barbershop

Historic Black Business Series, no. 35: Levi H. Jones’ Barbershop.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

Levi H. Jones operated a barbershop near the site of Wilson County’s Human Relations Office at what was then 105 North Goldsboro Street.

Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory (1908).

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2024.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 32: Sidney Wheeler’s eating house and barbershop.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Sidney Wheeler, 40, barber; wife Lou, 40, private cook; and children Sidney, 9, Dave, 7, Floyd, 4, and Emma, 2.

Sidney Wheeler’s twin businesses in the 1908 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson. 

Sidney Wheeler died 8 March 1912 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 35 years old; was born in Nash County to Richard and Annie Wheeler; worked as a barber; was married; and resided at 710 Vance Street. Lula Wheeler was informant.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2024.

The dissolution of Coley & Taylor Barbershop.

We saw here that David H. Coley and my grandfather Roderick Taylor Sr. briefly operated a barbershop on South Goldsboro Street. The document below pinpoints the date of the dissolution of their business partnership. Unable to agree on terms, on 20 April 1926, Coley and Taylor turned over “all fixtures, equipment, barber supplies” and other property in the shop at 105 South Goldsboro to trustee Calvin F. Young. Young was to sell the property, pay off any liens, pay wages due any “workmen, barbers and servants,” pay off debts, and pay out the remainder to the parties.

Wilson County, North Carolina, Miscellaneous Records, http://www.familysearch.org.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 28: Short W. Barnes’ barbershop.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

Short W. Barnes was a carpenter, not a barber, but at least briefly he invested in a barbershop in downtown Wilson that catered to white customers.

1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2024.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 24: Henry C. Holden’s barbershop.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

Henry C. Holden‘s barbershop briefly occupied the basement level of the Branch Bank building at the corner of East Nash and South Goldsboro Streets.

In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Holden Henry C, barber Branch Banking Co’s Bldg h 115 Pender

The 1908 Sanborn map of Wilson notes “Barber in B[asement]” of Branch Bank at the corner of Nash and Goldsboro Streets (formerly numbered 125.)

However, in the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory, Holden is listed as a barber at the Mayflower Barber Shop, Levi H. Jones‘ business at 108 West Nash Street.

And in the 1916 city directory, Holden, who lived at 235 West Kenan, was working for Tabron Brothers barbershop. (He had married their sister, Lila Tabron, in 1904.)

When he registered for the World War II draft in 1918, Henry Clay Holden stated he was working for yet another barber, Bill Hines, at 119 South Tarboro Street.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2024.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 20: Coley & Taylor’s barbershop.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

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Though they spent most of the careers working for Walter S. Hines, David H. Coley and Roderick Taylor Sr. briefly joined forces to open their own barbershop in the mid-1920s. They set up at 105 South Goldsboro Street, as shown in the 1925 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory. By 1928, however, the partnership had dissolved.

1925 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory.

Colored barber wanted.

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 1 June 1925.

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 29 August 1938.

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 25 September 1947.

Walter S. Hines Barber Shop regularly advertised for barbers in the Raleigh News and Observer. Hines died in 1941, but his son Carl W. Hines continued to manage the business. By 1947, Hines’ ad touted the availability of housing — likely in the family’s large real estate portfolio — for a family man.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 16: Paragon Shaving Parlor.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

The fantastic Wilson Arts Center now occupies the footprint of New Briggs Hotel. Paragon Shaving Parlor opened in a storefront space of the hotel at what was then 213 East Nash Street. The barbershop was located in the area of the “short,” far-left section of the arts center’s facade.

After apprenticing with barber John A. Gaston, Walter S. Hines joined with Noah J. Tate and Joshua L. Tabron to open Paragon Shaving Parlor in a storefront at the New Briggs Hotel circa 1903. (Not 1912, as my little sign says.) In 1906, Tate, Hines, and Tabron sold the shop’s furnishings to another barber, Richard Renfrow, suggesting a complete upgrade of Paragon’s interior.

Tabron died before 1907, and Hines and Tate continued the business, which was described this way in the 1912 Wilson, North Carolina, Industrial & Commercial Directory: “The Paragon Shaving Parlor is located at 213 East Nash street in Briggs Hotel Block, and it can truthfully be said that it is the most popular Tonsorial parlor in the city of Wilson. It is owned and managed by N.J. Tate and W.S. Hines, both of whom are skilled barbers of long experience. Their genial manner and high class work have won for them the liberal share of the best patronage of the city. Their shop is fully equipped with all the latest appurtenances, and a short visit to this establishment will after passing through their hands, convince you of what the modern, up-to-date barber shops can do to put a man in good humor with himself and the rest of mankind. The shop is equipped with five chairs, each in charge of a professional barber. Go there for your next shave.”

By 1916, the business was known as Tate & Hines.

Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory (1916).

About 1920, Tate and Hines parted company, and Walter S. Hines assumed sole ownership of the barbershop. He briefly reverted to the Paragon Shaving Parlor name, but soon settled on Walter S. Hines Barbershop. His shop and that of his brother, the William Hines Barbershop, were friendly competitors for white custom until the 1970s.

Wilson Chamber of Commerce’s Facts About Wilson, North Carolina, published in 1934, featured a full-page for New Briggs with a photo of the hotel’s street-facing exterior. At lower left, Hines Barbershop is identifiable by its barber pole.

A close-up reveals two African-American men standing in front of the shop’s large window.

Walter S. Hines Barber Shop, early 1940s. Left to right: David H. Coley, Joe Knolly Zachary, Edgar H. Diggs, Roderick Taylor, and Sidney Boatwright.

Contrary to the passage below, which was lifted from the nomination form the Central Business-Tobacco Warehouse Historic District, Hines himself did not move the barbershop from the Briggs Hotel in 1955. Walter Hines died in 1941, and his family continued running the business for nearly 40 more years.

Barbers and bootblacks who worked for Walter S. Hines included Hiram A. Faulk, Walter Mainer, Roderick Taylor, David Barnes, Herman N. Grissom, Floyd Pender, Hubert Mitchner, Lonnie Barnes, Charles C. Chick, Edgar H. Diggs, Mancie Gaston, Elmer Gordon, Golden Robinson, James Smalls, Alonzo Barnes, David H. Coley, Sidney Boatwright, and Joe Knolly Zachary.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 12: Lemon Taborn’s barbershop.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

Lemon Taborn (later spelled Tabron) was born free about 1834 in Nash County, North Carolina, to Celia Taborn. He moved to the town of Wilson before 1860 and soon established a barbershop — the earliest known Black-owned business in Wilson.

E.B. Mayo noted Taborn’s shop into his 1872 map of Wilson on Tarboro Street just north of Vance Street. Taborn owned a large parcel of land in this block. (The house above was built after the family sold the lot.)

The Wilson Advance, 24 September 1880.

His barbershop also is drawn into the 1882 map of the city.

Taborn died in 1893, and his wife Edmonia Barnes Taborn and daughter Carrie Taborn continued his business until his sons Joshua, Jacob Astor, and Thomas Henry Taborn established Tabron Brothers Barbershop.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2024.