The 66-year arc of Wilson’s beloved Monitors postdates Black Wide-Awake ‘s focus, but I don’t need an excuse to recommend John Harris’ brand-new history of this legendary band. The Monitors have been a constant my entire life, and I knew their basic story, but every other page — especially in the narrative of their early years and Sam Lathan‘s tidbits about East Wilson in the 1940s — was a delightful reveal.
I resisted podcasts for an unreasonably long time, as I better absorb information by reading rather than hearing. A few years ago though, when my father’s illness necessitated more frequent seven-hour drives between Wilson and Atlanta, I got with the times with the help of Victoria Lamos’ Archive Atlanta. (Which is — for my money — the gold standard in local history podcasts.)
A recent episode about Blandtown, a historic African-American community in what is now Atlanta, encapsulated everything there is to love about Archive Atlanta and made me wish I had the time, resources, and know-how to produce a Black Wide-Awake podcast. Maybe in time….
Anyway, nothing to do with Wilson, but I highly recommend this “weekly history podcast about the people, places, and events that shaped the city of Atlanta.” Find it wherever you listed to podcasts.
In 1989, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution published an in-depth piece celebrating Wilson native Augustus S. Clark, his wife Anna W. Clark, and the life-changing school they founded in Cordele, Georgia, in 1902.
I visited Gillespie Institute in the summer of 2021 and wrote about it here.
Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12 March 1989.
I’m spreading my wings! I’ve spoken often here of the admirable work Iredell County Public Library is doing with Statesville’s Green Street Cemetery — their community outreach across the board is top tier! — and I’m excited to share my family’s connections to this historic burial ground.
If you know folk in or around Iredell County, please spread the word!
Not Wilson, but 25 miles down the road (and I’m sure with a Wilson link or two if I dug hard enough.) I hope to be able to take in this Wayne County Museum exhibit about venerable First African Baptist Church. Please add it to your Black History Month doings!
In my first post about Minshew School, I wrote: “Location: A 1936 state road map of Wilson County shows ‘Minshew’ school located on present-day Jaycross Road, just east of Frank Price Church Road. [There is a house standing at that location that resembles a converted school building. It warrants a closer look.]”
A former Minshew student has confirmed that that house in fact is the old school.
Photo courtesy of Google Street View.
I spent a delightful half-hour on the phone the other night with Mrs. Dazell Batts Pearson! In a recent post, I queried “Does Black Creek Cemetery have an African-American section? Is there a separate cemetery?,” and the BWA-hive responded. Yes, said Sebrina Knight Lewis-Ward, and her grandmother not only knows where it is, but went to Minshew School and can locate that, too!
Mrs. Pearson, who is 90, recalled that the cemetery was active when she was a child and into the 1960s. Funeral processions travelled down a dirt path alongside the railroad, crossed a small wooden bridge across a ditch, and then went over an embankment to reach the cemetery. In recent decades, the cemetery, now even more difficult to reach, has become overgrown. Saint John Holiness Church owns the cemetery parcel, but it is not clear whether it actually established the cemetery.
I’m looking forward to meeting Mrs. Pearson during an upcoming visit to Wilson and touring Black Creek township with her and to researching more about Black Creek Cemetery. Stay tuned!
Plat Book 20, page 21, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
Thank you, Sebrina and Mrs. Pearson!
Rosa Farmer Arrington‘s 1984 interview with the Daily Times shortly before her 102nd birthday is a joy to read! (Where are her photographs now??)
Wilson Daily Times, 31 December 1984.
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In the 1900 census of the Town of Wilson, Wilson County: day laborer James Farmer, 22, and his siblings Rosa, 17, Freeda, 10, Robert, 7, Richard, 5, Mark, 2, and Erickers, 7 months, plus boarder Tobias Farmer, 47, a barber.
On 19 September 1900, Warren Crank, 21, of Wilson, married Rosa Farmer, 18, of Wilson, daughter of Tobias Farmer and Chunnie Farmer, at Rosa Farmer’s house in Wilson. P.H. Leach applied for the license; Rev. William Baker performed the ceremony; and R.H.W. Wilkerson, Joe Edwards, and G.A. Martin were witnesses.
In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: oil mill laborer Warren Crank, 30; wife Rosie, 27, laundress; brother-in-law Mark Farmer, 12; and boarder Mute Land, 31, oil mill laborer.
Tobias Farmer died in Wilson on 17 May 1914. Per his death certificate, he was born 5 January 1854 in North Carolina to Elija Farmer and Rosa Barnes; was a widower; and worked as a barber. Rosa Crank was informant.
Warren Crank died 2 June 1917 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 8 December 1880 in Lynchburg, Virginia, to Thomas Crank; worked in a tobacco factory; and was married. Rosa Crank was informant. Crank was buried in Wilson, N.C. (which likely meant Vick or Odd Fellows Cemeteries.)
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 646 Green Street, house carpenter Levi Arrington, 33; wife Rosa, 33; and daughter Zelma, 7.
In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 208 Reid Street, carpenter Levi Arrington, 38, wife Rosa, 40, daughter Zelma, 16, and lodger Nelly Sharp, 20, a cook.
In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Arrington Zelma (c) student 208 N Reid
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 208 Reid Street, construction carpenter Levi Arrington, 53, born in Nash County; wife Rosa, 57, tobacco stemmer, born in Enfield; daughter Zelma, 28, born in Wilson, beauty parlor operator; and roomer Mary Johnson, 22, born in Winston-Salem, public school teacher.
On 25 February 1948, Hector Henry McPhail, 44, of Wilson, son of R.J. and Laura McPhail, married Zelma Mae Arrington, 35, of Wilson, son of Levi and Rosa Arrington, in Greensboro, Guilford County, North Carolina.
Zelma Arrington McPhail died 27 December 1948 at her home at 208 North Reid Street, Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 1 April 1912 in Wilson to Levi Arrington and Rosa Farmer; was married to Hector McPhail; worked as a beautician; and was buried in “Wilson/Roundtree” cemetery.
In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 208 Reid Street, carpenter Levi Arrington, 62; wife Rosa, 67, beauty parlor proprietor; and foster daughter Margaret Kenny, 9.
Robert Farmer died 23 March 1957 at his home at 803 South Railroad Street, Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 26 March 1890 in Wilson County to Tobe Farmer and Eunice Hunter; was a laborer; and was a widower. Rosa Arrington was informant.
Levi Arrington died 11 June 1964 at his home at 208 North Reid Street, Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 2 May 1887 in Nash County to Amie Salvage; was married to Rosa Arrington; and was a carpenter.
Wilson’s emergence as a leading tobacco market town drew hundreds of African-American migrants in the decades after the 1890s. Many left family behind in their home counties, perhaps never to be seen again. Others maintained ties the best way they could.
Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. left Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, around 1905. They came to Wilson presumably for better opportunities off the farm. Each remained firmly linked, however, to parents and children and siblings back in Wayne County as well as those who had joined the Great Migration north. This post is the ninth in a series of excerpts and adaptations of interviews with my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks (1910-2001), Jesse and Sarah’s adoptive daughter (and Sarah’s great-niece), revealing the ways her Wilson family stayed connected to their far-flung kin. (Or didn’t.)
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Here, we read my grandmother’s recounting of the escape from Wilson of her sister Mamie Henderson Holt to Greensboro, North Carolina, at the age of 15. Mamie’s first child, John Holt, was born 4 December 1923 — 100 years ago today! — and before long she brought her baby to Wilson, to 303 Elba Street, to meet his family. His 13 year-old aunt was overjoyed, but the difficult, distrustful relationship between Mamie and “Papa” Jesse Jacobs soon brought the visit to an abrupt end.
“Papa closed up the davenport on John. Just by it — he was grunting or groaning for breath or something. I went out to see what it was, coming from out of the kitchen and dining room where he was in that room across the hall on that open couch. That’s where Papa was looking his old shoes or something to put on, and he went there and turned up the end of that thing. If he had shut him up in there, it’d a killed him, but he just turned up the end of it. And he didn’t see his shoes, so he come on out. And we heard this noise – ‘nyyyaaa-nya, nyyyaaa-nya.’ And we looked in and saw that thing turned up, and Mamie run in there and grabbed him, she grabbed up John and, oh, she was shaking and shaking and shaking, crying, and I was crying ‘cause I thought he had killed him. So we had him up by the arms, just holding him, just fanning him and fanning him and fanning him, and I was just scared he was gon die. You never know.
“I know he didn’t mean to do it, turn up the bed not thinking ‘bout the child. And then not used to a child being there before he pulled the bed down. And so after that, Mamie said, ‘Let me get out of here.’ ‘Cause you know Mamie and Papa didn’t get along – and she said that he was trying to kill her child. Papa, well, he didn’t know what he’d done. And he was sorry. He said he was so sorry it happened, he wouldn’t hurt that child for nothing in the world. And he was just crazy ‘bout John.
“But Mamie left there that night, honey. She left there with that baby, and she said, ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back here.’ So I got after Papa ‘bout it. And he said he didn’t know the baby was in there. He wouldn’t hurt that baby for nothing. And so Annie Bell [Jacobs Gay, his daughter], she heard about it, and she come over there and laid Papa out. He said he didn’t know the child was there. He said, ‘Well, y’all ought to have taken up the bed when you got out.’ But the child was in there still sleep. ‘But take him up and put him in another room.’ Not put him in that thing so he couldn’t get out.
“So Mamie left there and went on back to Greensboro, and she didn’t never like Papa after that. She didn’t like him no how. She just felt like he did it for meanness, but he didn’t. Then Mamie said, well, she know he was getting old, and so she forgive him ‘cause things like that happen. But at that time, it was just, she never did like him much no how, but look like that just knocked the …. But she said, ‘I’m not gon fault him for doing that. I don’t think he would have did it to the child. He might would do something to me, but….'”
Baby John, circa early 1925, no worse for the wear. That’s my grandmother in the corner.
Papa Jacobs died in 1926, and John Holt lived 90 more years, passing away in New York City in March 2016.
Interview of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson adapted and edited for clarity. Copyright 1994, 1996. All rights reserved. Photo in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.
Wilson’s emergence as a leading tobacco market town drew hundreds of migrants in the decades after the 1890s. Many left family behind in their home counties, perhaps never to be seen again. Others maintained ties the best way they could.
Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. left Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, around 1905. They came to Wilson presumably for better opportunities off the farm. Each remained firmly linked, however, to parents and children and siblings back in Wayne County as well as those who had joined the Great Migration north. This post is the eighth in a series of excerpts from documents and interviews with my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks (1910-2001), Jesse and Sarah’s adoptive daughter (and Sarah’s great-niece), revealing the ways her Wilson family stayed connected to their far-flung kin. (Or didn’t.)
When Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. married Sarah Henderson in Wayne County in 1895, his children ranged in age from newborn to 14 years old. When Jesse and Sarah Jacobs moved 40 miles north to Wilson circa 1905, the youngest children, Doctor and Annie Bell, came with them, and even the eldest, James Daniel Jacobs, settled briefly in the Elba Street house.
Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory (1908).
“Jeem Daniel. Jeem Daniel Jacobs. He and Roxie lived down in Clinton down there, and he come to Wilson when they got married, before they had a family. I remember that. They talked about me coming to visit, but he used to come up to bring tobacco. I remember, ‘Why in the world he had to come all the way to Wilson – ‘
James D. and Roxie Simmons on their Sampson County farm, circa 1950.
“I just do remember him, by him – lots of times they would come by the house, see Papa, wanted to know how he was doing, and whatever. They didn’t stay no time, had to get back and see what time they was gon sell tobacco. So, I don’t know whatever became of him. Now, Mamie [Henderson Holt, her sister] went down when Jeem Daniel got married. He married Roxie, a girl named Roxie, and they was still down there in Clinton, wherever, somewhere down … Anyway, I know it wasn’t Mount Olive, and so Mama, when she got pregnant, Roxie got pregnant, then Jeem Daniel wanted Mamie to come down there and stay with his wife. He said, ‘I’ll pay for her to look after her, stay with her in the house,’ ‘cause he was working down in the field and needed someone to look after her. So Mamie went down there to stay. Didn’t stay, but I never did go down there. I never did see ‘em, after that, except Jeem Daniel brought up some corn one time to see Papa ‘cause he was sick.”
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In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Jacobs James D lab h 106 Elba
In the 1910 census of Brogden township, Wayne County, N.C.: John Brewington, 27; wife Hattie, 25; children Lillie, 3, and Kirby, 1; and boarder James D. Jacobs, 30, farmer.
On 22 November 1916, James D. Jacobs, 35, married Roxie Simmons, 25, in Sampson County, N.C.
In 1918, James Daniel Jacobs registered for the World War I draft in Clinton, Sampson County. Per his registration card, he was born 2 February 1881; worked as a farmer; and his nearest relative was Roxie Jacobs.
ln the 1920 census of South Clinton township, Sampson County: farmer Jimmie Simmons, 43; mother Pennie, 77, widow; brother-in-law James D. Jacobs, 37; sister Roxie, 33; and nephews Jessie W., 2, and Chacie, 1 month.
In the 1940 census of South Clinton township, Sampson County: farmer James D. Jacobs, 58; wife Roxie, 55; children Chasie, 20, Redick, 17, Macy, 16, Rillie, 14, Lifton, 10, and Jessie, 22; and granddaughter Glacinie, 2.
In the 1950 census of South Clinton township, Sampson County: farmer James D. Jacob, 68; wife Roxie, 64; son Jessie W., 33, widower; granddaughter Glacenia, 12; son Lifton, 20, and daughter-in-law Mary E., 18.
James Daniel Jacobs died 6 April 1952 in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, N.C. Per his death certificate, he was born 3 February 1883 in Sampson County to Jesse Jacobs and Sallie Bridges; lived near Clinton, Sampson County; was married; and was a tenant farmer.
Interview of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson adapted and edited for clarity. Copyright 1994, 1996. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy of Carla Carter Jacobs.