Washington Tribune, 29 January 1929.
Dr. Walter T. Darden, son of Charles H. and Dinah Scarborough Darden, served as acting director of Tuskegee Institute’s John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital during the absence of its regular director, who was at Johns Hopkins Hospital with Tuskegee Institute principal Dr. Robert R. Moton.
His obituary does not mention it, but Arthur N. Darden attended North Carolina A. & M. College [now North Carolina State A. & T. University] from 1904 to 1908. A World War I veteran, Darden was a founder and long-time officer of Henry Ellis Post 17 of the American Legion.
Los Angeles Evening Herald, 19 January 1928.
In January 1928, attorney Charles S. Darden went into court to defend himself against a suit filed by his landlord for non-payment of rent. Darden asserted that the Central Avenue office space was uninhabitable because it was overrun by rats. His attempts to combat them with a cat called Jack Dempsey had failed, and Darden and his stenographer Viola Lambert had abandoned the premises. The judge was not swayed and entered judgment for the plaintiff landlord.
Richmond Times Dispatch, 29 June 1951.
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In the 1900 census of Highland, Orange County, New York: James B. Darden, 18, waiter [at hotel.]
In the 1910 census of Opelika, Lee County, Alabama: physician John Darden, 34; wife Jean, 26; and brother James B. Darden, 26, drugstore clerk.
In 1918, James Benjamin Darden registered for the World War II draft in Petersburg, Virginia. Per his registration card, he was born 17 July 1881; lived at 516 Byrne, Petersburg; was an M.D.; and his nearest relative was Lillian Darden.
In the 1920 census of Petersburg, Virginia: physician James B. Darden, 38, and wife Nannie, 32.
In the 1930 census of Petersburg, Virginia: at 516 Byrne, physician James B. Darden, 46; wife Lillian, 42; and mother-in-law Sarah Allen, 75.
In the 1940 census of Petersburg, Virginia: medical doctor James Darden, 56, and wife Lillian, 52.
In 1942, James Benjamin Darden registered for the World War II draft in Petersburg, Virginia. Per his registration card, he was born 17 July 1882 in Wilson, N.C.; lived at 516 Byrne, Petersburg; was a doctor at 122 South Avenue; and his contact was Lillian A. Darden.
In the 1950 census of Petersburg, Virginia: doctor James B. Darden, 67, and wife Lillian A., 60.
Lillian A. Darden died 11 February 1983 in Petersburg, Virginia. Per her death certificate, she was born 8 January 1887 to Charles Allen and Sarah Cole in Tennessee and was a retired music teacher.
Wilson Daily Times, 2 July 1976.
(1) Do these “records of burial preparations” still exist? If so, where?
(2) “The Oddfellows’ Cemetery apparently accepted blacks for burial.” Well … yes. But Odd Fellows Cemetery is not the same as Rest Haven Cemetery. The “other old cemetery” was Oakdale/Oakland.
(3) Who was Tom Woodard and in what way was he instrumental in getting Charles H. Darden‘s business started?
The New York Age, 19 October 1916.
We learned here of the relationship between Lawrence Lightner and C.H. Darden & Sons. Here, we see that Camillus L. Darden traveled to Raleigh to conduct the funeral of Lightner’s 18 month-old niece.
The New York Age, 2 April 1932.
The family of Charles H. Darden marked the first anniversary of his passing with this notice in The New York Age.
My recent examination of World War I draft registration cards from Wilson County is yielding pleasant surprises. For example, I had no idea that South Carolina native Lawrence T. Lightner, brother of prominent Raleigh builder and funeral director Calvin E. Lightner and founder of Goldsboro’s Lightner Funeral Home had lived in Wilson and worked for Charles H. Darden. He seems not to have stayed long, for by the 1920 census L.T. Lightner is listed as an undertaker in Goldsboro.
Darden and Son funeral home’s address was 610 East Nash Street. 615 was a small shotgun house across the street that the business, or Darden himself, may have owned.
Thirty years ago, the north side of the 500 block of East Nash Street was largely intact. In 2024, however, all of these buildings, except the one at far left, are long gone.
The three-story brick building at left is, of course, the Odd Fellows hall that Samuel H. Vick erected in 1894, when he was barely in his 30s. The lodge met on the top floor, and the Globe Theatre occupied the second floor for decades. In the 1920s, Camillus L. Darden built the two-story building at right and the two one-story buildings between it and the Odd Fellows lodge.
Photo courtesy of Richard L. Mattson, “The Cultural Landscape of a Southern Black Community: East Wilson, North Carolina, 1890-1930,” North Carolina Historical Review, January 2011.
