204 South Powell Street.

This house lies a block beyond the border of the East Wilson Historic District on a lot carved from land once owned by Oliver and Willie Mae Hendley Freeman.

Per Wilson city tax records, the house was built about 1925.

In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Howard T J (c; Lula) lab h 204 Powell

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Powell Street, rented at $12/month, odd jobs laborer Frank Sanders, 53; wife Sallie, 49; son Nathan, 20, odd jobs laborer, and daughter-in-law Nelly, 19.

In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Sanders Frank (c; Sallie) lab h 204 Powell; Sanders Nathan (c; Nealy) lab h 204 Powell

In the 1941 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Tillman Deal (c; Julia) porter h 204 Powell

Deal Tilghman died 29 December 1941 at his home at 204 Powell Street, Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 25 July 1892 in High Point, N.C.; was married to Julia Tilghman; and worked as a laborer. He was buried in Rest Haven cemetery.

On 2 May 1944, Preston and Pauline Ward purchased the house from Alex and Lena McMillan, which was located on lots 5 and 6 of Block A of the Freeman plat map, for $200. See deed book 290, page 237.

In the 1947 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Murchison Mack (c) waiter h 204 Powell

Wilson Daily Times, 26 June 1948.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2025.

Funeral Program Friday: Rosemary Fitts Funderburg.

——

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 1007 Washington Street, Howdard Fitts, 37, and wife Courtney, 36, both teachers, with children Howdard Jr., 8, and Rosemary, 6.

In the 1949 Durham, N.C., city directory: Fitts Rosemary case wkr Family Serv r1611 Fville

In the 1950 Durham, N.C., city directory: Fitts Rosemary P case wkr Family Serv r809 Fville

On 3 June 1950, Ilon Owen Funderburg, 25, of Durham, son of Dr. F.D. Funderburg and Ethel Westmoreland Funderburg, married Rosemary Fitts, 26, of Durham and Wilson, daughter of Howard M. Fitts and Courtney Plummer Fitts, at Saint Alphonsus Church, Wilson.

Atlanta Funeral Programs Collection, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American Culture and History, digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu

Where did they go?: Washington, D.C., death certificates.

Washington, D.C., was a popular destination for eastern North Carolina migrants. These death certificates primarily record deaths of African-Americans who left Wilson County before the Great Migration.

  • William Anderson Pridgeon

William Anderson Pridgeon died 26 June 1896 in Washington, D.C., at 73 H Street N.E. Per his death certificate, he was ten months old; colored; born in Wilson, North Carolina; had lived in Washington, D.C., for two weeks; and both his parents were born in North Carolina.

  • George Barnes

George Barnes died 17 November 1906 in Washington, D.C., at Washington Asylum Hospital. Per his death certificate, he was 30 years old; was born in Wilson, N.C. to parents born in Wilson; was married; and worked as a laborer.

  • Eva Vailes

Eva Vailes died 4 March 1918 in Washington, D.C., at 1116 Minnesota Avenue, N.E. Per her death certificate, she was 4 years, 2 months, 3 days old; was born in Wilson, N.C., to parents born in Wayne County and Wilson County, N.C.; and had lived in Washington for 18 months.

  • James H. Ellis

James H. Ellis died 17 March 1919 in Washington, D.C. Per his death certificate, he was born 30 April 1869 in Wilson, N.C., to Bob Ellis; was married to Emma Ellis; lived at 1331 You Street, N.W.; worked as a barber; and was buried in Harmony Cemetery. Mother-in-law Mollie Huff was informant.

In the 1915 Washington, D.C., city directory: Ellis Jas H barber 901 U St h 905 U St

  • Sarah Best Young

Sarah Young died 25 February 1923 in Washington, D.C. Per her death certificate, she was 28 years old; was born in Wilson, N.C., to Daniel Best; lived at 1027 Fourth Street, N.W.; was married to Henry Young; had lived in D.C. two years; and was buried in Wilson, N.C. [probably, in Vick Cemetery.]

  • Joe Perry

Joe Perry died 23 April 1924 in Washington, D.C., at Freedmen’s Hospital. Per his death certificate, he was born in 1905 in Wilson, N.C., to Edward Perry and Nancy Smith; worked as a elevator operator; was single; had lived in D.C. 19 years; and was removed to the Anatomical Board.

  • Alexander Moore

Alexander Moore died 18 February 1930 in Washington, D.C., in Freedmen’s Hospital. Per his death certificate, he was 42 years old; was born in Wilson, N.C., to Lawrence Moore and Vina [no maiden name]; lived in Fairmount Heights, Maryland; was a widower; was an ex-soldier; and was buried in Baltimore, Maryland. Informant was sister Delia Moore, Baltimore.

On 23 January 1873, Lawrence Moore, 30, married Vina Moore, 25, in Wilson County. “Col’d minister” London Johnson performed the ceremony.

In the 1880 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farmer Lawrence Moore, 38; wife Viny, 25; and children Lee, 16, Nellie, 13, Esther and Delah Ann, 10, John, 7, David, 5, and Austin, 2.

In the 1900 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farmer Lawrence Moore, 50, widower, and children Branie, 20, Joseph, 12, Alexandrie, 8, and Charlie, 6.

On 5 July 1913, Delia Moore, 30, born in North Carolina to Lawrence and Venie Moore, married Amos D. Moore, 31, born in North Carolina to Anthony and Mary Moore, in Danville, Virginia.

Washington, District of Columbia, Death Certificates 1874-1931, http://www.ancestry.com

Georgia Burke in “Mamba’s Daughters.”

Actors Ethel Waters, Georgia Burke, and Fredi Washington in “Mamba’s Daughters” at Philadelphia’s Locust Street Theatre in February 1940. Georgia native Burke was among the eleven African-American teachers who walked out of Wilson Colored Graded School to protest the abuse by school principal J.D. Reid and superintendent Charles L. Coon.

Photo courtesy of George D. McDowell Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Collection, Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Update: The removal of graves from Jones-Hill-Coleman cemetery.

I’ve written about the removal of graves from “Jones-Hill-Coleman” Cemetery in 1995. I was puzzled by the name of the cemetery, its unclear location, and the location of the “Eva Coleman Cemetery” to which some of the burials were reinterred.

Jones-Hill-Coleman Cemetery is clearly the cemetery more commonly called Jones Hill. The removal of graves certificate filed in October 1995 identified 11 graves to be removed to “the new Coleman” cemetery and ten to be moved to Rest Haven Cemetery because of “road construction.” An attached map, labeled “Jones-Hill-Coleman Cemetery,” shows an orderly six-row graveyard adjacent to Old Raleigh Road. I was thrown initially because this sketch bears little resemblance to Jones Hill in its current state. Also, while 44 graves in Jones Hill have been identified, the graves on this map mostly were labeled “adult,” “baby,” or “no one found.” I assumed, in error I now see, that this meant the graves were unidentified, which puzzled me because Jones Hill contains dozens of headstones. Last, though the map is marked not to scale, the graves seemed awfully close to the road compared to the front edge of Jones Hill now.

I’m still a little confused, but with further study, I have a somewhat better understanding. A road construction project required the removal of graves from the right-of-way buffering Old Raleigh Road.

Wilson Daily Times, 25 July 1995.

The burials in the public right-of-way primarily were descendants of Henry and Mary Jane Thompson Coleman, who had owned a 68-acre tract of land just north of the cemetery.

In 1990, that tract was divided among Henry Coleman’s heirs. Daughter Eva Coleman, now deceased, received tracts 2 and 3, containing 13.7 acres, at bottom right. See Wilson County deed book 1410, page 341.

Plat book 21, page 150, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

Google Maps aerial view of the area with a dotted line marking the lower boundary of the Coleman tracts and (A) at Jones Hill Cemetery.

Detail of 2013 plat map showing Jones Hill Cemetery, bottom left above “Old,” and the bottom edge of the Coleman tracts. Plat book 39, page 184.

Per the map attached to the removal of graves certificate, ten identified remains — mostly Joneses and Edmundsons — were moved to Rest Haven Cemetery in Wilson.

John Thomas Edmundson’s relocated grave in Rest Haven, courtesy of findagrave.com.

The other eleven graves — all but two unidentified — were moved to a new cemetery created on Eva Coleman’s land at a location described on a map of the cemetery attached to the certificate as:

The graves are not recorded at Findagrave.com. A zoomed-in perusal of the Eva Coleman tract on Google Maps reveals an area with housing and outbuildings surrounded by plowed fields. At the bottom corner of the tract, however, this clear area appears:

Though its location does not square easily with the description above, this would seem to be the Eva Coleman Cemetery. Can any family members confirm?

Walker defaults; Smith sells; Vick buys.

In September 1914, having borrowed money from Rev. Owen L.W. Smith, Sarah Walker secured her note with a mortgage on her property near South Goldsboro Street. Walker defaulted on the loan, and Smith put her property up at auction in May 1916. Samuel H. Vick made the high bid. 

“Beginning at a stake, Southwest corner of A.J. Townsend‘s lot on the edge of the west edge of a drainage ditch at the embankment of South Goldsboro Street South of Norfolk and Southern Railroad….” Deed book 111, page 336, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

——

  • Sarah Walker

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Robert Walker, 31, lumber mill laborer, and wife Sarah, 29.

In the 1916 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Walker Sarah (c) seamstress h 402 E Walnut

In the 1920 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Walker Sarah (c) domestic h 402 E Walnut

In the 1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Walker Sarah (c) tobwkr h 109 S East

In the 1928 and 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Walker Sarah (c) domestic h 109 S East

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: paying $/8 month rent, seamstress Sarah Walker, 40; also paying $8/month, Leon Crawford, 39, bricklayer; wife Mary, 37, cook; and roomers John Staden, 39, bellhop, and wife Louise, 33.

The 107th anniversary of the school boycott.

Today marks the 107th anniversary of the resignation of 11 African-American teachers in Wilson, North Carolina, in rebuke of their “high-handed” black principal and the white school superintendent who slapped one of them. In their wake, black parents pulled their children out of the public school en masse and established a private alternative in a building owned by a prominent black businessman.  Financed with 25¢-a-week tuition payments and elaborate student musical performances, the Independent School operated for nearly ten years. The school boycott, sparked by African-American women standing at the very intersection of perceived powerless in the Jim Crow South, was an astonishing act of prolonged resistance that unified Wilson’s black toilers and strivers.

Sallie Roberta Battle Johnson, one of the Graded School teachers.

The school boycott is largely forgotten in Wilson, and its heroes go unsung. In their honor, today, and every April 9 henceforth, I publish links to Black Wide-Awake posts chronicling the walk-out and its aftermath. Please read and share and speak the names of Mary C. Euell and the revolutionary teachers of the Colored Graded School.

we-tender-our-resignation-and-east-wilson-followed

the-heroic-teachers-of-principal-reids-school

The teachers.

a-continuation-of-the-bad-feelings

what-happened-when-white-perverts-threatened-to-slap-colored-school-teachers

604-606-east-vance-street

mary-euell-and-dr-du-bois

minutes-of-the-school-board

attack-on-prof-j-d-reid

lucas-delivers-retribution

lynching-going-on-and-there-are-men-trying-to-stand-in-with-the-white-folks

photos-of-the-colored-graded-and-independent-schools

new-school-open

the-program

a-big-occasion-in-the-history-of-the-race-in-this-city

womens-history-month-celebrating-the-teachers-of-the-wilson-normal-industrial-school

the-roots-of-mary-c-euell

respectful-petition-seeks-reids-removal

lucas-testifies-that-he-accomplished-his-purpose

there-has-been-an-astonishing-occurrence-in-wilson

no-armistice-in-sight

And here, my Zoom lecture, “Wilson Normal and Industrial Institute: A Community Response to Injustice,” delivered in February 2022.

The Pegueses arrive in Wilson County.

The Pegues family is most closely associated with the Elm City area, largely due to the athletic achievements of several of its members. Like many African-American families, the Pegueses migrated to Wilson County from the Sandhills area of North and South Carolina around World War I.

On 15 January 1918, for $1600, A.L.E. and Annie E. Weeks sold Aaron and Maggie Pegues a lot with a five-room house on lot 1, block 14 of the Singletary property, today’s New Bern Street.

Deed book 111, page 595, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

——

In 1918, John Pegues registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 25 May 1900; lived at 11 Barnes; was a farmer “east of Wilson”; and his nearest relative was Aaron Pegues, “11 Barnes,” Wilson.

In 1918, Lott Pegues registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 12 November 1898; lived on Barnes Line; was a farmer for Babe Pridgen on Finch Mill Road; and his nearest relative was father Aaron Pegues, Barnes Line, Wilson.

In the 1920 census of Jackson township, Nash County, N.C.: farmer Aaron Pegues, 63; wife Maggie, 48; and sons Lot, 21, and John K., 20.

Maggie Pegues died 2 July 1929 in Wilson township, Wilson County. Per her death certificate, she was 55 years old; was born in Rockingham, N.C.; was married to Aaron Pegues; was a tenant farmer for Sam Daniel; and was buried in Wilson [probably Vick Cemetery.]

Rev. Phillips?

We’ve met Rev. Henry C. Phillips, who arrived in Wilson from Edgecombe County in the late 1880s. This 1868 letter was written to a Freedmen’s Bureau official by a Henry C. Phillips, “a teacher of the Colored Children in the Hookerton village” in Greene County.

Was this the same man? His signature in the letter is very different than it appears on numerous marriage licenses 20 to 30 years later, when it is bold and assured and even a bit flamboyant. In 1868, however, Phillips would have been just a few years out of slavery, with relatively few chances to practice his penmanship. As an ordained A.M.E. Zion minister, Phillips, however, had daily opportunities to strengthen and polish his handwriting.

 

The challenges of tracking burials in Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick Cemeteries.

Tracking burials in Wilson’s African-American cemeteries is complicated by the imprecise names listed on death certificates as place of burial.

As a refresher, here’s a rough timeline of Black cemeteries operating in the city of Wilson in the 19th and 20th centuries:

Until about 30 years ago, Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick Cemeteries were locally known collectively as “Rountree Cemetery.” When the City of Wilson erected granite pillars at the entrance to its parking lot in the late 1990s, they were inaccurately engraved “Rountree-Vick Cemetery.” I was a few years into Black Wide-Awake before I completely understood that the three cemeteries are separate entities.

I’ve been building a database of known and likely burials in R/OF/V, based on death certificates, headstones, obituaries, and a few family stories. The death certificates detailed below show why the task is so complicated. Tentative assignments, if I can guess at all, are based on context clues like church membership, fraternal affiliation, locations of burials of close family members, and location of residence.

  • Green Mercer, 1910

The Town of Wilson began requiring death certificates in 1909; the county not until 1914. Enforcement was irregular for the first few years after the mandate. Green Mercer’s death certificate cites his place of burial as “Wilson N.C. Colored Cemetery,” which, in 1910, could have been Oakdale or Masonic or Rountree or Odd Fellows, but was probably Oakdale.

  • Bruce Adams, 1914

Undertaker C.H. Darden most often broadly designated place of burial as “Wilson” or “Wilson, N.C.” Bruce Adams, who died in 1914, could have been buried in Oakdale, Rountree, Vick, or Masonic Cemeteries.

  • infant Guest, 1918

This unnamed infant, who died in 1918, was buried in “Wilson Cemetery,” which likely was the cemetery we now know as Vick.

  • Robert Bruce Hardy, 1918

Robert Hardy, who also died in 1918, was buried in “Roundtrees Church” cemetery. Taken at face value, he was buried in the cemetery owned by Rountree Missionary Baptist Church.

  • Wesley Barnes, 1919

Wesley Barnes’ 1919 death certificate cites “Wilson Co[unty] NC.” Barnes was my great-grandmother’s brother. Though it’s possible he was buried in the county, Wes Barnes lived in town and probably was buried in Vick Cemetery.

  • Buster Ellis, 1924

His death certificate simply cites “Wilson, N.C.,” but Buster Ellis‘ headstone has been found with those of his grandmother and other family members in Rountree Cemetery.

  • Noah J. Tate, 1926

Undertaker Columbus E. Artis of Artis & Flanagan generically marked Noah Tate as buried in Wilson, though he interred him in the Tate family plot in Odd Fellows Cemetery.

  • James Edward Humphrey, 1936

On the other hand, the headstone of James Edward Humphrey, engraved “Ed Humphrey,” whose death certificate also states “Wilson, N.C.,” stands in Odd Fellows Cemetery.

  • George Rountree, 1942

George Rountree’s death certificate bears the unusual designation “Rountree Potters field.” Presumably Vick, as a public cemetery, had a potter’s field, and that’s probably where Rountree was buried.

  • Bessie Baldwin, 1944

Bessie Baldwin’s death certificate says she was buried in Rest Haven, but her obituary says Rountree Cemetery. Her funeral was held at Rountree church. If she were a member, she likely was buried there.

Wilson Daily Times, 8 December 1944.

  • Dempsey Lassiter, 1946

Dempsey Lassiter’s 1946 death certificate states that he was buried in Rountree Cemetery, as does his newspaper obituary. However, his headstone is standing in Odd Fellows Cemetery.

  • Joseph Blue, 1950

Burials attributed to “Rountree Cemetery” dropped off sharply after 1950.

  • Annie Teachey Coley, 1955

Where, in fact, what Annie Teachey Coley buried? Rountree? Odd Fellows? Vick? The 1954 aerial view of the sites shows all were fairly open well into the decade

  • Carolyn Evans, 1960

Carolyn Evans’ burial in 1960 was among the last in Rountree/Odd Fellows/Vick Cemeteries. The 1964 aerial view of the cemeteries shows clear abandonment.