Photographs

Studio shots, no. 238: Nora Williams Battle.

Nora Williams Battle (1883-1958)

In the 1900 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: widower Levi Williams, 55, widower, and children Maggie, 18, Norah, 16, James, 14, Joseph, 12, Arthur, 10, Walter, 8, Hattie, 6, and Ora, 4.

William Battle, 36, married Nora Williams, 22, in Wilson County on 4 November 1908 in Wilson. Primitive Baptist minister Jonah Williams performed the ceremony in the presence of Dempsey Lassiter, Harvey Mercer, and Jessie Whitehead.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 609 East Green Street, William Battle, 43; wife Nora, 30; and children Ester, 12, Jessie, 9, William Jr., 7, Aurtha L., 4, and Walter E., 1; and roomers William, 57, widower, and Mary Christmas, 24.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 609 East Green, widow Nora Battle, 49, washing; daughter Esther Moye, 30, widow, tobacco factory stemmer; and seven other families.

In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 608 East Green, downstairs, widow Nora Battle, 65; son Jessie Battle, 35, cook; daughter Ester Moye, 37, widow, cook; grandchildren Fred Jr., 18, cook, Cornelius, 16, and William A. Moye, 13; and lodgers Arthur Cobb, 59, and Sally Phillips, 75.

Nora Elizabeth Battle died 4 March 1958 at her home at 701 Viola Street in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 10 February 1890 in Edgecombe County, N.C., to Levi Williams and Harriett Bullock and  was a widow.

Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com user PHILLYEVANS44.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 15: Jack Williamson’s blacksmith shop.

The 1872 map of Wilson shows Jack Williamson‘s blacksmith shop on Tarboro Street, west of Barnes Street. The approximate location is now a parking lot.

Williamson, born enslaved in the Rock Ridge area, came to Wilson shortly after Emancipation. His wife, Ann Jackson Williamson, learned blacksmithing and horseshoeing from him and worked alongside him and their son Charles Williamson.

Jack Williamson died in 1899.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2024.

The death of T/5 Thomas Jones, Jr.

Wilson Daily Times, 5 March 1945.

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In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Tom Jones, 54, laborer, born in Ohio; wife Jannie, 39, born in Georgia; children Luburta, 22, Winsor, 18, Willie, 16, Oscar, 14, Annie, 11, Tom Jr., 5, and Acy B., 1; and grandson James Moore, 6.

In 1942, Thomas Jones Jr. registered for the World War II draft. Per his registration card, he was born 25 December 1923 in Wilson, N.C.; lived at Baily Road, Dorchester, Massachusetts, then 215 Pine Street, Cambridge, Mass., then 426 Pine Street, Cambridge, then care of John S. Isaacs, Ellendale, Delaware; his contact was Henrietta Whitlock, 211 Pine Street, Cambridge; and he worked for E.T. Webb, Janesville, Virginia.

On 16 October 1950, H.M. Fitts applied for a military headstone for Thomas Jones Jr. Per the application, Jones’ rank was Technician 5 and he served in the 810th Amphibious Truck Company. He was born 25 December 1923 and died 5 March 1944 and was buried in Rest Haven Cemetery.

The Peacock-Applewhite-Yelverton house, again.

A sign hanging at the driveway entrance reads Maywood Manor, Est. 1850, and the large, four-columned portico plays into stereotypes of plantation Big House. In fact, per Stantonsburg Historical Society’s A History of Stantonsburg Circa 1780 to 1980 (1981), though slaveholder James Peacock built this house on the northwestern outskirts of Stantonsburg about 1860, the fancy entrance was not added until 1914. Here’s the house with its original exterior. (Also — “Maywood Manor”???)

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2024.

Snaps, no. 112: Lemore Hannah.

Lemore Hannah (1908-1946).

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In the 1910 census of Ridge township, Williamsburg County, South Carolina: David Hanna, 29; wife Ollie, 21; children Mitchel, 4, Lemore, 2, and Drusilla, 4 months; and widow Sue A. Hannah, 43.

In the 1920 census of Lake township, Florence County, South Carolina: farmer Davis Hannah, 33, widower; children Michael, 13, Leemore, 12, Drucilla, 10, Alafair, 8, Mary, 7, Aaron, 5, Nathaniel, 3, and Ruth, 6 months; and mother Susana, 64.

In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Hannah Lemore (c) h 404 Manchester

On 12 September 1929, Lee Moore Hannah, 21, married Almeater Morgan, 16, in Wilson.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 600 Stantonsburg Street, rented for $12/month, Calvin Morgan, 52, laborer at Colored High School; wife Almeta, 40; sons Willie, 23, tobacco factory laborer, Surrender, 21, radio company laborer, and Calvin Jr., 17, bellboy at Cherry Hotel; Almeta Hannah Jr., 16; son Fred D. Morgan, 14; daughters Mary A., 9, Sarah J., 8, Rubie, 7, and Ninie L., 3; and son Lindberg, 2; daughter-in-law Eloise Morgan, 18; and son-in-law Lemore Hannah, 22, fertilizer factory laborer.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Lemore Hannah, 30; sister Ruth Hannah, 20; and daughters Ollie, 7, and Camilla, 5.

In 1940, Lemore Hannah registered for the World War II draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 31 July 1908 in Lake City, S.C.; lived at 709 East Vance Street Wilson; his contact was sister Ruth Hannah; and he worked for W.L. Wooten, 417 East Nash Street.

Leamore Hannah died 16 November 1946 in Wake Forest, Wake County, North Carolina. Per his death certificate, he was born 38 years old; lived at 540 East Nash Street, Wilson; was a widower; was born in South Carolina to Davis Hannah and Ollie Brown; and worked as a taxi driver. Mitchell Hannah, 509 Moore Street, was informant.

Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com user 806gayst.

Lane Street Project: season 4, workday 7.

Among my mother’s many gifts to me was the boundless feeding of my childhood curiosities and the freedom to make my own way. What a blessing to be here on her special day. (And share cupcakes from Treat Yo’ Self Bakery.)

The Senior Force used mini-chainsaws to cut up deadfall, and I helped drag it into piles for volunteers to move to the curb. We’re working toward the back on the west side of Odd Fellows and are gradually taking down all the saplings.

These two men are the lifeblood of Lane Street Project’s work. For four years, Castonoble Hooks and R. Briggs Sherwood have hoisted onto their backs the real work of reclaiming Odd Fellows, and I am immensely grateful. It’s rare that I actually get to join them in the field, and I enjoyed walking the land and plotting next steps with them this morning.

A corner of a foot marker showing part of the first link of the Odd Fellows chain. How many markers still lie hidden here?

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2024.

Barnes Primitive Baptist Church, found.

Three years ago, I asked, “Where was Barnes Church?” Today, I have an answer.

Founded just after slavery, Barnes Church was one of the earliest African-American churches in Wilson County. Its simple double-doored, gable-front building is believed to have been erected shortly after the church’s establishment.

Barnes Church circa 1960s.

My father’s classmate L. Paul Sherrod Jr. asked me to explore the little spit of woods that I knew had once been the site of the church, but in which I’d not found any traces of the nineteenth-century building. My earlier looks had been in summer, though, when I could barely get a glimpse inside the woodline.

We entered via an old driveway over the ditch and immediately spotted this stack. I was puzzled at first, as this is obviously newer brick. A walk-around, however, revealed old brick piers, the corners of a building came into view, and this broken stack may have been a later addition that vented a wood stove. Curled trips of tin roofing lay rusting underfoot.

And then I spotted this. Barnes Church burned down after it was vacated. Here was a charred length of sill beam — with a four-inch, square-cut nail.

The nail. It was not hand-wrought, but cut from a sheet, as indicating by only two sides tapering. The head would have been added by hand. The earliest machine-cut nails of this type date to about 1840.

A brick from one of the piers. It is unmarked, but probably made locally.

This sill beam, from the north side of the building, is charred but unbroken.

A section still resting on a pier.

The pollen, y’all.

Paul and Barbara Sherrod, my guides. We’ve met Mr. Sherrod here and here and here.

It’s heard to visualize, but I’m standing in front the church’s site, perhaps seven feet from its front wall.

Barnes Primitive Baptist Church did not own its building or the land on which it stood. When the landowner refused to allow the congregation to upgrade the building, members of the Sherrod family donated land for a new church a few miles south, just across the Wayne County line on Watery Branch Road. The “new” church is now occupied by Now Faith Missionary Baptist Church.

The old courthouse.

This 1909 O.V. Foust postcard depicts the old Wilson County courthouse, which stood in the footprint of the current building.

A young African-American man stands on the sidewalk looking northwest toward Tarboro Street. None of the low-rise buildings ahead of him survive. The bell tower visible in the far distance was First Baptist Church, at the corner of North Pine Street.

Foust, O.V., Nash St., Wilson, N.C., 1909, Tabitha Marie DeVisconti Papers, 0480-b2-fd2-i34, East Carolina University Digital Collections, https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/162.