Lower Black Creek Primitive Baptist Church, founded in 1783, was the second church organized in what is now Wilson County. (It closed its doors in 2010.) The church’s nineteenth and early twentieth-century records includes names of enslaved and freed African-American members, who worshipped with the congregation as second-class Christians even after Emancipation.
This page continues with names of members “dismissed by letter,” i.e. voluntarily, to join another church, as well as members excommunicated for serious infractions. The page includes references to 14 enslaved African-Americans, including one man cast out for disobeying his mistress. (Bless his heart.) As Primitive Baptists did not practice infant baptism, the 14 were, if not adults, then nearly so, and thus were all born in the 1700s or early 1800s. Some may have lived to see Emancipation, but even if they remained in Wilson County, I have no way to identify them further.
Dismissals by letter:
- Haywood, a servant of John Sherrod
- Hanah, a servant of James Aycock sen’r
- Hannah, a servant of James Aycock sen’r
- Hannah, a servant of Godfrey Stancil
- Rose, a servant of W. Fort
Excommunications:
- Harry, a servant
- Kedar, a servant
- Moses, a servant
- Samuel, a servant
- Harry, a servant
- Peter, a servant of Patience Aycock charged with Disobedience to his Mistress
- Ann, a servant restored to fellowship
- Kedar, a servant
- Harry, a servant
Copy of documents courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III. Originals now housed at North Carolina State Archives.
