Jones Hill Primitive Baptist Church anchored a community that included Jones Hill School. The church’s cemetery is now separated from the church by Interstate 95. The current building is heavily modified, but retains what appears to be an early 20th-century structure at its core.
I have been able to find little information about Jones Hill’s founding or early years, but by the early 1950s, the church was a member of Union Primitive Baptist Association.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2025.
We have seen Jack Williamson as a blacksmith in Wilson in the late 1800s. However, prior to establishing his business in town, he was a sharecropper. The contract below sets out in detail Williamson’s arrangement with white farmer Jacob H. Barnes to work a farm Barnes owned on Hominy Swamp.
The contract’s terms (which read like a set-up for failure):
Barnes and Williamson signed the contract on 2 February 1875, with Frank W. Barnes as witness.
Deed book 10, page 215-216, Wilson County Register of Deeds, Wilson.
Jackson (Miss.) Advocate, 9 March 1946.
Javotte Sutton Greene was born in Wilson, but her family lived there only briefly, and she grew up in Durham, North Carolina.
More about “Striver’s Row” from the 2 March 1946 edition of The Ohio State News:
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Per the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index 1936-2007, Javotte Sutton Greene was born 6 January 1922 in Wilson, North Carolina, to Ezekiel Sutton and Allensia M. McKinnon. She died 4 November 1998.
Over the course of two days in October 1982, Jim Peppler took nearly 300 photographs in Wilson on behalf of the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund. Peppler was on hand to document the fight by African-American citizens to secure representation on the Wilson County Board of Commissioners in Robert D. Haskins et al. v. The County of Wilson, North Carolina, et al. Though his photos were taken decades after the period covered in Black Wide-Awake, several of his streetscapes would have been more familiar to a Wilsonian of 1945 than of 2025, and I share them here.
This block is nearly unrecognizable now. The three-story building at right is the Odd Fellows building, built in 1894 by Samuel H. Vick.
This unpaved lane — in 1982! — is most likely Gay Street. Can anyone confirm?
All the houses on the west side of Ash Street are long gone. Though vacant, most of the houses on the east remain. The shrubbery, however, has disappeared. The sign midway down the block marked the site of Calvary Holy Church (at 118 Ash Street, a building now housing Antioch Outreach Church Ministries.)
This and related images are mislabeled “Ash Street” in the collection. Instead, they are scenes of Church Street, which runs for only one block, parallel to Nash Street. Only three houses remain on the street, all now abandoned.
Church Street today, per Google Maps Streetview.
Top: plaintiffs Jasper E. Williams, Roy Atkinson, Milton F. Fitch Sr., Roland Edwards, and Rev. Talmage A. Watkins. Bottom: attorney G.K. Butterfield Jr., lead plaintiff Robert D. Haskins, attorney Milton F. “Toby” Fitch Jr.
Peppler, Jim, “Photographs of plaintiffs and cooperating attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) who participated in the legal case Haskins v. County of Wilson in Wilson, North Carolina,” 1982-10-09/1982-10-10, Alabama Department of Archives and History, http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/ref/collection/photo/id/37888.
This rare postcard is the only known full image of the Commercial Bank of Wilson, founded by Samuel H. Vick and others in April 1921.
Detail from the 1922 Sanborn insurance maps of Wilson, N.C., showing Commercial Bank at the corner of South Pettigrew and East Nash Streets.
Hat tip to Keith Boykin.
Fred Stokes‘ funeral program lists his place of birth as “Nash County, Wilson, North Carolina.”
Which was it?
Nash County, but probably the far southeast part of the county, bordering Wilson County. So I feature it here anyway.
The Stokes family migrated to Montgomery County, Georgia, between 1888 and 1892.
1900 census of Lothair township, Montgomery County, Georgia.
Funeral Program for Fred Stokes, African American Funeral Programs, Willow Hill Heritage & Renaissance Center, Bulloch County, Georgia,
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/willowhillheritage-obituaries/11099
Wilson Daily Times, 28 October 1939.
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Joseph J. Powell died 14 June 1925 in Chicago, Illinois. Per his death certificate, he was about 55 years old; was born in Wilson, N.C., to Rosie Horton; was an unemployed waiter; and was married to Julia Powell.
In the 1900 census of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois: at 1912 Dearborn Street, hotel waiter Joseph Powell, 30, and wife Julia, 24.
In the 1910 census of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois: at 4717 Dearborn Street, restaurant waiter Joseph Powell, 40, and wife Julia, 30, plus boarders.
George Williams died 18 December 1938 in Chicago, Illinois. Per his death certificate, he was born in Wilson, N.C.; was single; and was a foundry laborer.
Archie Woodard died 19 March 1936 in Chicago, Illinois. Per his death certificate, he was born 25 April 1873 in Wilson, N.C., to Marshall Woodard; was married; and worked as a janitor.
Addie Wynn died 11 December 1919 in Chicago, Illinois. Per her death certificate, she was born 18 November 1889 in Wilson, N.C., to Gid Richardson and Mildred Moore and was married to Ernest Winn.
In the 1900 census of Mannings township, Nash County: Gid Richardson, 44; wife Milbra, 30; and children Joshua, 8, John, 3, and Mary, 5 months.
In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Mildred Richardson, 37, widow, and daughters Addie, 10, and Gertrude, 8.
On 12 September 1915, Ernest Wynn, 21, of Wilson, married Ada May Richardson, 18, in Wilson. Missionary Baptist minister A.L.E. Weeks performed the ceremony in the presence of J.L. Brooks, Lizzie Whitfield, and Lorena Gregg.
Ernest Richard Wynn was born in Wilson in 1916 to Ernest Wynn and Addie M. Richardson.
Jesse Willard Wynn was born in Wilson in 1917 to Ernest Wynn and Addie M. Richardson.
William H. Armstrong died 28 January 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. Per his death certificate, he was born 20 August 1877 in Wilson, N.C., to Jac Armstrong and Elver Sharp; worked as a laborer; was married to Sallie; and was buried in Coahoma, Mississippi.
Mattie L. Robinson died 12 March 1921 in Danville, Vermilion County, Illinois. Per her death certificate, she was born 16 September 1884 in Wilson, N.C., to Henry Ward and Sallie Forbes and was married to J.W. Robinson.
The Afro-American (Baltimore, Md.), 24 June 1950.
Pittsburgh Courier, 1 July 1950.
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