The obituary of Frances Woodard Barnes.

Wilson Daily Times, 2 June 1938.

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In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: carpenter Morrison Woodard, 47, wife Martha, 32, and children Nancy, 18, Arche, 17, Cherry, 15, Rosa, 13, Frances, 8, Jane, 7, John, 4, Martha, 1, and Mary, 2 months.

In the 1880 census of Wilson township (south of the Plank Road), Wilson County: farmer Morrison Woodard, 56, wife Martha, 45, and children Frances, 17, Jane, 15, John, 13, Martha, 11, Fena, 8, and Maggie, 3.

In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Short W. Barnes, 38; wife Frances, 40; daughters Armena, 13, and Maggie, 6; and cousin Ella, 19.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: carpenter Short Barnes, 50; wife Francis, 50; daughter Maggie, 16; and Mark Ellis, 25.

In 1917, Clarence Allen Crawford registered for the World War I draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 23 September 1891 in Durham, North Carolina; resided at 617 East Green Street; worked in brick laying for Wilkins Brothers; and supported a wife and child.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 617 Green, carpenter Short W. Barnes, 60; wife Francis, 62; son-in-law Clarence A. Crawford, 28, brickmason; daughter Maggie L., 26; and grandchildren Verest A., 2, and Clarence A., Jr., 9 months. Barnes owned his house free of mortgage.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: carpenter Short W. Barnes, 70, wife Francis, 71, daughter Maggie Crawford, 36, son-in-law Clarance Crawford, 39, and their children Verda, 13, Clarance, 10, and Annie, 8. The house was valued at $6000.

Frances Barnes died 30 May 1938 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was 78 years old; was born in Wilson County, N.C., to Morrison Woodard and Martha Thorn; was married to Short W. Barnes; and lived at 616 East Green Street. Maggie Crawford was informant.

Family ties, no. 3: she said she wont going back.

Wilson’s emergence as a leading tobacco market town drew hundreds of African-American migrants in the decades after the 1890s. Many left family behind in their home counties, perhaps never to be seen again. Others maintained ties the best way they could.

Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. left Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, around 1905. They came to Wilson presumably for better opportunities off the farm. Each remained firmly linked, however, to parents and children and siblings back in Wayne County as well as those who had joined the Great Migration north. This post is the third in a series of excerpts and adaptations of interviews with my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks (1910-2001), Jesse and Sarah’s adoptive daughter (and Sarah’s great-niece), revealing the ways her Wilson family stayed connected to their far-flung kin. (Or didn’t.)

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Mamie Henderson Holt (1907-2000), taken not long after she married.

My grandmother arrived in Wilson as a baby in early 1911, shortly after her mother died. Her three-year-old sister Mamie remained in Dudley with their great-grandparents, Lewis and Margaret Balkcum Henderson, until their deaths. Mamie finally came to Wilson when she was about eight years old, but her adjustment was difficult. The sisters were delighted to be united, but Jesse Jacobs did not like Mamie and treated her badly.

My grandmother told the tale of her sister’s escape from Wilson often, and I recorded it several times. Here, a composite, using her own words, that sets out the story in all its heartbreaking emotional complexity.

In late 1922, Sarah H. Jacobs separated from Jesse Jacobs, taking Hattie and Mamie to Greensboro, N.C., where they moved in with Sarah’s aunt, Julia “Mollie” Henderson Hall Holt. Sarah’s health was poor, and she may also have been seeking better care and support. Jesse soon arrived, however, begging Sarah to return to Wilson. [He did not rely on his persuasive skills alone. To read about Jesse’s rootwork reinforcement, see here.]

“[Papa] come up to Greensboro and talked to Mama, and so she promised him she’d come back, [but] Mamie wouldn’t come home. She said Papa told her, said, ‘If your mammy ever leave here and take you with her, don’t you never come back here. Don’t never set foot in this door.’ He told Mamie that. But he told me, if I wanted to stay with him, I could stay, and if he didn’t have but one biscuit, he’d divide it and give me one half, and he’d have the other half.

“But I know Mama was sick, so she come up to Greensboro, and he asked her ‘bout coming back.  And she told him she would come back, but she got sick. Mama didn’t work all the time, she wasn’t able to work, and so staying with A’nt Molly and them always looking at her and talking — wasn’t half-talking to her, and so she knew she had to get out from there, she wont paying no rent. [So] we moved in this house, and we hadn’t been in there but ‘bout a week, and Mamie wouldn’t come [to this house.]  She stayed over there with A’nt Molly and Sadie [Hall Whitfield Farrar, Molly’s daughter.] And so that’s where I come on back to get Mamie and tell her about [going back to Wilson], and so Mamie said she wont going back.

“So [when I was] over there to Sadie’s house, I said to ‘em, I said, ‘What, y’all having a party tonight?’ And didn’t know Mamie was getting married that night. Mamie didn’t even tell me. And so they said, ‘Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we gon play some cards.’  And they wanted to get rid of me. Because they hadn’t told us nothing ‘bout it. And so the house was all clean, Sadie’s house was all cleaned up, and tables sitting all around the room. Well, they played cards all the time, so I didn’t think nothing ‘bout it, [but] they had to wait ‘til I left so Mamie and Bazel [Holt] could get married. And didn’t tell me a word about it. And they were getting married that night. Sadie went with Mamie to the courthouse to get the license and everything, and so Mamie didn’t want to come back to Wilson ‘cause Papa wasn’t good to her. He was always snapping at her or something, and he’d throw things and hit her or …. And so she said she marry a dog before she’d come back to Wilson. So Bazel, I don’t know how they got into it, but Bazel was staying with Sadie and A’nt Molly. We all was staying down A’nt Molly’s house ‘cause Molly married Bazel’s uncle [Walter Holt.] So Mamie married Bazel. To keep from coming back. But Mamie was 15 when she got married.  She told Bazel she wont coming back home.

“And so [the next] day, Mama didn’t feel like going to the restaurant where she had over there, and so I sat there looking out the window, and I said to Mama, ‘Mamie’s coming up, and she’s got a suitcase! I wonder where she’s going.’ So she came on in, and she told Mama that she had got married last night and was coming to get her clothes. And Mama told her she ought not to let her have them. ‘You didn’t tell me nothing ‘bout it. If you was gon get married, and you’d a told me, [you could have] got married and had a little social or something.’ And Mama was mad with her because she got married. Mama had told her that, ‘If you don’t go back, I’ll put the law on you and make you go back ‘cause you underage.’  And that’s how come Mamie didn’t let her know nothing ‘bout nothing. So Mamie just got her clothes. Some of ‘em. And crammed ‘em in a suitcase and went back over …. And, now, she … had just met [Bazel], and he told her, ‘Well, we’ll get married if you want to stay here. We’ll get married.’ And so he married her. That night. But I didn’t know they was getting married that night, and so I fussed her out and: ‘How come you didn’t let me know where I could have stayed to the wedding? I wanted to see you get married.’  ‘Well, it wont no wedding – we was just getting married! Getting that old piece of paper. [‘Cause] I’m not going back to Wilson, so – you know Uncle Jesse don’t like me nohow. And I don’t want to go back to Wilson.’ So that’s how come Mamie got married.”

“That old piece of paper.” Mamie told the registrar she was 19 years old (she was 15) and that her adoptive parents were dead (they were not.) A Baptist minister married the couple on Valentine’s Day 1923 at the home of Henry Farrar, the husband of Mamie’s cousin Sadie Hall Farrar. Sadie’s mother Julia “Mollie” Henderson Holt was a witness to the ceremony.

Hattie Henderson returned to Wilson with Sarah H. Jacobs, but she and her sister Mamie remained exceptionally close throughout their long lives. Mamie and Bazel had six children together and were together until his death in 1954. Trips to Greensboro to visit my great-aunt and cousins were a staple of my childhood and a testament to the sisters’ bond.

Hattie Henderson and daughter Hattie Margaret Henderson with Mamie Henderson Holt, center, late 1940s, probably during a visit to Greensboro.

Interview of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson adapted and edited for clarity. Copyright 1994, 1996. All rights reserved. Photos in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Dispute at the cold drink stand.

Wilson Daily Times, 28 July 1911.

Johnny Matthews and Luther Barber [Barbour] were fined ten dollars each (or was it $22?) after an altercation over two bottles of Coca-Cola at Matthews’ cold drink stand on the Plank Road (roughly, Martin Luther King Parkway). State law prohibited the sale on Sunday of any goods other than “drugs, undertaking supplies, ice and those things absolutely necessary for the sick.”

Studio shots, no. 183: Lydia Meeks Grissom Coley.

Lydia Lee Meeks Grissom Coley (1892-1946).

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In the 1900 census of Princeville, Township No. 1, Edgecombe County: day laborer Philip Meeks, 59; wife Nancy, 49, janitress; and daughters Cristiana, 15, and Dila L. [Lydia], 9. [Lydia was actually a granddaughter.]

On 24 July 1913, Herman Grissom, 22, of Wilson, son of Willis and Hattie Grissom, married Lydia Meeks, 20, of Edgecombe, daughter of Philip and Nancy Meeks, at Saint Paul’s A.M.E. Zion in Tarboro, Edgecombe County.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Vick Street, Herman Grisson, 30, barber at Tate & Hines; wife Lydia, 26; children Dorothy, 5, Vivian, 3, and Ruth, 7 months; mother Hattie, 46; and uncle Warren Thorn, 35, musician.

Herman Nadies Grissom died 23 March 1921 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 12 January 1891 in Wilson to Willis Grissom of Franklin County, N.C., and Hattie Thorne of Wilson; was married to Lydia Grissom; lived at 201 Vick Street; and worked as a barber.

In the 1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Grissom Lydia (c) hair dresser 201 N Vick

On 9 October 1924, Jasper Coley, 40, of Wilson, married Lydia Grissom, 30, of Wilson, in Wilson. A.M.E. Zion minister J.E. Kennedy performed the ceremony in the presence of D.H. Coley, Sallie Coley, and Annie L. Kennedy.

In the 1925 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Grissom Lydia (c) hair dresser 201 N Vick

In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Coley Jasper (c; Lydia) barber Bonnie [sic, Barney] Reid h 401 [sic] N Vick

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 201 Vick Street, owned and valued at $1200, barber Jasper Coley, 50; wife Lila, 47, teacher at county school; daughters Dorothy, 25, teacher at county school, and Ruth Grissom, 19; and son Jasper Coley, 13.

In 1945, Jasper Allison Coley Jr. registered for the World War II draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 6 January 1927 in Wilson; lived at 201 North Vick; worked at Barshay’s Ladies Shop, Nash Street, Wilson; and his contact was mother Lydia Coley. He had a scar from a burn on his right hand.

Lydia Lee Coley died 7 March 1946 at Lincoln Hospital in Durham, N.C. Per her death certificate, she was born 9 October 1892 in Tarboro, N.C., to Rebecca Meeks; was married to Jasper Coley; lived at 201 North Vick Street, Wilson; and was a teacher. Informant was Dorothy Parker, 624 East Green Street.

Photo courtsey of Ancestry.com user Debra Winfrey.

Red Hots attend convention in Greenville.

Wilson Daily Times, 17 August 1932.

  • Ben Mincey
  • George Coppedge
  • Louis Thomas
  • Ned Barnes
  • Will Farmer
  • Ambrose Floyd
  • Henry Sauls
  • W.T. Howell
  • Herman Adkins
  • Dave McPhail
  • Allison Holden
  • Ernest Bril
  • Thomas Daniels
  • Herbert Dixon — in the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., Dixon Herbert (c; Lenora) gro 704 Robeson h 415 Stantonsburg 
  • Charles Barnes
  • Grady Wood
  • John Hargett — in the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., Hargett John A (c) student 515 Spring
  • Paul Camber
  • Brel Dunn
  • Madison Mincey — Ben Mincey’s son.

Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.

Saint Mark’s Parochial School opening.

Wilson Daily Times, 26 September 1925.

In 1925, Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, and its school, were on Lodge Street at the corner of South Street. The school offered kindergarten through elementary instruction. (This likely meant through fourth grade, as the Colored High School covered grades five and up.) The night school classes were aimed at adults or working children who had left regular school.

Per Patrick M. Valentine’s The Episcopalians of Wilson County (1996), “John Herbert Jones became minister in charge [of Saint Mark’s] on Sunday, October 12, 1924. Born in Sanford, Florida, and educated with private tutors in theology, he had married Bessie Bell in 1915. Together they had five sons and two daughters — all with biblical names. In 1921, Bishop E. Thomas Demby of Arkansas ordained Jones a deacon. When he was preparing for the priesthood under Bishop Cheshire, his committee ‘found him quite well prepared in all subjects, and unusually proficient in the Bible.’

“One reason for the long delay in bringing in a new clergyman was that St. Mark’s lacked a rectory. Jones found all the records carefully kept in correct order and no indebtedness, ‘to the praise of our faithful Lay Reader & clerk [John H. Clark],’ but that membership was ‘greatly scattered some having become members of sectarian bodies, and otherwise.’ Starting from a ‘few standing true to the faith,’ Jones canvassed former members to return to St. Mark’s. ‘Although some refused to come back[,] a goodly number returned.’

“Reverend Jones reorganized a number of activities and services in Rocky Mount and Wilson. St. Mark’s Sunday School was put under the care of long term member Walter A. Mitchell. ‘A marked improvement has been registered in our church school life[,] the same showing continued growth.’ With the permission of the suffragan bishop [Henry B. Delany], he and Robert A. Jackson of St. Augustine’s Church in Camden, Maryland, held a public mission in March 1925. ‘This was a success of no small propor[t]ions to say the least.’ Jones was also active in the Convocation. In 1928 he left for St. Stephen’s Mission, Winston-Salem.”

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  • Rev. J.H. Jones — John H. Jones.

In the 1925 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Jones Jno H Rev (c) pastor St Mark’s Episcopal Church h 201 N Vick. [As noted, Saint Mark’s had no rectory. The house at 201 North Vick Street was rented from Lydia Grissom Coley, who does not appear to have been an Episcopalian.]

Rev. Jones and family appear in Winston-Salem, N.C., in the 1930 federal census. All their children indeed bore biblical monikers, but the most remarkable thing is that they were Mary E., John H. Jr., John L., Mary L., John D., John R., and John B. Jones. John R. Jones was the only child born during the family’s brief stay in Wilson.

Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.

Three men charged with stealing tobacco from Black farmer; selling it in town.

Wilson Daily Times, 7 September 1922. 

Tenant farmer Roscoe Pearson raised tobacco on Green Watson’s farm between Wilson and Kenly, a town at the edge of Johnston and Wilson Counties. He stored his crop in a packhouse near the road. Three white Johnston County men were accused of stealing his tobacco and selling it at Planters Warehouse in Wilson. A white Wilson policeman testified against the trio, asserting that one of them asked if he thought the matter would be dropped if they paid Watson (not Pearson) for the tobacco. 

  • Roscoe Pearson — I have found no record of Pearson in Wilson County.

Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.

Let us do the work.

Wilson Daily Times, 13 September 1916.

In his early 30s in 1916, William Hines had already begun to branch out into real estate development and other pursuits when this ad for his primary business ran in the Daily Times.

The barbershop at 119 South Tarboro Street, Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson, N.C. (1913).

Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.

The obituary of Clarissy Taylor.

Wilson Daily Times, 18 September 1922.

Zion’s Landmark was P.D. Gold’s semi-monthly newsletter chronicling Primitive Baptist sermons, testimonials, letters, obituaries, and other announcements, primarily in eastern North Carolina. It’s difficult to speculate why Clarissa Taylor might have wanted a copy in her casket. 

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In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Peter Taylor, 32; wife Classey, 37; and children Harriet, 8, Haywood, 10, William, 5, and Susan, 8 months.

In the 1880 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm worker Peter Taylor, 32; wife Clarcey, 36; children Harriet, 17, William, 15, Susan, 10, Henry, 8, Moretta, 6, Charlie, 2; and granddaughter Clarcey, 7 months. 

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: widow Classey Taylor, 68; boarders Frank Bynum, 30, odd jobs laborer, and Sarah Mercer, 40, private cook; and nephew Earle Lane, 9.

In the 1912, 1916, and 1920 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directories, Clarissa Taylor is listed at 531 Church Street.

Clarissy Taylor of 522 Church Street, Wilson, died 16 September 1922. Her death certificate reports that she was 85 years old, that she had been born in Wilson County, and that her father had been Dempsey Cotton. Mark Cotton was informant.

Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.