Deed Book 21, page 415, Edgecombe County register of Deeds Office, Tarboro, N.C.
On 21 February 1835, Willie (Wiley) Rountree, who lived on Contentnea Creek in what is now Wilson County, purchased an enslaved woman named Temperance and her children Marian and David for $812 from William Horn of Wayne County, North Carolina.
The two hundred-ninth in a series of posts highlighting buildings in East Wilson Historic District, a national historic district located in Wilson, North Carolina. As originally approved, the district encompasses 858 contributing buildings and two contributing structures in a historically African-American section of Wilson. (A significant number have since been lost.) The district was developed between about 1890 to 1940 and includes notable examples of Queen Anne, Bungalow/American Craftsman, and Shotgun-style architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
As described in the nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District: “ca. 1922; 1 story; Dickerson Grocery; parapet-roofed grocery with one-bay facade and metal veneer.” The building has been demolished.
The building appears in the 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map with a shed extension that had been demolished long before the photo above was taken in 1987. It was not assigned a street number.
There is no listing for the location in the 1928 or 1930 Hill’s city directories of Wilson.
However, in the 1941 Hill’s city directory of Wilson: Jackson Jos S (c; Annie H) fruits 614 E Nash h 618 E Green
And in the 1947 Hill’s city directory of Wilson: Stevens & Ricks Gro (c; David L Stevens J L Ricks) gros 620 E Nash
The two-story brick Knights of Solomon building is visible at rear.
The last owner of the grocery, Margaret H. Dickerson, died in 2002.
Wilson Daily Times, 21 February 2002.
N.87-12-1030-1033, Dickerson Grocery, 622 E. Nash Street, East Wilson Historic District, Wilson, Wilson County, Survey and National Register Branch, State Historic Preservation Office, Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and Records, Raleigh.
Me: Yeah. Now, what about the place – my daddy used to talk about a place called The Cave. Was that on –
Samuel C. Lathan: Yeah, man. That’s where I met my wife.
LYH: Really?
SCL: Yeah. I didn’t meet her there, but that’s where she and I would hang out. Now, The Cave was opened by Robert Vick.
LYH: Okay.
SCL: Robert Vick was a educator, and he was the principal of several schools, wonderful schools here. But when he came here, he brought a little New York down here.
LYH: Okay.
SCL: Because we didn’t have nothing. We had the Stop Light Grill.
LYH: Right.
SCL: But we didn’t have nothing like The Cave because The Cave had the sundaes. It had the milkshakes, it had the ice cream fancies. You know, it had all the little bar things that you would have, you know. Had good fried chicken in there and good sandwiches, you know, and brought the hoagie in, you know. Yeah, yeah, now. And Tom Woodard’s, and they had an excursion that Saturday — on that Friday night, there was a big excursion. A hayride. And the truck — was going to be two trucks would be at The Cave. Now, Robert Vick would put the things on like that. But I was sitting on my front porch because I could see – I was right across from The Cave.
Hill’s 1947 Wilson, N.C., city directory.
The Cave occupied a storefront in the two-story brick building Camillus Darden built at 561 East Nash Street.
Copy of tax return courtesy of Vicki Cowan; interview with Samuel C. Lathan copyrighted, all rights reserved.
On 22 September 1913, Samuel H. and Annie M. Vick sold mail carrier Albert S. Barnes and blacksmith Hilliard T. Thomas a lot on the south side of Tarboro Street adjoining the property of Wilson Oil Mill and W.J. Davis Machinery Company. Vick had purchased the 40 foot by 150 foot lot from Silas Lucas and wife.
W.J. Davis Machinery, formerly Davis & Winstead, was on the south side of South Tarboro, at the Kenan Street end of the block. (Wilson Oil Mill owned a lot there, but their facility was on Grace Street at Stemmery Street.) The Vicks were among a very few African Americans who invested in real estate in early twentieth-century Wilson’s industrial blocks.
Deed book 97, page 235, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
Shortly before Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church built the church that now houses Saint Mark’s Episcopal, they rented the second floor of the Knights of King Solomon building on Stantonsburg Street (now South Pender.) The Knights agreed to provide fuel, light, and janitorial service to the church.
Deed Book 147, page 193, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
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Wilson Daily Times, 29 April 1941.
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Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 21 May 1949.
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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!
Wilson Daily Times, 17 December 1938.
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