Jacob Rentfrow lived in the Black Creek area, in what was then Wayne County, North Carolina. Kedar Rountree, who had obtained a fifty-acre land grant in 1801, lived in the same area.
Rentfrow died in 1815. At Rentfrow’s estate sale on 2 January 1816, Rountree bought Jack, the sole enslaved person listed among Rentfrow’s assets.
North Carolina Land Grant Files 1693-1960, http://www.ancestry.com; North Carolina Wills and Probate Records 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.
University of Pennsylvania-trained physician Lewis J. Dortch of Stantonsburg died in October 1854, leaving an estate that included nearly three dozen enslaved people. We examined here the disruption created by movement of these people into short-term hires in Stantonsburg and over the county line in Nahunta district, Wayne County.
In fact, W.T. Dortch, the Goldsboro lawyer appointed to administer his brother’s estate, placed multiple rounds of advertisements for the “sale of Negroes” as far away as the Wilmington Journal.
Receipt for ads placed in 1855 in Goldsboro newspapers the North Carolina Telegraph and the Tribune.
Receipt for 1859 ad in the Wilmington Journal.
I have not been able to find digital copies of the newspapers in which these notices were published.
Estate of L.J. Dortch, Probate Estate Case Files 1854-1959, Wilson County, N.C., http://www.familysearch.org.
Edith Fordham’s estate reaped a momentary windfall a year before the Civil War ended. Confident that the Confederacy would prevail, four buyers paid a total of more than $11,000 to purchase seven enslaved people from her administrator, William Barnes. William J. Barnes bought Ned for $1950; Mahala Barnes bought Joe for $2025; David Sharpe bought Lucinda for $2025; and John Sharpe bought Gray, Bunnie, Hilliard, and Nancy for $5775.
In May 1865, all seven went free, and the Confederate dollars with which they were purchased crumbled to dust.
Estate File of Edith Fordham, Wilson County, N.C., U.S. Wills and Probate Records 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.
James W. Bridgers died without a will in the spring of 1850 in what was then Edgecombe County. (He and his family lived near Shallingtons Mill, adjacent to James Barnes, David Shallington, and Eli Robbins.) He left a widow, Millicent Freeman Bridgers, and eight children, adults William F. Bridgers, Reddin Bridgers, Thomas Bridgers, and Mary Ann Bridgers Barnes (wife of James W. Bridgers), and minors John Bridgers, Sally Ann Bridgers, Joseph Bridgers, and Edwin Bridgers.
James Barnes (a “miller”) was appointed administrator of the estate. After settlement of all debts, there remained five enslaved people — Arthur, Richmond, Celia, Lydia, and Winny. William F. Bridgers had paid off the purchase of some of the enslaved people. All the children wished to divide the enslaved people equitably, which was not possible without liquidation by sale, which they petitioned a court to approve.
John G. Williams was appointed commissioner to sell the five on six months’ credit with interest from date of sale. On Christmas Eve day, 1852, Williams opened bidding at the Bridgers’ house. Arthur was “nocked off” to Allen May for $701.15. David Williams bought Rich for $687. James W. Barnes bought Celia and her child Winny for $665, and William Thomas was high bidder for Lydia at $307. Thus, a small community, perhaps of kinspeople, was torn four ways.
“An Old Reporter,” i.e. Hugh B. Johnston Jr., wrote a genealogy column for the Rocky Mount Telegram in the 1950s. On 22 February 1957, he featured Edgecombe/Wilson County farmer Hartwell Williford. The piece mostly detailed Williford’s business transactions, but includes some personal anecdotes, including a description of Williford’s torture of an unnamed enslaved man — delivered with a chuckle by the writer.
On a less funny note, Williford and his son were indicted for murdering an enslaved man named Thomas in 1860.
James S. Aycock’s farm lay on “the south side of the new Road leading to Stantonsburg” from Black Creek in what was then Wayne County. On 3 November 1836, he executed a last will and testament that provided, among other things:
I first mused about the cemetery on the old Joshua Barnes plantation here. As shown in this detail from the plat, the burial ground was in Lot 11 of the farm’s subdivision, a triangle of land between what are now London Church Road and Corbett Avenue. Was this where black tenants and laborers on Barnes’ farm buried, well into the 20th century? Did it start as a cemetery for the many dozens of people Barnes enslaved?
Last week, I stumbled upon a 1964 plat map of the former Lot 11, then named Raeford Rountree farm, which outlines the cemetery in greater detail and records its size as .73 acres.
This deed description comes from a 1983 quitclaim deed from Landmark Development Company of Wilson to a trustee for Living Faith Ministries, Inc. It makes clear that this cemetery was recognized for what it was.
Here’s a current aerial view of the property from Wilson County’s GIS website. I’ve encircled the rough location of the cemetery, which lies a short distance south of Impact Church.
There’s no sign of the cemetery now. (At least not from the road.)
Photograph by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2026.
Tuesday evening, my father’s classmate L. Paul Sherrod Jr. will present and discuss family papers passed down from his great-grandparents Jack Sherrod (who served in the United States Colored Troops) and Cassie Exum Sherrod at a program sponsored by Wilson County Genealogical Society. I’ve had a sneak peek at some of the documents and am amazed by the family’s legacy!
On 11 November 1857, Jacob S. Barnes of Edgecombe County (present-day Gardners township in Wilson County) executed a will in which he bequeathed, among other things:
North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.