
Wilson Daily Times, 3 March 1928.
Wilson Daily Times, 3 March 1928.
Rev. Halley Blanton Taylor Sr. was pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church from 1908 to about 1918. This photo appeared in the 1944 edition of Thomas Yenser’s Who’s Who in Colored America.
Wilson Daily Times, 30 August 1930.
Late in the summer of 1930, Steven Ray issued a call “to all races, tribes and tongues” to join him at Calvary Presbyterian Church to pray for rain. Ray was not pastor of Calvary, and it is not clear of which church he was minister.
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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Washington Street, David Jeffers, 47, laborer; wife Ethel, 43; stepchild Luther Mack, 18, laborer; father-in-law Stephen Ray, 55, widower, laborer. [Also on Washington Street: Jessie Williams, 42, wagon factory laborer; wife Lizzie, 38; sisters-in-law Sarah, 14, Hattie, 12, and Katie Ray, 9; brother-in-law Stephen L. Ray, 7; and sister-in-law Lillian Ray, 5; and daughter Margrett Williams, 13.]
In the 1920 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Ray Stephen (c) lab h Washington av nr Vick
In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Ray Stephen (c; Emma) 901 Stantonsburg
In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Ray Steph (c) porter Miller’s 200 E Nash
Stephen Ray died 24 April 1933 at Mercy Hospital, Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 59 years old; was married to Emma Ray; lived at 914 Washington Street; was a preacher; and was born in Cumberland County, N.C., to Phillip Ray and Annie Ray. Informant was Lizzie Williams.
Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.
Wilson Daily Times, 15 July 1922.
Wilson Daily Times, 13 June 1927.
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[Sidenote: I attended Vacation Bible School at Calvary Presbyterian with my cousins, who were church members. I remember most vividly the summer of 1969, when classes were taught on the first floor of the Mercy Hospital building, closed just five years earlier. Calvary had torn down in 192x edifice and was building a new church on the site. What do I recall best? Singing “Michael Row The Boat Ashore,” making crafts with marbles and popsicle sticks, and having the scab knocked off my smallpox vaccination site.]
Wilson Daily Times, 2 September 1919.
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Camp Zachary Taylor, near Louisville, Kentucky, circa 1918.
Caufield & Shook, photographers; digital image courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.
Wilson Daily Times, 8 December 1928.
Wilson Daily Times, 20 June 1928.
Thanks to J. Robert Boykin III for sharing this clipping.
Here in its glory is the church O.N. Freeman, Benjamin Harris Sr., and others built for Calvary Presbyterian Church in 1924.
Below, at the far edge of the frame, are the four white columns of Mercy Hospital (then Wilson Colored Hospital). The houses between the church, demolished in the 1990s, were 508 and 510 East Green Street.
The 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson showing the old Calvary, Mercy Hospital, and the two houses between. The house at 510, closest to the church, was later replaced by a two-story dwelling. It served as Calvary’s parsonage.
The automobile below is a Ford coupe. I estimate its model year as circa 1940. Can anyone give a better identification?
This streetlight dangled above the intersection on crossed wires.
The highway signs below designate U.S. 301, U.S. 264-A, and N.C. 58. Highways 301 and 264 date to 1932, but the “A” indicates that the photograph was taken no earlier than 1950, when 264 was re-routed.
The resolution of the photograph is too poor to render the church’s message board or cornerstone readable. (Was the cornerstone saved during demolition?)
The small white obelisk at the corner was a street sign of a type seen in Wilson well into the 1970s. PENDER ST was stamped into one side, and GREEN ST into the other, and the letters painted black.
Photo courtesy of Wilson City Archives. Hat tip to L. Monson.
Below, a figure holding a level, said to be O. Nestus Freeman, standing atop a wall at the construction site of the second iteration of Calvary Presbyterian Church, completed in 1924.
Photo courtesy of Wilson City Archives; hat tip L. Monson.