A post office that is a credit to the town.

The Morning Post (Raleigh, N.C.), 4 January 1902.

Samuel H. Vick‘s post office was located on the ground floor of the newly built Seabrook Hotel. We met Vick’s assistants Braswell R. Winstead and Levy H. Peacock here.

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 8 April 1902.

The 1903 Sanborn map of Wilson describes the Seabrook as a boarding house and shows the post office on the right side of the building’s ground floor. The site is now a parking lot.

Sanborn fire insurance map, page 4, Wilson, N.C., 1903.

Under the convict system, we expect to have the best roads in the state.

Wilson Daily Times, 19 September 1911.

Incarcerated men — overwhelmingly African-American —  built North Carolina’s roads.

“In 1868, North Carolina adopted a new State Constitution that provided for building a state penitentiary. Inmates began building the state’s first prison, Central Prison, in 1870 and moved into the completed castle-like structure in December 1884. In 1881, the state leased two tracts of land near Raleigh for inmates to farm. State law 379 enacted in 1885 provided for the allowance of good time as an incentive for inmate cooperation.

“As early as 1875, private employers could lease inmates as laborers. Under the lease, businesses had complete responsibility for the inmates. Many worked in rock quarries and built railways. In 1901, lawmakers changed the system to provide for contract inmate labor. Inmates worked for private employers, but prison officials retained responsibility for the inmates’ custody.

“A system of mobile camps developed that moved from worksite to worksite. By 1893, demand for labor contracts dwindled and most inmates went to work at leased farms.

“In 1901, the Good Roads Policy provided inmate labor to build the state’s roads. Horse-drawn prison cages that moved from one worksite to the next housed the inmates. In 1910, the incentive wage system began and inmates earned up to 15 cents a day, paid upon release.

“In 1925, the General Assembly enacted a law changing the state’s prison from a corporation to a department of state government. At that time, the state prison system included Central Prison, Caledonia Prison Farm, Camp Polk Prison Farm and eight road camps. Over the next eight years, six more road camps were added. By then, the facilities at these units were in deplorable condition for lack of regular maintenance and repair.

“In 1931, the General Assembly enacted the Conner bill which enabled the state to take over control of all prisons and inmates. The condition of prison facilities and the need for inmate labor led the General Assembly to consolidate the State Highway Commission and the State Prison Department. …” History of the North Carolina Corrections System, North Carolina Department of Public Safety.

In contrast to Deep South states, such as Texas, in which convict labor was leased extensively to private individuals and corporations well into the 21st century, convicts in North Carolina were overwhelmingly funneled into county and state roadwork. To be sentenced for low-level crimes in county criminal court was not to go to jail or prison, but to be sent “to the roads.”

Wilson Daily Times, 5 November 1897.

Wilson Daily Times, 11 April 1911.

Wilson Daily Times, 5 August 1921.

As succinctly stated in Stories from the Inside: Four Eras of North Carolina Prison History, “Imprisoned people built North Carolina’s roads. People incarcerated in the state’s prisons worked on railroads, farms, and factory floors, but most dug and graded roads. It was dangerous work; conditions were bad and prisoners worked ‘under the gun’ of law enforcement without adequate food or medical care.

“In 1930, North Carolina’s highway department took over its prisons. It built dozens of new prisons, including Wagram’s—each one a road labor hub. Consider that: The State’s transportation department constructed road camp prisons and oversaw forced labor of prisoners. Within a few years, most of North Carolina’s 100 counties housed a road camp prison. Until the 1990s, North Carolina had the highest number of prisons in the country.”

Wilson prison camp’s bloodhounds ran folks down all across eastern North Carolina. Wilson Daily Times, 26 October 1934.

Wilson County’s prison road camp closed in the early 1960s, but its ghost lingers at the North Carolina Department of Transportation/Wilson County Transportation Services site at 509 Ward Boulevard.

Link Covington of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Link Covington appears on Wilson’s 1926 delinquent property tax list, owing $2.31. Covington had left Wilson more than a dozen years earlier to make Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his home. He was not a Wilson native and left little record there or in his new home.

——

On 29 April 1920, Link Covington, 26, of Wilson, married Maggie Morris, 32, of Wilson, in Wilson. Missionary Baptist minister William Baker performed the ceremony.

In the 1930 census of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Link Covington, 35, widower, construction worker, born in Virginia, and Kathryn Curtis, 28, lodger, dress operator.

Pool hiding out at Anderson Dew’s?

The Farmer & Mechanic (Raleigh, N.C.), 1 August 1911.

Was Caesar Wooten the same Caesar Wooten who eluded authorities for years after murdering Mittie Strickland at the Green Street railroad tracks?

——

  • Anderson Dew 

Anderson Dew had an eventful 1911.

On 15 August 1908, Anderson Dew, 35, son of Amos and Ruth Dew, married Dora Finch, 32, daughter of Bennett and Annie Finch, in Wilson.

In the 1910 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: on Raleigh Road, planing mill laborer Anderson Dew, 34; wife Dora, 24; and daughter Ardella, 10 months.

Anderson Dew died 16 October 1917 in Goldsboro, Fork township, Wayne County, N.C. Per his death certificate, he was 41 years old; was married; worked as a laborer; and his usual residence was Wilson. He was buried at the State Hospital, Goldsboro.

Charles L. Coppedge of Jersey City, New Jersey.

Charles L. Coppedge appears on Wilson’s 1926 delinquent property tax list, owing $4.35. Coppedge, a Pullman porter, had left Wilson more than ten years earlier to make Jersey City, New Jersey, his home.

—–

In the 1900 census of Cedar Rock township, Franklin County, North Carolina: farmer James Coppedge, 41; wife Sarah D., 41; and children General W., 15, Charles, 13, Matilda, 11, and James H., 9.

In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Coppedge Chas L (c) clk h 113 Manchester

In the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Coppedge Chas L (c) porter h Manchester nr Suggs

On 20 May 1915, Charles L. Coppedge married Ida L. Williams in Manhattan, New York, New York.

On 26 September 1915, Geo. W. Coppedge, 30, of Wilson, son of J.G. Coppedge and Sarah D. [last name not given], married Mittie Bynum, 27, of Wilson, daughter of Berry Bynum, in Wilson. A.M.E. Zion minister J.S. Jackson performed the ceremony in the presence of Dudley Bynum, C.L. Coppedge, and Allen Brown.

In the 1916 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Coppedge Chas (c) driver Quinn-McGowan Furniture Co h Manchester nr Suggs

In 1917, Chas. Lawrence Coppedge registered for the World War I draft in Hudson County, New Jersey. Per his registration card, he was born 7 March 1887 in Louisburg, N.C.; lived at 362 Whiton Street, Jersey City; was married; and worked as a railroad man for Pullman Company.

On 26 June 1919, the sale of a 17′ by 100′ lot on Jewett Avenue from Manuel Alonso and wife to Charles L. Coppedge was recorded in Jersey City. Alonso financed a $550 loan to Coppedge at six percent.

The Jersey Journal, 1 July 1919.

In the 1920 census of Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey: at 55 Jewett Avenue, Charles Coppedge, 33, railroad car porter; wife Ida M., 32; and lodgers Charles Jackson, 26, shipyard machine helper; Florence Jackson, 25, laundress; and Coppedge’s James Coppedge, 28, dining car waiter.

In the 1930 census of Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey: at 364 Forrest Street, owned and valued at $5000, Charles L. Coppedge, 40, railroad porter; wife Ida, 38, hairdresser at beauty shop; and lodger Thomas Burk, 30, hotel waiter.

In August 1931, a series of notices in The Jersey Journal advertised the public sale of Charles L. Coppedge and wife Ida M. Coppedge’s property on Bergen (or Forrest?) Avenue, which they had purchased in September 1925.

Coppedge filed for bankruptcy in December 1934.

The Jersey Journal, 19 January 1935.

Where we lived: tenant farmhouse.

By mid-twentieth century, as prosperous white farmers moved into town or built modern brick homes on their land, tenant farmers and sharecroppers moved into the wooden dwellings they left behind. By the end of the century, with the disappearance of this way of life, these houses were abandoned, and most have been torn down. 

A chance post on Facebook alerted me to this house off London Church Road. Though now ramshackle, the dwelling and several of its outbuildings still stand. African-American families lived in this house for decades, including that of Sarah Lizzie Woodard Cooper Ward, who was a great-granddaughter of Primitive Baptist preacher London Woodard.

The house, with its broad shed-roof porch.

The rear addition.

The interior — plaster walls with exposed laths.

Outbuildings.

The capped well that supplied water to the farm.

Many thanks to Rodney Richardson for bringing this house to my attention, and Anthony E. Reid Sr. for information on its London Woodard connection.