Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 29 August 1942.
The Norfolk Journal and Guide enjoyed wide readership in Wilson County, and young Winford Lee Morgan was one of their local salesmen.
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In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 611 Spring Street, James Morgan, 34, redrying plant laborer; wife Addie May Morgan, 29, redrying plant laborer; son Winford Lee Morgan, 9; mother Eunice Lou Fisher, 55, widow; and cousin Ruth Richard, 14.
Have our worst fears come true?
A profound thank you to Castonoble Hooks for sounding the alarm about worsening erosion at Vick Cemetery; to Olivia Neeley and Drew Wilson of the Wilson Times, whose immediate investigation spotted what may be bones in the ditch; and the Wilson city and county officials who quickly reported to the scene today.
If these dry bones are human, whether recent or ancestral, we honor the memory of the deceased and commit ourselves to ensuring a more peaceful rest for this person and all who lie in Vick Cemetery.
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Mercifully, the bones are not human. Nonetheless, we urge the City to take steps to address the erosion issue at Vick Cemetery, starting with additional ground-penetrating radar of the public right-of-way. Human bones have been found in these ditches before. We can forestall more.
Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 2 December 1939.
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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 704 Viola Street, laborer Saul Kittrell, 41; wife Lettie, 35; and children Rebecca, 16, Saul, 15, Bernice, 10, Lillie, 8, Margaret, 7, Charles, 2, and William, 1.
In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 804 East Vance, painter Saul Kittrell, 52; wife Lettie, 48, practical nurse; and children Bernice, 19, Lilly, 18, Margaret, 17, Charles, 10, and Henry, 9. Sol valued their house at $10,000.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 804 East Vance, building painter Solomon Kittrell, 65; wife Lettie, 63; children Berenice, 32, a tobacco factory hanger, and Charles, 22, assistant county agent’s office; and lodgers Charles Beatty, 40, a blacksmith in a repair shop, and his wife Emma, 28, who reported living in Clinton, North Carolina, in 1935.
In 1940, Charles Elva Kittrell registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 12 March 1918 in Wilson; lived at 804 East Vance Street; his contact was mother Lettie Kittrell; and he worked for the National Youth Administration.
Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 27 May 1933.
Rev. C.H. Richmond led Calvary Presbyterian only a few years.
Two years ago, I posted video of Vick Cemetery after a heavy rain, water rushing across the cemetery’s surface into the roadside culvert. Then-new wooden plugs showed the perilous proximity of graves to the edge of the ditch. Eight months ago, I wrote about erosion of the road itself. The situation has not gotten better.
Prior to Lane Street Project’s demands for better care of Vick, the ditch was regularly allowed to become choked with weeds and sweetgum saplings. (Such as what you can now see along Odd Fellows and Rountree Cemeteries.) As the ditch lies within the public right-of-way (indeed, the ditch exists because of the city’s decision to leave open culverts along this stretch of Bishop L.N. Forbes Street), the city is responsible for its maintenance.
In late 2022 or early 2023, either the Cemetery Commission or the Public Works Department treated the ditch alongside Vick Cemetery with a hardcore defoliant, which killed every shred of vegetation and created a moonscape-like strip of land . Unfortunately, no erosion control followed and, predictably, the cemetery’s edge is further slipping away.
Senior Force member Castonoble Hooks took this photo yesterday when he and a helper were mowing Odd Fellows.
I urge you to appeal to City Council to address this situation before even more damage is done to Vick Cemetery. The ditch, the road, the driveway, the driveway marker, and the power poles have done enough.
Mary Jane Davis Horton (1877-1967).
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On 5 July 1896, Rufus Horton, 23, of Johnston County, son of Nash and Elizabeth Horton, married Mary J. Davis, 19, of Johnston, daughter of Ollin and Mary F. Davis, in Pine Level, Johnston County. [Rufus, in fact, was a grandson of Nash Horton and was reared by Horton and his wife.]
In the 1910 census of Pine Level township, Johnston County: farmer Rufus A. Horton, 37; wife Mary J., 33; and children William O., 12, Fredie, 10, Alonzo V., 9, Callie M., 7, Flossie V., 5, Romie, 3, and Rufus Jr., 2 months.
In the 1920 census of Smithfield, Johnson County: farmer Ruffes Horton, 47; wife Mary J., 44; and children Van Dan, 19, Calla M., 18, Flosie, 16, Ramon, 13, Ruffes, 9, and Etheal, 4.
In the 1930 census of Smithfield, Johnson County: Baptist minister Ruffus A. Horton, 55; wife Mary J., 51; and children Ruffus, 19, Elthel, 15, and Ulla M., 8.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 721 East Green Street, Floyd Johnson, 28, tobacco factory laborer; wife Flossie, 32, tobacco factory hanger; daughters Ella M., 11, Ernestine, 5, and Bobbie J., 2; and mother-in-law Mary Horton, 59.
The Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), 2 April 1967.
Photo courtesy of Rodger Creech.
I am ambivalent about using artificial intelligence to restore photographs. Or, more specifically, I’m concerned about manipulated photographs supplanting original images and further blurring the line between reality and misinformation. However, the allure of AI-enhanced images is strong, as I often contend with blurry, poorly lit photographs in unnatural sepia or black-and-white tones. Photographs whose condition sometimes exacerbates the distance between us and our ancestors.
I have been experimenting with ChatGPT lately, feeding it queries and images to be restored and colorized. The results are somewhat haphazard, with many images weird and off-putting. Other times, the images are breathtakingly sharp and … alive. Black Wide-Awake exists to resurrect forgotten lives, and I believe these images are valuable to help us connect with the men and women we read about in these posts. From time to time, I’ll share the better ones here, clearly marked as AI-generated. Let me know what you think about them.
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Edward M. Barnes (1905-2002), high school principal.
The descendants of Robert and Katie Farmer Hall hold yearly reunions up and down the Atlantic seacoast! This year, the family gathered in Delaware to renew and reaffirm their deep Wilson County ties!
Photo courtesy of Barbara Hall Jones.
This week, the Wilson Times reported “Residents are already moving in at Pender Crossing, a 48-unit affordable apartment community on the site of the former Pender Street Park. A grand opening event with a ribbon-cutting was held Tuesday morning.
“Pender Crossing is a 2.13-acre development owned and managed by Woda Cooper Companies. A new city park is being built on the same block and will open soon.”
Pender Crossing stands on Pender Street between Gay and Stemmery Streets. This area was on the edge of Wilson’s earliest industrial district, close to Little Richmond, which sprang up in the shadow of Richmond Maury Tobacco Factory. Later, Southern Cotton Oil Mill, Farmers Cotton Oil Mill, and Wilson County Gin Company added clangor and pungency to the air of the neighborhood.
Moore Street once was the western edge of a trapezoid formed by Stantonsburg (now Pender), Stemmery, and Robeson (now Gay) Streets, separating a residential block from the Southern Oil Mill complex. (The enormous cotton seed house built on the site about 1945 — it replaced a smaller one — was dismantled and moved to a location north of the city in 2018.)
Wilson Daily Times, 11 February 1930.
By 1930, per a Sanborn fire insurance map, the block contained a bottling plant, a wood yard, three stores, four shotgun houses, and two larger dwellings facing Stantonsburg/Pender Street.
Wilson Daily Times, 20 October 1930.
One house fronted on Moore, and a set of mirror-image L-shaped houses stood on Stemmery. The easternmost of the twins was the last dwelling in the block, having been demolished after 2019.
The twin houses and the old cotton seed house in June 2012, per Google Street View.
Wilson Daily Times, 6 May 2010.