fire

Fire destroys Vick’s garage and 20 cars.

News and Record (Greensboro, N.C.), 5 November 1917.

We’ve seen that Samuel H. Vick was an early and enthusiastic car collector, but who knew this early and enthusiastic? In 1919, the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office reported five cars registered to Vick — a Chandler, a Reo, two Hudsons, and a Cadillac. Two years earlier, however, he had lost an astounding 20 cars in a garage fire behind his commercial property on East Nash Street.

The 1913 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson shows a wooden structure behind the brick Odd Fellows building, which housed the Globe Theatre, and adjacent to the rear of the Hotel Union. It hardly seems large enough to have housed 20 vehicles, but may have been expanded between 1913 and the 1917 fire.

 

Wilson Chapel burns.

Wilson Chapel Free Will Baptist Church‘s building burned to the ground in an early morning fire in November 1922.

In 1915, the church had bought a wooden structure first used by Jackson Chapel Missionary Baptist and vacated after its merger with First Missionary Baptist and the erection of the large brick building still standing at the corner of Pender and East Nash. This wooden building is apparently the one destroyed by fire in 1922. The church rebuilt, and the new building is shown here. In 1958, Wilson Chapel built the brick building in use today.

Wilson Daily Times, 6 November 1922.

Wilson Daily Times, 7 November 1922.

The 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map shows the close proximity of Wilson Chapel and the cotton seed house of Wilson County Gin Company.

Clippings courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.

Fire at the cemetery.

Wilson Daily Times, 1 September 1932.

In this odd series of events, the “negro cemetery” appears to be the old Oakdale cemetery, located west of Stantonsburg Street (now Pender) and by 1932 abandoned.

——

  • Frank Austin — in the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 318 South Lodge Street, Alas Austin, 65; son George Austin, 45; and grandchildren Pattie B., 20, Earnest, 19, Rose M., 17, Lorrine, 13, Katie B., 12, Virginia, 11, and Leroy Barnes, 10, and Frank Austin, 23. [The Barnes children were surely the children of India Alston Barnes, who was shot to death by their father Tip Barnes in 1921.]

Store damaged by fire.

Wilson Daily Times, 30 March 1924.

——

  • Ed Johnson — Edward Johnson died 15 April 1924 (two weeks after his store burned.) Per his death certificate, he was born 12 February 1869 in Durham County, N.C., to Martin Johnson and Francies Burks of Durham County; was married to Rachel Jane Johnson; was a self-employed grocery merchant; and lived at 406 East Hines Street. His wife Rachel Johnson was the daughter of his landlord Lewis Townsend.
  • Louis Townsend — Lewis W. Townsend and his brother Andrew J. Townsend operated groceries together and separately in the warehouse district southwest of downtown Wilson.

Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.