Freedom

Rev. Phillips?

We’ve met Rev. Henry C. Phillips, who arrived in Wilson from Edgecombe County in the late 1880s. This 1868 letter was written to a Freedmen’s Bureau official by a Henry C. Phillips, “a teacher of the Colored Children in the Hookerton village” in Greene County.

Was this the same man? His signature in the letter is very different than it appears on numerous marriage licenses 20 to 30 years later, when it is bold and assured and even a bit flamboyant. In 1868, however, Phillips would have been just a few years out of slavery, with relatively few chances to practice his penmanship. As an ordained A.M.E. Zion minister, Phillips, however, had daily opportunities to strengthen and polish his handwriting.

 

He is to give me one half of everything except peas.

Just eight months after Emancipation, freedman Riley Robbins entered into a sharecropping contract with white farmer David W. Weaver to tend a small (“one-horse”) farm north of Wilson.

Articles of agreement between D.W. Weaver and Riley Robins

I D.W. Weaver do promise to let the aforesaid Riley Robins have for the balance of this year enough of my land lying on the W&W R R five miles from Wilson to attend a one horse crop. With the understanding that he is to give me one half of the corn one half of the fodder one half of the cotton or whatever else may be raised except Peas. I also agree to furnish him with a house garden and potato patch

Witness W.L. Pearce    D.W. Weaver   This the 24th day of January 1866

I Riley Robins do promise to cultivate and attend the aforesaid crop to the best advantage and likewise to keep everything in good repair such as keeping the fence and ditches cleaned out &c

Witness W.L. Pearce  Riley (X) Robbins

Approved Geo. O. Glavis [illegible]

——

The arrangement seems to have gone bad — note the “contract broke” scrawled at the top of the cover page — but I have found no further records.

U.S. Freedmen’s Bureau Records, 1865-1878 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.

Who was Edward G. Calhoun?

Four of the five African-American men named in 1883 as Republican Party officers or candidates were familiar, long-term Wilson County residents. The fifth, however, is unfamiliar. Who was Edward G. Calhoun?

The scant record reveals that Calhoun may have been born in North Carolina, but came back into the state in the 1870s as a freedman from Bullock County, Alabama. We have some evidence of his political activity in Wilson County in the 1880s, then he disappears from the record.

Calhoun is first found as Ned Calhoun in a 1867 Bullock County voter registration ledger.

On 28 July 1868, freedman Ned Calhoun married freedwoman Rachel Shepherd in Bullock County.

In the 1870 census of Greenwood township, Bullock County, Alabama: Ned Calhoun, 23, farm laborer; wife Rachael, 21; farm laborer; and daughter Rebecca, 1.

By the mid-1870s, the Calhouns were in Wilson County.

In the 1880 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: laborer Ned Calhoon, 35; wife Rachel, 27; and children Henry G., 6, Elexander, 4, James M., 2, and Sarah A.L., 8 months. Ned reported that he and his parents were born in North Carolina. Rachel reported that she was born in South Carolina to North Carolina-born parents.

A notice in the 19 October 1881 Wilmington Morning Star advised that E.G. Calhoun was among residents with letters waiting at the post office. Is this the same man?

In 1882, E.G. Calhoun was elected secretary of the Wilson County Republican Party and in April 1883 submitted a letter to an African-American newspaper in Raleigh.

The Banner-Enterprise (Raleigh, N.C.), 19 April 1883. 

This is our last glimpse of Calhoun in real time.

By 1900, his widow Rachel had remarried and been widowed again and lived in south Georgia with their younger children.

In the 1900 census of Douglas district, Coffee County, Georgia: widow Rachel Towns, 40, and children Henry C., 26, James C., 22, Marcellus, 18, Walter, 13, Bessie, 11, and Ada, 8. Rachel reported that she was born in Alabama to South Carolina-born parents; Henry and James were reported as born in Alabama; Marcellus, Walter, and Bessie, in North Carolina; and Ada in Georgia.

On 22 February 1903, Henry Calhoun married Lessie Sturdivant in Coffee County, Georgia. On 3 May 1903, Marcellus Calhoun married Annie Dixon in Coffee County.

In the 1910 census of Precinct 9, Hernando County, Florida: Walter Calhoun, 23, turpentine laborer, born in N.C., and wife Cora, 17.

In the 1910 census of Precinct 9, Hernando County, Florida: J.M. Calhoun, 33, turpentine laborer, born in North Carolina; wife Elizabeth, 30; and children Bertha, 6, and Willie G., 3.

In the 1910 census of Coffee County, Georgia: Marcellus Calhoun, 28, turpentine laborer, born in N.C.; wife Anna, 21; and children Rozel, 6, Esther, 3, and Lula, 17 months.

In 1918, James Monroe Calhoun registered for the World War I draft in Hernando County, Florida. Per his registration card, he was born 7 August 1877; lived in Centralia, Hernando County; worked as a laborer for L.P. Petteway; and his nearest relative was Elizabeth Calhoun.

In the 1923 Waycross, Georgia, city directory: Calhoun Walter D (Cora) driver h 631 Pittman

In the 1930 census of Brooks County, Georgia: Walter Calhoun, 53, naval stores laborer; wife Pearl, 29; and children Robert, 7, Walter D., 4, Lorena, 2, and Bessie, 3 months.

In the 1930 census of Brooksville, Hernando County, Florida: on A.C.L. Street, renting for $6/month, lumberyard laborer James M. Calhoun, 52; wife Elizabeth, 50; children Willie G., 23, hauling blocks at veneer mill, and Ruby O., 18; and granddaughter Mary L., 11.

In the 1935 state census of Hernando County, Florida: inside Brooksville town limits,  Jim Calhoun, 57, born in N.C., renter, crosstie cutter; wife Elizabeth, 55, born in N.C.; and granddaughter Mary Lee, 16, born in Florida, cook.

James Monroe Calhoun died 20 September 1937 in Brooksville, Hernando County, Florida. Per his death certificate, he was born 7 August 1877 in Wilson County, North Carolina, to Edward G. Calhoun. He was married to Elizabeth Calhoun; worked as a laborer; and died of laceration to his left leg sustained while cutting a tree.

In 1940, Herbert Lee Calhoun registered for the World War II draft in Waycross, Ware County, Georgia. Per his registration card, he was born 20 June 1913 in Orlando, Florida; lived at 719 Daniel Street, Waycross; his contact was father Walter David Calhoun, 911 Daniel Street; he worked at the Bund Building; and he had a defective left eye.

Alabama, U.S., County Marriage Records 1805-1967, http://www.ancestry.com.

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.”

$50 reward for Levi, last seen in Black Creek.

The North-Carolina Standard (Raleigh, N.C.), 16 October 1850.

The resourceful Levi stole two sets of free papers when he left James G. Edwards’ plantation in Greene County, North Carolina. Luke Hall and Ned Hall were members of an extended free family of color living just over the county line in northeast Wayne County. Levi’s first mistake was trying to board a train too close to home. One set of his papers was seized, but he apparently was able to avoid being taken into custody. His second mistake was to ask directions to Raleigh. Hoping he made it to freedom nonetheless.