: “The matter of a Colored Cemetery was discussed and on motion, the Mayor, Geo. Hackney, and P.B. Deans were appointed a committee to cooperate with a Committee on the part of the Colored people, to look after the purchase of a site for said Cemetery, with power to act.”
On 1 August 1895, “The Committee on the Colored Cemetery reported progress and was continued.”
Again, on 29 August 1895, “The Committee on the Colored Cemetery reported progress and it was continued.”
Finally, on 16 September 1895, “The Committee on the Colored Cemetery reported the purchase of a plot of land at a cost of $597.50. The action of the Committee was ratified and it was instructed to make all necessary arrangement for closing of the matter.” [G.W. and Easter Suggs sold John F. Bruton, mayor of the Town of Wilson, an irregularly shaped parcel of land adjoining the lands of Charles Battle, G.W. Suggs, and D.C. Suggs and others and measuring an astonishing 12.2 acres, as well as a strip of land to be “dedicated to the public use as an avenue, street, or road …” Deed book 39, page 132, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office. This is more than one-and-a-half times the size of Vick Cemetery. What happened to it?]
On 26 September 1895, “The matter of a fence around the Colored Cemetery was taken up and an offer for building a wire fence around the same was made by R.J. Taylor as follows: [blank] On motion, the offer was accepted. On motion, the attorney who prepared the deed for G.W. Suggs; the preparing of the deed being a part of the consideration, was allowed.”
On 29 November 1895, “On motion the Colored Cemetery was named Oakdale Cemetery.”
On 26 December 1895, “G.W. Suggs and others came before the Board to protest against an appointment of Keeper of Oakdale Cemetery, made at a previous meeting. On motion, the matter of opening the Street near Oakdale Cemetery was referred to the Street Commissioner and the Chief of Police.” [This, perhaps, was what we know as Cemetery Street.]
On 31 January 1896, “The Committee on the street at Oakdale Cemetery was continued.”
On 26 June 1897, the Town Ordinance was updated, effective 1 July 1897: “Ordinance VIII. CEMETERIES. Section 1 – That any person making an interment in the Town, other than in Maplewood or Oakdale Cemetery should be subject to a fine of Ten Dollars. Section 2 – That any person injuring or defacing the enclosures around Maplewood or Oakdale Cemetery or the tomb-stones or plucking the flowers or shrubbery therein or in any church yard, should be subject to a find of Five Dollars. Section 3 – That any person riding or driving a horse or vehicle within the cemeteries faster than a walk, should be subject to a fine of Two Dollars. Section 4 – That the use of the Avenues in the Cemeteries as a public thoroughfare is hereby prohibited under the penalty of Two Dollars for each offense. …”
On 30 November 1896, “W.T.H. Woodard was relected [sic] Keeper of Oakdale Cemetery without pay, he having the use of all vacant land in the same.” [Woodard was a Missionary Baptist minister. The keeper of Maplewood, by the way, was paid $20-25 per month.]
This detail from the 1904 topographical map of Wilson Quadrant shows the general area of Oakland Cemetery.
Less than 15 years later, the handwriting was on the wall for Oakland Cemetery:
Wilson Daily Times, 12 December 1911.
A little over a year later, the Town bought 7.84 acres from Samuel H. Vick for a new black cemetery — the one we now know as Vick.
In April 1896, Cherry Hinnant, Henry R. Hinnant and wife Pennie Adella Hinnant, and John T. Revell sold Dock H. Hinnant, Vandorn Hinnant, and Guilford Wilder a parcel of land adjacent to the “colored Christian church,” i.e. Rocky Branch United Church of Christ, and “colored free school” number 12, i.e. the precursor to Rocky Branch School. The Hinnants and Wilder were officers and trustees of Rocky Blue Lodge #56, Prince Hall Masons.
Deed Book 43, page 442, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
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Wilson News, 2 March 1899.
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We saw here that a half-dozen or more African-American Odd Fellows lodges were scattered around Wilson County in the early 1900s. Two were in the town of Wilson — Mount Hebron, whose lodge was in the 500 block of East Nash, and Zion Hall, which was in the Grabneck community. Others were in unclear locations in or near Stantonsburg, Black Creek, and Lucama, and three were at locations completely unknown.
I stumbled on a clue today.
While running down a loose end related to Saint Delight Original Free Will Baptist church, at (2), my cursor paused on the square outlined in blue, at (1). I glanced at the owner of this lot. Odd Fellows Society?!? And with the same generic Bishop L.N. Forbes Street address as the Lane Street Project’s Odd Fellows Cemetery. Per the tax record for this parcel, this is a cemetery. [The parcels marked (4) are also cemeteries — Saint Delight’s original cemetery and an expansion lot acquired in 1993. I believe (3) is the lot on which Kirby’s Crossing School once stood.]
Which Odd Fellows lodge was this? And large enough to establish its own cemetery? Wow!
A plat map showing a division of property for the Lucian Kirby heirs, filed in 1992, answers the question. Here’s a detail:
Plat Book 22, page 220, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
The key identifies the owner of (3) as Lucama Odd Fellows Grand United Order No. 3501. (This may be a typo, as other documents record the lodge number as 3561.)
I don’t have access to Deed Book 51 online, but I’ll run to the courthouse for it next time I’m in Wilson. (The Bishop L.N. Forbes mailing address for recent tax records for this property is clearly a recent clerical add-in. It’s erroneous, and serves no purpose other than to cloud the picture. The address is insufficient for mail delivery; there is no mailbox; and, in any event, both cemeteries are tax-exempt.) I’ll also need to take another look at the cemetery, which I assumed belonged to the church when I photographed it in September 2017.
Here’s a clue I missed:
James A. Kirby‘s fallen headstone shows the Odd Fellows’ linked chain symbol, marked F-L-T. Lucama Lodge was chartered in 1892, and Kirby may have been among the original members.
Wilson Advance, 14 May 1891.