Speaking to my home community at Wilson County Public Library has been a highlight of my Februarys lately, and I’m excited to return in person this year. I’ll be trying to do justice to the extraordinary life of Samuel H. Vick in an hour or so, and I look forward to seeing you there.
Lower Black Creek Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1783, was the second church organized in what is now Wilson County. (It closed its doors in 2010.) The church’s nineteenth and early twentieth-century records includes names of enslaved and freed African-American members, who worshipped with the congregation as second-class Christians even after Emancipation.
This page is entitled “at a Conference held at Black Creek church the 3rd Sunday before the second Sunday in April 1853 Apointed Wm Lewis Clerk of the church.” Seven (13?) “servants,” i.e., enslaved people, appear in the list.
Lower Black Creek Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1783, was the second church organized in what is now Wilson County. (It closed its doors in 2010.) The church’s nineteenth and early twentieth-century records includes names of enslaved and freed African-American members, who worshipped with the congregation as second-class Christians even after Emancipation.
This page continues with names of members “dismissed by letter,” i.e. voluntarily, to join another church, as well as members excommunicated for serious infractions. The page includes references to 14 enslaved African-Americans, including one man cast out for disobeying his mistress. (Bless his heart.) As Primitive Baptists did not practice infant baptism, the 14 were, if not adults, then nearly so, and thus were all born in the 1700s or early 1800s. Some may have lived to see Emancipation, but even if they remained in Wilson County, I have no way to identify them further.
Dismissals by letter:
Excommunications:
Copy of documents courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III. Originals now housed at North Carolina State Archives.
Lower Black Creek Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1783, was the second church organized in what is now Wilson County. (It closed its doors in 2010.) The church’s nineteenth and early twentieth-century records includes names of enslaved and freed African-American members, who worshipped with the congregation as second-class Christians even after Emancipation.
This page continues the previous “Reception to Babtism” entries from 1824 to 1831 (with other notes inserted in the second column.) It includes references to six enslaved African-Americans. (Don’t let “servant” fool you.) As Primitive Baptists did not practice infant baptism, the six were, if not adults, then nearly so, and thus were all born in the 1700s or very early 1800s. Some may have lived to see Emancipation, but even if they remained in Wilson County, I have no way to identify them further.
Copy of documents courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III. Originals now housed at North Carolina State Archives.
Lower Black Creek Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1783, was the second church organized in what is now Wilson County. (It closed its doors in 2010.) The church’s nineteenth and early twentieth-century records includes names of enslaved and freed African-American members, who worshipped with the congregation as second-class Christians even after Emancipation.
(A) the church’s location since 1876; it was originally a little closer to Black Creek (the waterway); (B) the church cemetery, which contains some interesting roughly dressed fieldstone headstones, but no known graves of enslaved people.
This page records “Reception to Babtism” from 1809 and 1823 and includes references to 13 enslaved African-Americans. (Don’t let “servant” fool you.) As Primitive Baptists did not practice infant baptism, the 13 were, if not adults, then nearly so, and thus were all born in the 1700s. Some may have lived to see Emancipation, but even if they remained in Wilson County, I have no way to identify them further.
Copy of documents courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III. Originals now housed at North Carolina State Archives. Aerial image courtesy of Google Maps.
Lower Black Creek Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1783, was the second church organized in what is now Wilson County. (It closed its doors in 2010.) The church’s nineteenth and early twentieth-century records include names of enslaved and freed African-American members, who worshipped with the congregation as second-class Christians even after Emancipation.
This page records baptisms “under the Care of Elder Reuben Hays” from 1803 and 1808 and includes references to nine enslaved African-Americans. (Don’t let “servant” fool you.) As Primitive Baptists did not practice infant baptism, the nine were, if not adults, then nearly so, and thus were all born in the 1700s. Some may have lived to see Emancipation, but even if they remained in Wilson County, I have no way to identify them further. 
Copy of documents courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III. Originals now housed at North Carolina State Archives.
Wilson Daily Times, 11 November 1936.
As signaled by the use of the honorifics “Mrs.” and “Miss,” Lula Craft and Dovie Adams were white women. The “Stantonsburg colored school house” was on Macon Street near North Whitley Street. Saint Luke Free Will Baptist and Travelers Rest Primitive Baptist were, more or less, “back of” the school, but I am not familiar with an Ebenezer Baptist in Stantonsburg.
Rev. Hubert Tyson shared here his vivid memories of attending services at Travelers Rest Primitive Baptist Church in Stantonsburg. Travelers Rest was site of Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Association’s 1923 annual session.
This undated photograph of the church appears in Stantonsburg Historical Society’s A History of Stantonsburg Circa 1780 to 1980 (1981).
Wilson Daily Times, 3 October 1950.
As early as 1944, Eastern Star Quartet was a regular performer on WGTM radio’s Sunday morning gospel line-up.
Wilson Daily Times, 3 June 1944.
Rev. John H.M. Pollard.
Rev. John H.M. Pollard led the congregation at Saint Mark’s Episcopal for two years. Writes Patrick Valentine in The Episcopalians of Wilson County: A History of St. Timothy’s and St. Mark’s Churches of Wilson, North Carolina, 1856-1995:
“John Henry Mingo Pollard succeeded William Perry as minister in charge in 1900. Pollard, consecrated a priest in 1886 and noted for his work in Charleston, S.C., served as North Carolina’s Archdeacon of the Convocation Work Among Colored People (1900-1908). He took a sharp cut in pay to come to North Carolina but the field ‘is larger and the Church atmosphere more congenial.’ Pollard appears to have been a sincere, thoughtful, positive man of great energy. ‘Most people say that the Church is not making any progress …. The Church as she is, is good enough for me.’ ‘The fact [is] that this small work has a very large influence for the good in the diocese.’ In addition to at St. Mark’s, Pollard had charge of six other missions.
“Under Pollard’s direction the number of communicants increased to twenty-six. When he came to Wilson he cited the need for a missionary home and school house, estimated at $500, as one of three top priorities for colored missionary work in the diocese. Pollard was in charge for two years, then was succeeded by Basil B. Tyler who stayed two years. [… After Tyler left,] John Pollard returned briefly and was then succeeded in September 1905 by yet a third Reverend Perry, Robert Nathaniel Perry.”
Photo courtesy of “A Visual History of the Diocese,” https://www.episdionc.org/uploads/images/a-visual-history-of-the-diocese_580.pdf