Wilson Times, 10 September 1897.
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“S.M. Hill” was almost surely Samuel N. Hill, a former Wilson resident. Once a Republican activist, Hill had soured on the party by the late 1890s and become a proponent of accommodationism so generous that he played down the Wilmington Insurrection.
Wilson Daily Times, 25 July 1919.
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Decades later, Bishop Henry Beard Delany‘s granddaughter Nan Delany would marry Dr. William C. Hines, scion of William and Ethel Cornwell Hines, and settle briefly in Wilson.
Wilson Times, 7 March 1911.
Trailblazing singer and entertainer M. Sissieretta Jones, known (to her discomfort and displeasure) as The Black Patti, brought her Troubadours to Wilson’s Lyceum Theatre in March 1911.
Wilson Times, 28 February 1911.
Wilson Times, 3 March 1911.
Wilson Times, 7 March 1911.
Learn about the incomparable M. Sissieretta Jones here.
Poster, “The Black Patti: Mme. M. Sissieretta Jones,” color lithograph, 1899, Prints and Photographs Division, United States Library of Congress.
Wilson Daily Times, 31 October 1938.
South Carolina-born Russell L. Owings was a student at Duke University studying music and speech. He was only 23 when he died in a car crash. I can find no evidence that he ever lived in Wilson and am not sure what path led him to volunteer as a choral director and voice coach at Saint John.
Wilson Daily Times, 12 October 1949.
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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on East Nash Street, widow Lila Spicer, 50; daughter Mamie Taylor, 30, tobacco factory laborer; and grandchildren Ida, 13, Mildred, 11, James H., 9, Lila C., 7, Hermon, 5, and Bruce Taylor, 3; and roomer Henry Bullock, 25.
In the 1940 census of Manhattan borough, New York, New York: hat factory porter Herman Taylor, 24, lodger in the household of William Mitchell at 240 West 134th Street.
Herman Spicer Taylor registered for the World War II draft in 1940. Per his registration card, he was born 16 November 1915 in Wilson; lived in New York City; his contact was mother Mamie Taylor, 809 East Nash Street, Wilson; and he worked for Luther Smith.
Wilson Daily Times, 11 October 1949.
Three years after incorporation, the United Service Mission opened an office on East Nash Street.
On 9 July 1904, Calvin Blount, 67, of Wilson married Effie Hinnant, 28, of Lucama, in Wilson. Missionary Baptist minister William Baker performed the ceremony at Emma Barnes’ home in the presence of Moses Dupree, Washington Suggs, and Ben Wooten.
This May-December romance did not last. At May Term 1909, a Wilson County Superior Court judge granted Calvin Blount a divorce from Effie Blount on the grounds of adultery.
Orders & Decrees Volume 2; Wilson County Court Records 1904-1916, http://www.familysearch.org.
Wilson Daily Times, 4 June 1930.
Thirty-nine Black voters were hauled before Wilson County elections officials after their registrations as Democrats were challenged “because they are negroes and want to vote against Simmons.” Simmons was Furnifold M. Simmons, United States Senator and Father of Black Disenfranchisement. [There is a story behind this story that is surely worth telling. Who was organizing this strategy — if in fact Black voters were changing party affiliations in an attempt to thwart Simmons’ nomination?]
To stave off responsibility for caring for poor women and their children, unwed mothers were regularly brought before justices of the peace to answer sharp questions about their circumstances.
On 4 September 1868, Ann Ruff admitted to Wilson County justice of the peace F.W. Taylor that she had given birth out of wedlock, and the child’s father was Spencer Gay. Taylor ordered that Gay be arrested and taken to a justice to answer Ruff’s charge.
The next day, Gay appeared before Taylor with his father Anthony Gay and James W. Davis and posted a two hundred-dollar bond to guarantee his appearance in court.
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On 9 August 1868, Spencer Gay, son of Anthony and Catherine Gay, married Adeline Barnes, daughter of Baalam and Jinny Barnes, in Wilson County.
In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Spellman Moore, 24; wife Jane, 22; children William, 2, and Walter, 1 month; Adeline Gay, 20; and husband Spencer Gay, 20, farm laborer.
Spencer Gay is listed in the 1880 mortality schedule for Wilson, Wilson County, having died of consumption in February. He was a brick yard laborer.
On 4 October 1884, William Dailey, 45, married Ann Ruff, 31, in Wilson.