The 66-year arc of Wilson’s beloved Monitors postdates Black Wide-Awake ‘s focus, but I don’t need an excuse to recommend John Harris’ brand-new history of this legendary band. The Monitors have been a constant my entire life, and I knew their basic story, but every other page — especially in the narrative of their early years and Sam Lathan‘s tidbits about East Wilson in the 1940s — was a delightful reveal.
Ann Williamson, who lived in what was then far western Nash County, made out her will in November 1807. Its bequests included three enslaved people — woman named Pat and Rachel and a boy named Arch. (Bartley Deans was a witness.)
We examined Williamson’s estate here.
Will of Ann Williamson (1807), North Carolina, Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998 [database on-line], Ancestry.com.
I was looking for an African-American family in the Evansdale area when I ran across this notation in the 1910 census of Stantonsburg township. A closer look revealed that enumerator R.B. Barnes divided Enumeration District 110 into four sections — the white residents of the town of Stantonsburg, the black residents of the town of Stantonsburg, the black residents (who made up the majority) of the rest of the township, and finally the rest of the white residents.
No other township is enumerated this way and, in fact, I’ve never seen this imposed segregation in any other census record anywhere.
In an op-ed piece, the Daily Times offers tips for successfully maintaining segregation.
Wilson Daily Times, 24 April 1950.
In June 2023, New South Associates returned to Vick Cemetery to mark graves straddling two property lines with small painted wooden blocks. Though no one who’s been paying attention was surprised that graves lie astride and outside the cemetery’s modern boundaries, the little orange markers were nonetheless shocking visual proof that we still don’t know how many people lie in this public burial ground.
As we observed just a few days ago, since N.S.A. reported on their work in August, Wilson City Council spared even a glance at Vick.
Yesterday, R. Briggs Sherwood and Castonoble Hooks of Lane Street Project’s Senior Force worked in Vick Cemetery to repaint and reset faded and dislodged blocks. Thank you! The blocks were not intended to be permanent markers and inevitably have been jostled by the Cemetery Commission’s crew that regularly tends the grounds. (They are the ones who sprayed defoliant in small circles around each block to keep weeds from overrunning them.)
Cass, Briggs, and the Lane Street Project faithful have not forgotten the 4,224 who lie here. Have you?
Photos courtesy of Castonoble Hooks.
Wilson Daily Times, 23 April 1949.
1949 Trojan, the yearbook of Charles H. Darden High School.
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In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 412 Daniel Street, Harvey Rogers, 26; wife Martha, 25; and children Amos, 10, and Lena Mae, 7.
In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Harvey Rogers, 36, janitor at laundry and dry-cleaning business; wife Martha T., 36, domestic; and son Amos, 19, packer at tobacco retrying factory.
Wilson Daily Times, 20 April 1948.
I had to look up “penny march.” Descriptions vary a bit, but essentially church members, usually children, would march up the aisle between Sunday School and worship service to bringing loose change for a special offering.
(What was Dillard’s orchestra, though?)
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Wilson Daily Times, 14 April 1945.
Vick Elementary School students solemnly observed the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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