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The two hundred-third 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. 1908; 1 story; William Hargrove house; triple-A house with bracketed, chamfered porch posts and cut-out balustrade; asphalt shingled; Hargrove was a blacksmith.”
Originally numbered 606, the Hargrove house is second only to the Samuel H. and Annie M. Vick house in longevity on the block.
In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Hargrove Wm blksmith 206 S Goldsboro h 606 E Green
In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 606 Green, blacksmith William Hargrove, 43; wife Louvenia, 40; daughters Bessie, 17, and Willie L., 13; and boarder John Howard, 18.
In the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Hargrove Wm blksmith h 606 E Green
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 606 East Green, Luvenia Hargrove, 40, widow, and daughter Willie, 20, public school teacher.
In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 605 East Green, Luvenia Hargrove, 60, widow, and daughter Willie, 29, public school teacher.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 605 East Green, owned and valued at $1000, Louvenia Hargrove, 74, widow; son-in-law McDuffie Smith, 42, shoeshine parlor operator; and daughter Willie, 48, teacher.
In 1942, McDuffie Smith registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 12 July 1899 in Durham, N.C.; lived at 605 East Green; his contact was Luvenia Hargrove, 605 East Green; and he was self-employed.
In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 605 East Green, shoeshine parlor manager McDuffie Smith, 51; wife Willie H., 53, city grammar school teacher; and mother-in-law Luvenia Hargrove, 80, widow.
Luevenia Hargrove died 22 February 1958 in Wilson at her home at 605 East Green. Per her death certificate, she was born 27 February 1869 in Edgecombe County to Joshua Bulluck and Harriet Hines and was buried in Bulluck cemetery, Edgecombe County. Informant was Mrs. Willie Smith, 605 East Green.
McDuffie Smith of 605 East Green died 17 July 1971. Willie Hargrove Smith died 12 years later. Her nephew, William Hines Macklin, remained at 605 East Green.
Wilson Daily Times, 4 May 1983.
William H. Macklin died 13 March 1991 in Wilson.
On 7 November 1994, the Wilson Daily Times published a list of boarded-up houses that included 605 East Green, described as needing “minor repairs.”
The house was renovated and remains occupied today.
N.87-12-354-359, William Hargrove House, 605 E. Green Street, East Wilson Historic District, Wilson, Wilson County, Survey and National Register Branch, State Historic Preservation Office.
Though I will always be of Wilson, I have lived in Atlanta nearly all of my adult life. It is very much “home” for me, too, and is a bottomless well of African-American culture and history that often informs the way I process research and work related to Black Wide-Awake and Lane Street Project.
I’ve begun visiting metro Atlanta’s historic African-American burial grounds. How have they weathered exploding population growth, shifting demographics, outmigration, land loss, and other pressures? The ninth in a series — O’Neal African Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery in Hampton, Georgia.
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During all the time I’ve been in Atlanta, I’ve never been to Atlanta Motor Speedway. Getting to O’Neal required that I skirt the racetrack’s hulking oval on an access road that dead-ended into Lower Woolsey Road. Flaggers controlled that intersection, the first glimpse of the massive construction project that has the cemetery in a chokehold. Traffic was being funneled through a single lane that crept past the site of what will be yet another enormous data center in Henry County.
After a half-mile or so, I spotted O’Neal A.M.E. just inside the tree edge. The church was founded during the early Reconstruction years by freedmen, but this building — or its shell, anyway — may date somewhat later. I’m not a student of African-American vernacular building practices, but it appears to be constructed primarily of a cement stucco over an irregular wall built from chunks of quartz and other fieldstone. There is also evidence of bricks used to form lintels over the windows and to outline a faux arch over the front entrance. Without doubt, O’Neal was built with the congregation’s collective labor, using materials ready to hand.
O’Neal A.M.E. Church, front elevation. A few charred bits of wood found in a rear addition to the main structure suggest a devastating fire.
Through the front window looking back toward the nave. There are no internal structures remaining.
The interior of the church.
The front portico, sealed with modern cinderblock.
Were the parallel lines visible at the top of this image made by a notched trowel?
A chunk of quartz encased in mortar in an exterior wall.
Across the road: what I came for. I scrambled up a five-foot embankment to gain the forest floor. Ahead of me, the remaining headstones of O’Neal church cemetery leaned and listed. The oldest marked grave dates to 1871; the last to the 1950s.
Most of the headstones I saw were professionally made and impressive. O’Neal clearly was a congregation with prosperous families.
Thomas A. Fortson’s monument.
“Prof. Thomas A. Fortson A.M. Ph.D. Was Born Jan. 1, 1854 And Died May 13, 1901. He Was Charitable.” Georgia native Fortson is listed as a teacher in the 1900 census of Nashville, Tennessee. He taught at Walden University, formerly known as Central Tennessee College, which housed Meharry Medical College.
Rows of head and foot stones.
Ceasar Fortson Mảr. 29, 1830 June 30, 1900 Gone, But Not Forgotten. Fortson appears in the 1900 census of nearby Woolsey district, Spalding County.
William G. Alexander. Aug. 11, 1902 May 17, 1909 A little time on earth he spent. Till God for him His angel sent. (In the background, you can just see the orange safety fencing separating O’Neal cemetery from the data center construction site, which wraps around it on three sides.)
A broken vault cover.
Y’all know I love a vernacular headstone. There’s a cross carved into the top section; then 1925 in the middle; then OLLIE, a pierced heart, BORN OCT. 3 1900, [illegible].
An ornamental wire fence outlining a family plot.
Fieldstone markers.
Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2026.
The J.D. and Eleanor Reid house has been in distress for decades, as shown in these photos taken for the East Wilson Historic District nomination process.
N.87-12-269-271, Judge D. Reid House, 600 E. Green Street, East Wilson Historic District, Wilson, Wilson County, Survey and National Register Branch, State Historic Preservation Office.
Wilson Daily Times, 6 March 1940.
Elm City’s first black high school was damaged beyond saving in a fire in early 1940. County school authorities quickly made plans to replace the building using Works Progress Administration funds. As to the question of the 334 “schoolless” students, no decision was ever made, and children whose families could not arrange to transfer them elsewhere sat out until the new facility — Frederick Douglass High School — opened in 1941.
I finally saw Julia Boyette Bailey‘s grave for myself.
Getting there required a slog along the edge of Buckhorn reservoir, which has retreated from the wood line under a ferocious and prolonged drought. At water’s edge, I nearly lost my boot when the crust of the soft yellow-gray mud gave way beneath my step.
The snags of old cypresses now stand fully exposed, and Julia Bailey’s grave is now well above the waterline.
Randy Marshburn and Al Letchworth have placed flowers at the site, cut back the briars growing over it, and stood up the cleaned headstone in a temporary, but solid, repair. Julia Bailey’s footstone is visible at the bottom of this photo. Andrew W. Terrell‘s footstone lies across her grave. His broken headstone was once visible underwater, but has since disappeared. Depressions near Bailey’s grave suggest other burials.
I’ll say it again. This is the grave of “Julia Boyette Bailey, a woman who was born into slavery; grew to adulthood, married, and bore children under its yoke; and lived only four years beyond it. Hers is one of the, if not the, oldest known burials of an African-American person in Wilson County.”
We know that R. Ward Sutton, a Rocky Mount undertaker, was contracted to disinter, remove, and reinter 16-18 graves in the “Bailey-Tarell” cemetery in 1998. We also know that he never did it. Sutton ran adds on four consecutive weeks in April 1998, notifying the public that Julia Bailey, Andrew W. Terrell, and unnamed others would be reburied in Bailey Cemetery. And yet here they are, still on the City of Wilson’s land.
Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2026.
The two hundred-second 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. 1913; 2 stories; Dr. William Michner [sic] house; L-plan Queen Anne structure with cutaway front-facing bay; Michner was a physician.”
Prior to Dr. William A. Mitchner’s purchase of this house, it was numbered 605. Primitive Baptist elder Jonah Williams likely built the house around 1910. His daughter, teacher Clarissa Williams, inherited it and lived there with her niece’s family.
Earnestine Ford died 10 November 1916 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was five months old; was born in Wilson to Curtis Ford of Dillon County, S.C., and Mamie Battle of Wayne County, N.C. Curtis Ford, 605 East Green Street, was informant.
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Clarcy Williams, 50; roomer Curtis Ford, 37, house carpenter; [niece] Mamie Ford, 24, and her children Lear L., 4, and Quincey B., 2.
Williams died in October 1921. Her estate consisted of a house and lot (at 605 East Green Street) worth about $3000 and an estimated $100 in personal property. Her heirs at law were her nieces and nephews Mamie Ford, Fanny Battle, Clinton Battle, and Glynn Battle.
In the 1925 Wilson, N.C., city directory:
In the 1928 Wilson, N.C., city directory:
In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 604 East Green, physician William Mincher [sic], 55, divorced; mother Lucy, 65, widow; and nephew Hubert, 30, tobacco factory laborer.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 604 East Green Street, Dr. W.A. Mitchner, 53, born Johnston County; wife Marie, 40, born Wake County; and mother Lucy Mitchner, 80, born in Johnston County.
Dr. Mitchner died in 1941, and his mother in 1946.
Wilson Daily Times, 5 November 1941.
Wilson Daily Times, 25 April 1946.
Marie Mitchner began to take lodgers into the large home, including members of her family.
In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 604 East Green, widow Marie R. Mitchner, 49, and lodgers Doris Raynor, 36, city social worker, and Mary A. Huggins, 24, elementary teacher in city schools.
Wilson Daily Times, 7 January 1956.
Wilson Daily Times, 21 April 1962.
Marie Mitchner died 30 April 1971 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 24 December 1899 in Henry Person and Dora Radley; was a widow; lived at 604 East Green Street; and was a retired teacher.
604 East Green Street was converted into apartments after Mitchner’s death, and tenants cycled in and out well into the 1990s. In January 2003, Wilson City Council accepted donation of the property by its owner, Jean Tedder. It was later demolished.
N.87-12-274-278 [N.80.11.904], Dr. William Michner House, 604 E. Green Street, East Wilson Historic District, Wilson, Wilson County, Survey and National Register Branch, State Historic Preservation Office.
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In the 1930 census of Upper Town Creek township, Edgecombe County, N.C.: George Braswell, 41; wife Lizzie, 35; and children Cornelius, 15, James, 13, Eloise, 10, Arthur, 8, Rena, 5, Ollin, 3, and Walter, 1.
In the 1940 census of Olds township, Greene County, N.C.: farmer George Braswell, 54; wife Lizzie, 42; children James, 23, Luther [sic], 18, Reaner, 16, Arland, 13, Walter, 12, Everlina, 8, and Julious, 4; and lodger Richard Sutton, 43. The family reported having lived in Wilson County in 1935.
In 1942, Arthur Braswell registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 21 October 1921 in Wilson County; lived at Route 3, Wilson; his contact was Dick Suggs; and he worked for Dick Suggs.
On 7 February 1952, Arthur Braswell, 29, of Sims, son of Lizzie Braswell, married Viola Ward, 19, of Sims, daughter of Moses and Rosetta Bynum Ward, in Wilson.
Image courtesy of Veterans of World War II Wilson County, spiral-bound volume, Wilson County Public Library.
We saw 603 East Green Street here and here.
Below are photos of the Washington Wilkins house taken circa the mid-1980s for the East Wilson Historic District nomination report.
603 East Green today.
N.87-12-360-362, Washington Wilkins House, 603 E. Green Street, East Wilson Historic District, Wilson, Wilson County, Survey and National Register Branch, State Historic Preservation Office; photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2026.
601 East Green is described in the nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District: “ca. 1950; 1 1/2 stories; stone-veneered cottage with Neo-Colonial motifs.”
This house, built for physician William C. Hines and his family in the late 1940s, was a latecomer to the 600 block of East Green. It was demolished more than 20 years ago.
601 East Green, today.
Wilson Daily Times, 12 June 1951.
Contact sheet frames from N.87-12-363-375, Dr. William Hines House, 601 E. Green Street, East Wilson Historic District, Wilson, Wilson County, Survey and National Register Branch, State Historic Preservation Office; photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, May 2026.