Deed book 49, page 560, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
On 1 September 1903, the Trustees for the A.M.E. Church of Lucama paid W.R. Davis and wife Neppie Davis $25 for a quarter-acre lot on Main Street in Lucama.
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There is no longer an African Methodist Episcopal church in Lucama. Is anyone familiar with this one? Where was it on Main Street?
Wilson Daily Times, 20 December 1943.
Saint Luke A.M.E.’s Ella Bryant never failed to aim a little shade at “colored people” while praising the white folk who supported the church’s Christmas charities.
Late in 1925, Rev. Thomas G. Clark, an African Methodist Episcopal minister in Goshen, New York, pulled out a sheet of his official stationery to scrawl a short letter to his brother John H. Clark of Wilson.
Nov 29, 1925
Dear Bro. John,
I Trust you are well this leaves both of us well. I have not heard from you for some time. Nor any of the rest do you know how they are. Write & let me know. I am writing Jesse Barnes to send me some sweet potatoes & corn meal. How are you all getting on. I will be glad to hear from you all at any Time. I am
Yours, Tom
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Jesse Barnes was very likely Jesse R. Barnes, whose farm adjoined the Clark family’s farm on what is now Bishop L.N. Forbes Street in Wilson. Jesse and Sarah Barnes Barnes sold their property to the Town of Wilson to establish Rest Haven Cemetery in 1933.
Original in my collection; thank you, J. Robert Boykin III.
Wilson Daily Times, 28 May 1945.
A.M.E. minister James Oscar Frank Vick, died just a year before his eldest brother Samuel H. Vick.
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In the 1880 census of Wilson, Wilson County: grist mill worker Daniel Vick, 38; wife Fannie, 35; children Samuel, 16, Nettie, 14, Earnest Linwood, 12, Henry, 10, and James O.F., 8; plus boarders (nephews) Frank O., 20, and Marcus W. Blount, 26.
O.F. Vick is listed as a second-year English student, Preparatory Department, in the 1892-1893 catalogue of Biddle University [now Johnson C. Smith University], Charlotte, North Carolina.
I have not determined when Vick graduated from Gordon Theological Seminary, but by 1902, he was well-established in the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s Boston District.
Boston Globe, 10 June 1902.
On 30 June 1903, the Fall River Evening News reported that J.O. Vick had been transferred the A.M.E.’s New York Metropolitan District. His first known pastoral assignment was at Bethel A.M.E. Church in Kinderhook, N.Y., just south of Albany.
Courtesy of Dennis Dickerson’s The Past Is In Your Hands: Writing Local A.M.E. Church History (1989).
New York Age, 2 February 1905.
In mid-1906, a Brooklyn newspaper noted that Rev. Vick had taken charge of Bethel A.M.E. in Freeport, New York, on Long Island.
The Brooklyn Daily Times (Brooklyn, N.Y.), 21 July 1906.
By 1909, Rev. Vick led yet another Bethel, this time in Olean, New York, about 40 miles south of Buffalo.
Times Herald (Olean, N.Y.), 31 March 1909.
In the 1910 census of Olean, Cattaraugus County, New York: clergyman James O. Vick, 40, boarder in the household of Willard, a day laborer, and Frances Reaze, who were white.
Buffalo Evening News, 28 February 1910.
Between 1910 and 1914, Rev. Vick married Ella Ruth Reeves and assumed duties at Emmanuel A.M.E. in Montclair, New Jersey.
In the 1914 Montclair, New Jersey, city directory: Vick James O Mrs nurse h 26 Myrtle av; also, Vick James O Rev pastor Emmanuel AME Church h 26 Myrtle av
In the 1915 state census of Montclair, New Jersey: at 14 Miller, clergyman James O. Vick, 34, and wife Ella R., 29.
Rev. Vick held refreshingly progressive views:
“Why I Am Going to Vote for Equal Suffrage, By Fifty Montclair Men,” The Montclair Times, 2 October 1915.
Between 1915 and 1918, the family moved again, this time to Easton, Pennsylvania, about 70 miles north of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.
In 1918, Rev. James Oscar Vick registered for the World War i draft in Easton. Per his registration card, he was born 10 March 1874; lived at 416 Canal, Easton; was minister of the gospel at Union A.M.E. Church, 439 Ferry, Easton; and his nearest relative was Mrs. Ella Ruth Vick.
Rev. Vick’s signature on his draft card.
During the first half of the 1920s, Rev. Vick pastored at several A.M.E. churches in northern New Jersey, including Mount Teman in Elizabeth and Heard in Roselle, but settled in Princeton by 1926.
In 1920 census of Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey: M.E. Church pastor James O. Vick, 46; wife Ruth, 36; servant Emma Robins, 22; and niece Fanny M. Vick, 10. [Like her uncle, Fanny Vick was born in North Carolina. I’m not sure whose daughter she was.]
In the 1920 Montclair, New Jersey, city directory: Vick James O Rev rem to Easton Pa
In the 1921 Elizabeth, New Jersey, city directory: Vick James O Rev pastor Mt Teman AME Church h 16 S Union
In the 1926 Asbury Park, New Jersey, city directory: Vick J Oscar h 126 Atkins av
In the 1927 and 1928 Princeton, N.J., city directory: Vick J Oscar pastor Mt Pisgah AME Church h 22 Jackson; also, Vick Mrs J Oscar (Ella R) 22 Jackson
In the 1930 census of Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey: clergyman James O. Vick, 49; wife Ella R., 35; and adopted son Victor, 0, a “foundling.”
In the 1931, 1932 and 1933 Princeton, N.J., city directories: Vick J Oscar (Ella R) pastor Mt Pisgah AME Ch h 10 McLean [Sidenote: Mount Pisgah’s modest former parsonage at 10 McLean Street is now valued at more than a million dollars.]
In the late 1930s, Rev. Vick assumed his last assignment at Trinity A.M.E. Church in Long Branch, New Jersey.
Asbury Park Press, 5 March 1941.
Wilson Daily Times, 17 September 1948.
First: Saint Luke is an A.M.E., not an A.M.E. Zion church. A.M.E. Zion is a much larger denomination than A.M.E. in North Carolina and has had several churches in Wilson, including Saint John and Trinity.
In 1906, a group of A.M.E. trustees bought a lot on Suggs Street and built a church there. The church was not organized as Saint Luke until 1910. In the 1930s, the congregation moved to a storefront at the corner of Vick and Atlantic Streets and erected its current edifice in 1948. The church had early struggles. In 1953, the Times carried a notice of sale for the property; the trustees had defaulted on a loan.
(I belonged to this church as a child, by the way. Thirty years after its construction, it was little changed, down to its handbuilt pews and wall-mounted gas heaters.)
The cornerstone of Saint Luke A.M.E. Church: “Erected to the glory of God.”
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CLARK, Rev. Thomas Garrett, one of 9 children of Harry and Flora Clark, was born in Wilson county, N.C., July 10, 1876; grew up on the farm and attended the country and also public school; Lincoln University, Pennsylvania; converted May 22, 1899, and connected with the Presbyterian Church; entered Howard University, 1902, graduating May, 1905; joined the AME Church in 1906; was licensed in February at Bethel AME Church, Philadelphia; ordained deacon at the Philadelphia Annual Conference, June 14, 1908, at Carlisle, Pa., by Bishop [Wesley J.] Gaines, and also transferred to the Liberian Annual Conference, West Africa, June 15; sailed for Africa with Bishop [William H.] Heard and other missionaries December 5, 1908. He preached in Africa January 1, 1909, and met the first annual conference January 27; was ordained elder January 31, 1909, and appointed to the Eliza Turner Memorial Church, Monrovia; reappointed January 26, 1919, and made principal of the Mission School, with 130 students; he rebuilt the church; was appointed to Bethel AME Church, Lower Buchanan, Grand Bassa, March 20, 1911, and established a mission station among the Kroo Tribe at Kroo Town, November 26th. He baptized 76 persons; was appointed general missionary at the Annual Conference held at Monrovia, March 15, 1912, and returned to the U.S. with a native boy “Ulch” from the mission station, for the purpose of educating him; he arrived in America April 10 and was married to Miss Sarah B. Wainwright April 21. He was pastor of Victor’s Chapel AME Church, Montclair, 1912-1913; St. John’s AME Church, Catskill, N.Y., 1913-1914; Elmira, N.Y., 1914-1917; Jamaica, N.Y., 1917-1923; raised nearly $20,000 mortgage of long standing was burned; Flushing, N.Y., 1923-1924; Glen Cove, N.Y., 1924-1925; Stamford, Conn., 1925-1926; Middletown, N.Y., 1926-1928; Arverne, L.I.N.Y., 1928; purchased building at cost of $1500, all of which he paid. In the recent history of the Goshen Presbyterian Church of more than 225 years standing, it is set forth therein that the branch if that denomination, founded among the Colored race near half-century ago, and supervised by the Caucasian members interview the Rev. T.G. Clark, a number of times for the purpose of serving the latter Branch which he eventually agreed and did for a number of years.
Richard R. Wright Jr., Centennial Encyclopedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Containing principally the Biographies of the Men and Women, both Ministers and Laymen, whose Labors during a Hundred Years, helped make the A.M.E. Church What It Is; also Short Historical Sketches of Annual Conferences, Educational Institutions,General Departments, Missionary Societies of the A.M.E. Church, and General Information about African Methodism and the Christian Church in General Being a Literary Contribution to the Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Denomination by Richard Allen and others, at Philadelphia, Penna., in 1816, 2nd ed. (1947); postcard image of Eliza Turner Memorial A.M.E. Chapel, commons.wikimedia.org.
Wilson Daily Times, 1 April 2002.
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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: brickmason Clinton Bess, 37; wife Minnie, 26; and children Hampton, 7, Ruth G., 6, and James C., 4.
In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 208 Pender Street, brickmason Clinton Bess, 40; wife Minnie, 30; children Glenwood, 5, Gladis, 15, and James, 12; and boarders Mary Reid, 21, and Martha Robinson, 25, teachers.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 208 Pender Street, widow Minnie Best, 48; and children Hartford, 30, delivery boy for retail dry goods business; Ruth, 27, teacher at Williamston School; James, 23, janitor at Oettinger’s store; and Glenwood, 10, grocery delivery boy.
James Clinton Bess registered for the World War II draft in 1940 in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 9 November 1915 in Wilson County; lived at 208 Pender; his contact was mother Minnie Bess; and he worked for Oettinger’s Estate, Wilson.
[N.B.: “Wilson Training School” was another name for the Wilson Industrial and Normal School.]
New York Age, 15 March 1930.
“While at Wilson, he built two churches and remodeled another.”
Caldwell, A.B., History of the American Negro and His Institutions, North Carolina Edition (1921).
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