For more about Samuel H. Vick‘s involvement with Whitesboro, see here and here.
For more about Whitesboro Historic Preservation Project, see here.
Commerce
Affidavits of good behavior, no. 2.
NOTE: I found these documents before my trip to Aberdeen. They, in fact, spurred me to go.
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I’ve been hunting for digitized evidence of the trade of Wilson County slavers like Wyatt Moye, Robert S. Adams, Stephenton Page Jr., and Joshua Barnes in Aberdeen, Mississippi. I finally found some in a deed book dated 1847-1850. (Wilson County, of course, had not yet formed, but these traders lived or had lived in parts of Edgecombe, Nash, Wayne, or Johnston Counties that are now Wilson County.) These registered affidavits attest to the affiants’ personal acquaintance with an enslaved person who had been sent from North Carolina to Mississippi for further sale.
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Deed Record 13, page 641. Chancery Clerk’s Office, Monroe County, Mississippi.
Know all men by these presents that we Josh. Barnes and Jas. D. Barnes, Citizens & free holders of the County of Edgecomb & State of North Carolina do hereby certify that we are acquainted with negro woman Esther a very black thick set Slave about forty or fifty years of age which Slave Larry D. Farmer sent to Aberdeen, Mississippi, by Robert S. Adams that said Slave has not been guilty or convicted of murder, arson, burglary or felony within our knowledge or belief in said state. Signed with our Seals and dated Feby 27th 1849. /s/ Josh. Barnes, Jas. D. Barnes
Deed Record 13, page 642. Chancery Clerk’s Office, Monroe County, Mississippi.
Know all men by these presents that we Josh. Barnes & Jas. D. Barnes Citizens & free holders of the County of Edgecomb & State of North Carolina do hereby certify that we are acquainted with negro Friday a very black fellow about twenty or twenty five years of age rather awkard and a little open mouthed weighs about one hundred & sixty pounds that William Barnes sent to Aberdeen, Mississippi, furthermore that said Slave has not been guilty or convicted of murder, arson, burglary or other felony within our knowledge or belief in said state aforesaid. Signed this 27th day of Feby 1849. /s/ Josh. Barnes, Jas. D. Barnes
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- Joshua Barnes
- James D. Barnes — James Dew Barnes. In the 1860 census of Wilson County, farmer James D. Barnes reported $62,580 in personal property. The 1860 slave schedule reveals that this property included 34 enslaved people.
- Larry D. Farmer
- Robert S. Adams — Adams was a partner with Wyatt Moye in the slave-trading firm Moye and Adams.
- William Barnes — brother of Joshua Barnes.
Documents reproduced at www.familysearch.org.
The Vicks sell land to a hosiery company.
In 1917, Samuel and Annie Vick sold a lot on Cemetery Street to Crescent Hosiery Company of Scotland Neck, North Carolina. Crescent paid $500 for the land, which adjoined property of Smith Mercer, Columbus Goffney, and Henry Forbes.
Deed book 94, page 9, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
It does not appear that Crescent ever operated a factory on the site, or even built upon it, unless this unoccupied brick building depicted in the 1922 Sanborn map of the street was theirs. (Cemetery Street’s name was briefly changed to Contentnea Street.) By 1930, per the Sanborn map, the building was being used for cotton storage by an unnamed proprietor.
1922 Sanborn fire insurance map of Scotland Neck, North Carolina.
Infamously, Lewis Hine photographed children working in Crescent Hosiery Company for his expose of child labor conditions in Southern textile mills.
Nannie Coleson, age 11, working as a looper at Crescent Hosiery in 1914.
1908 Sanborn fire insurance map of Scotland Neck, North Carolina.
Photo courtesy of National Child Labor Committee Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print.
The Commercial Bank up close.
This rare postcard is the only known full image of the Commercial Bank of Wilson, founded by Samuel H. Vick and others in April 1921.
Detail from the 1922 Sanborn insurance maps of Wilson, N.C., showing Commercial Bank at the corner of South Pettigrew and East Nash Streets.
Hat tip to Keith Boykin.
Darden Funeral Home’s temporary location.
Wilson Daily Times, 26 June 1948.
Darden and Sons Funeral Homes moved into temporary space while they completed their iconic faux-Tudor building in the 600 block of East Nash Street. The location? Founder Charles H. Darden’s old “home place” on Pender Street. That house has long been demolished, but appears on a 1940 aerial photograph of the area.
(1) is First Baptist Church; (2) is Saint John A.M.E. Zion; and the old Darden house is indicated with an arrow.
The Columbian Issue.
In 1893, Postmaster Samuel H. Vick‘s office received the first commemorative stamps issued by the United States Postal Service — the Columbian Issue.
Wilson Advance, 12 January 1893.
Image courtesy of www.postalmuseum.si.edu. Hat tip to Cliff Darden for steering me to the article!
Selling liquor to slaves.
Selling liquor to enslaved people was a crime so common that Superior Court kept forms specially worded for indictments. At Fall Term 1857, a solicitor signed off on a charge against John Caligan for selling a “pint of spiritous liquors” to “a slave named Joshua the property of Josiah Rawls.”
The same year, a grand jury considered a charge against Henry Locus, a free man of color, for buying liquor for an enslaved man. Another enslaved man, Reddick, was a witness to the alleged crime.
Selling to a Slave (1857), Wilson County Slave Records 1834-1863, www. familysearch.org.
Payment for services.
As guardian of M.C. Farmer, Warren Woodard filed regular expense reports in Wilson County Superior Court. In 1883, Woodard paid an unnamed washerwoman, who was almost certainly African-American, a total of $12.00 on eleven occasions between January and December. He also paid Lemon Taborn a total of $10.95 for three barber services.
Howell G. Whitehead’s guardian Frank W. Barnes filed regular reports detailing all income and funds paid out for Whitehead’s support, including small payments for two visits to barber Lemon Taborn on 29 December 1890 ($3.30) and 15 December 1891 ($1.40).
Around the same time, Barnes was the executor of Mary J. Anderson’s estate. For October and November 1889, he reported receiving payments for “rent cotton” totaling $83.67 from Mack Bynum and $74.30 from West Bynum. On 23 October 1889, Barnes paid Charlotte Brinkley and her unnamed daughter wages of $10.00 and on 25 November 1889 paid Lemon Taborn’s barber bill in full at $4.95. The Brinkleys were paid $6.00 on December 7 and $4.50 on December 23, and on the 14th Louisa Hinnant received $1.80 for two weeks of washing. Also on the 23rd, a woman named Effie, who was almost certainly Black, was paid 90 cents for “Washing for children.” On 10 February 1890, Barnes paid blacksmith Charlie Battle $3.55.
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- Lemon Taborn
- Mack Bynum
- West Bynum
- Charlotte Brinkley
- Louisa Hinnant — in the 1880 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Pine Street, hireling William Hinnant, 26; wife Ann, 29; sister Louisa, 21, “wash & irons”; and nieces H.E., 20, servant, and Berdin Stancil, 13.
- Charlie Battle
Wilson Probate Estate Case Files 1854-1959, http://www.familysearch.org.
The estate of Haddie D. Swinson.
Grocery merchant Haddie Davis Swinson was waylaid and murdered in January 1921, presumably in a robbery gone worse. The year’s support his widow Ianthia Swinson received for herself and their two minor children consisted largely of goods and store fixtures from his grocery, including 17 cans of black-eyed peas, 29 cans of sardines, 11 jars of vinegar, 20 bottles of soft drinks, and so on.
Most of the goods were generic, but note the national brands Swinson carried — Campbell’s soup, Red Devil lye, Pet milk, Octagon soap, Gold Dust soap, Louiseann [Luzianne] tea, and P. Lorillard snuff.
Wilson [County, North Carolina] Special Proceedings, http://www.familysearch.org.
