Tuesday evening, my father’s classmate L. Paul Sherrod Jr. will present and discuss family papers passed down from his great-grandparents Jack Sherrod (who served in the United States Colored Troops) and Cassie Exum Sherrod at a program sponsored by Wilson County Genealogical Society. I’ve had a sneak peek at some of the documents and am amazed by the family’s legacy!
In 1883, the Clerk of Wilson County Superior Court served notice on Dr. David G.W. Ward to make settlements in the estates of three African-American men for whom he served as administrator. The estates were tiny and should have been handled quickly and simply, but Ward apparently had failed to tie up the matters. In response, Ward asserted that none of the estates had assets sufficient to pay his claims as administrator and asked to be released from his duties.
Under state law, estate administrators were entitled to a small percentage of the value of the estate as compensation. Not uncommonly, of their volition or under pressure, poor or unlettered people signed over administration rights to people who better understood the probate process. However, Aaron Ward, Warren Ward, and Aaron Ruffin were landless farmers whose estates ordinarily would not have gone through probate at all. Their families would have simply divided up their personal property, paid off sharecropping or rent obligations, and gone on with life.
How did Dr. Ward come to be involved in these matters? Did he have a prior relationship with the families? Ward owned more than a thousand acres straddling the Wilson and Greene County lines and enslaved dozens before the Civil War. Warren Ward is listed near him in the 1870 and 1880 censuses. Aaron Ward named a son Wyatt, as had D.G.W. Ward, who named his son after his close associate Wyatt Moye, former sheriff, county founder, and slave trader. Had Dr. Ward enslaved these men? Did he leverage his prior command over their lives to urge their families into legal proceedings that allowed him to pick over their meager assets?
In February 1875, Cherry Ward signed over rights of administration to her husband Aaron Ward’s estate, and D.G.W. Ward was appointed administrator after posting bond with his business partner Francis Marion Moye. Ward reported to a Probate Court judge that Aaron Ward had died without a will; that his estate was worth about $500; and his heirs were his widow and children Green, Hannah, Wyatt, Nathan, Jesse, Merriman [Marion], and Adril [Aaron]. The document above is found in Aaron Ward’s estate file — eight years after his death. There is no document showing distribution of his assets to his heirs.
In March 1878, after widow Rachael Ruffin signed over rights of administration, D.G.W. Ward reported to a Probate Court judge that Aaron Ruffin had died without a will; that his estate was worth about $300; and his heirs were Dallas Ruffin, Clara Lane, Mary Artis, Jane Thompson, and, crossed through, Warren Ward. (He did not list widow Rachael Ruffin.) Shortly after, Ward requested and was granted permission to sell Ruffin’s personal property for cash. Ruffin’s estate file contains no record of a final settlement for his heirs.
On 1 February 1881, Sarah Ward relinquished her right to administer her late husband Warren Ward‘s estate and “recommend[ed] D.G.W. Ward as a suitable person to take the same.” Dr. Ward was duly appointed and posted notices to Warren’s debtors and creditors at two general stores in Stantonsburg, Ward & Moye [his business with F.M. Moye] and D. Hill & Company.
Court-appointed commissioners assessed Warren Ward’s property and allotted his widow 200 pounds of bacon and ten barrels of corn. He had no land. Ward’s estate file contains no record of a final settlement with his heirs.
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In 1866, Aron Ward and Cherry Moye registered their ten-year cohabitation with a Wilson County justice of the peace.
In the 1870 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: farm laborer Aaron Ward, 46; wife Cherry, 30; and children Green, 12, Wyatt, 11, Hannah, 8, Nathaniel, 4, Jesse, 3, and Marion, 2.
In the 1880 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: Cherry Ward, 40; sons Green, 21, Warot, 18, Nathan, 13, Jessie, 12, Marion, 9, and Aaron, 6; and grandson Edward White, 2.
On 17 February 1880, Hannah Ward, 18, and Warren Barnes, 20, applied for a marriage license, but did not complete or return the document.
On 14 January 1881, Green Ward, 24, son of Warren [sic] and Cherry Ward, married Hattie Kornegay, 23, daughter of Robert and Kezy Kornegay, in Swift Creek township, Pitt County, N.C.
On 5 October 1882, Wyatt Ward, 22, son of Aaron and Cherry Ward, married Kisire Kornega, 21, daughter of Robert and Kisire Kornega, in Saratoga township, Wilson County.
On 29 December 1889, Wyatt Ward, 28, of Saratoga township, son of Aaron and Cherry Ward, married Emma Aycock, 19, of Saratoga township, daughter of Sam and Jane Aycock, in Saratoga township, Wilson County.
In the 1900 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: farmer Wyatt Ward, 37; wife Emma, 37; and children Jesse, 17, Georgianna, 13, John, 9, William, 7, and Hattie, 5.
In the 1900 census of Williams township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: farmer Green Ward, 49; wife Hattie, 50; daughters Marion, 15, Ada, 13, Hattie, 11, Cora, 9, Blanchie, 8, Sallie, 5, Birtha, 3, and Minie, 3 months; and mother Cherry, 75, nursing.
In the 1910 census of Williams township, Lonoke County, Arkansas: farmer Green Ward, 51; wife Hattie, 51; and daughters Cora, 17, Sallie, 13, Bertha, 12, and Minnie, 8.
Wyatt Ward died 6 September 1922 in Saratoga township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was 55 years old; was born in Wilson County to Aaron Ward; was married to Ann Ward; and was a farmer. Jesse Ward was informant.
In the 1870 census of Speights Bridge township, Greene County: Warren Ward, 38, farm laborer; wife Sarah, 45; son Larance, 10; and Thomas Holoway, 21.
In the 1880 census of Stantonsburg township, Wilson County: Warren Ward, 53, farmer; wife Sarah, 52, washing; and Manda, 8, Henry, 7, and Lawrence, 19.
I have not found Aaron Ruffin’s family.
Estate Files of Aaron Ward (1875), Aaron Ruffin (1878), and Warren Ward (1881), North Carolina Wills and Probate Records 1665-1998, [database on-line] http://www.ancestry.com.
The Goldsboro field office of the Freedmen’s Bureau also received a recommendation that three newly freed African-American children be bound to Stephen Privette, who was probably their former enslaver.
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Wilson N.C. Dec 5th 1865
Commissioner of the Freedmen at Goldsboro
Sir. Mr. Stephen Privette of the County have three children whose mother are dead, they have no legal father, Mr. Privette is a good man & would treat them, kindly, and I would recommend him as being a sutable man to have them bound to. W.J. Bullock Capt. G.P.Y.
North Carolina Freedmen’s Bureau Field Office Records, 1863-1872, Goldsboro (Subassistant Commissioner), Roll 17 Applications for Relief, Mar 1865-Aug 1867.
We met the “Twin Gastons” — barbers John A. and George A. Gaston — here.
George and Matilda Gaston and their twin sons arrived in Wilson County in the 1870s. The family had also lived in Kinston, North Carolina, and in New Bern, North Carolina, where George Gaston opened an account with the Freedmen’s Bank on 9 March 1872.
The senior Gaston reported that he was born and reared in New Bern; lived “back of the foundery”; had just turned 55 years old; was dark-skinned; worked for William Jones as a blacksmith and plasterer; was married to Matilda Gaston; and had sons George and John. His parents, John George Gaston and Comfort Pruzell, were dead, and he had one sister, Lucinda, who was married to Major Austin. (The Austins appear in the 1870 census of New Bern.) Gaston signed his card with an X.
Freedman’s Bank Records, 1865-1871 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.
I’ve obtained a clearer copy of the photograph posted here depicting five generations of women who lived on the lands of and worked for Edwin Barnes or his heirs near Evansdale.
Wilson Daily Times, 20 April 1950.
Unfortunately — and surprisingly — I’m still not able to identify the women with certainty.
Many thanks to J. Robert Boykin III for the clipping.
Philip Fort did not live in Wilson County, but his daughter Hannah Forte Artis and her husband Walter S. Artis owned property in and around Stantonsburg, and that’s enough of a hook for me.
Stantonsburg Fort: Phillip Fort and the 135th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops, a children’s book, is a fictionalized account of the life of Phillip Fort, an enslaved man who joined the Union Army during the Civil War. Fort was born in far northeast Wayne County, near Eureka. (An area that now has a Stantonsburg zip code.) It is not the book I would write (but, then, I haven’t written a book, have I?), but it is an appealing introduction for young people to the role of the U.S. Colored Troops and an intriguing example of what can be done to bring historical material to a broader audience.
Last week’s highlight was the discovery of the rusted tin, charred beams, and old brick that mark the site of Barnes Primitive Baptist Church, a congregation formed by freed slaves shortly after Emancipation. Yesterday, I received digital copies of three precious Polaroid photographs of Barnes Church taken in 1977 when the church closed and moved south to Watery Branch Church Road in Wayne County.
In the first photo, Barnes Church’s long-time pastor, Elder Kemmy A. Sherrod, stands with Deacon Douglas Barnes between the church’s two entrances. Elder Sherrod, a Wayne County native, was a grandson of Jack and Cassie Exum Sherrod and also pastored Turner Swamp Primitive Baptist Church in Eureka, N.C., and New Center Primitive Baptist Church of Reidsville, N.C., and served as moderator of the Turner Swamp Primitive Baptist Association and Durham Primitive Baptist Association.
The second photo, taken over the long hood of a car, shows the church’s southern elevation. That’s the chimney whose broken base we found standing in the woods.
The third hones in on the church’s simple, porchless, front-gable form. Fire consumed Barnes Church after it was vacated, and we found no sign of its plank siding, doors, or windows.
My unending gratitude to Leonard P. Sherrod Jr. for sharing these priceless photographs with me and to his cousin Cheryl Sherrod Pope for granting me permission to post them here!
Three years ago, I asked, “Where was Barnes Church?” Today, I have an answer.
Founded just after slavery, Barnes Church was one of the earliest African-American churches in Wilson County. Its simple double-doored, gable-front building is believed to have been erected shortly after the church’s establishment.
Barnes Church circa 1960s.
My father’s classmate L. Paul Sherrod Jr. asked me to explore the little spit of woods that I knew had once been the site of the church, but in which I’d not found any traces of the nineteenth-century building. My earlier looks had been in summer, though, when I could barely get a glimpse inside the woodline.
We entered via an old driveway over the ditch and immediately spotted this stack. I was puzzled at first, as this is obviously newer brick. A walk-around, however, revealed old brick piers, the corners of a building came into view, and this broken stack may have been a later addition that vented a wood stove. Curled trips of tin roofing lay rusting underfoot.
And then I spotted this. Barnes Church burned down after it was vacated. Here was a charred length of sill beam — with a four-inch, square-cut nail.
The nail. It was not hand-wrought, but cut from a sheet, as indicating by only two sides tapering. The head would have been added by hand. The earliest machine-cut nails of this type date to about 1840.
A brick from one of the piers. It is unmarked, but probably made locally.
This sill beam, from the north side of the building, is charred but unbroken.
A section still resting on a pier.
The pollen, y’all.
Paul and Barbara Sherrod, my guides. We’ve met Mr. Sherrod here and here and here.
It’s heard to visualize, but I’m standing in front the church’s site, perhaps seven feet from its front wall.
Barnes Primitive Baptist Church did not own its building or the land on which it stood. When the landowner refused to allow the congregation to upgrade the building, members of the Sherrod family donated land for a new church a few miles south, just across the Wayne County line on Watery Branch Road. The “new” church is now occupied by Now Faith Missionary Baptist Church.
Alvin Bagley was later called upon by the Freedmen’s Bureau to answer questions about his indenture of young Edwin Bagley, whom he likely had only recently emancipated.
Hat tip to Sloan Mason for alerting me to this document.
We met Howell Vines here, when he complained to a Freedmen’s Bureau official that J.E. Totten had taken his military discharge papers in a fraud scheme. Totten lived in Wilson County, but it was not clear to me if Vines lived in Wilson or Edgecombe. I recently obtained a copy of his wife’s widow’s pension file, which establishes his domicile in the Old Sparta area of southwest Edgecombe. Nonetheless, I am featuring Vines here because of his close ties to Wilson County and the depth and poignancy of the personal information the file contains.
To start, here is the precious discharge paper Vines fought to recover. It establishes that he had enlisted in Company B, 14th Regiment of the United States Colored Heavy Artillery and was discharged at Fort Macon, North Carolina, on 11 December 1865. Vines was 39 years old, had been born in Edgecombe County, was five feet nine inches tall, and dark-skinned.
Howell Vines and Lucilla Eason married first in Edgecombe County while enslaved in 1854, then legalized their union in 1866. Lucilla Vines produced this certified copy of their cohabitation registration.
Vines died 6 June 1881. Ten years later, his wife Lucilla Vines applied for a widow’s pension, calling as supporting witnesses friends, neighbors, fellow soldiers, and even her former enslaver. She hired A.R. Bridgers, Jr., “Attorney at Law and Solicitor of Pension Claims,” to represent her and on 9 May 1892 Bridgers wrote Commissioner of Pensions Green B. Raum seeking action on Vines’ claim. Bridgers described her as “a poor flicted woman destitute of support and soly dependant on her children to sustain her through life,” adding, “She also has a son who is not a sound bodied person.”
Vines’ application included a joint declaration by several of her supporters. An unknown person testified to Howell Vines’ early legal status, stating that Howell had originally been owned by the heirs of Pollie Ruffin and drawn by John Vines in a division of property. Howell had remained John Vines’ property until freed. Benjamin Ruffin, age 81, testified that he had known Howell Vines all his life — “I was sent after the midwife when he was born.”
Charles Vines testified that he had known both Howell Vines and his parents and, while Howell may have gone by the name of his first owners at some point, John Vines was his last master. Ruffin and Charles Vines jointly asserted that they had known Lucilla Vines her whole life, as well as her parents; that she and Howell Vines were married by their owners’ consent; and Howell Vines was “allowed time Saturday night to go see his wife and reasonable time to get home Monday morning.”
In 1866, the couple got a “twenty-five cent license” to remarry under North Carolina’s cohabitation law and lived together until Howell’s death. They had 12 children, five of whom were still living — twins James and Jenny, born 17 October 1855; Lucy, born 27 July 1858; Sarah, born 24 February 1868; and Charles, born 1 April 1870.
Charles Vines and Ruffin asserted that Lucilla Vines was born in 1836 in Edgecombe County, but cite a younger age for Howell than that set forth on his discharge paper. Howell worked as a farmer and was never married to any woman other than Lucilla, whom they described as “flicted” — afflicted — with a large wen on her neck.
Lucilla Vines herself swore that she had known her husband since childhood; that they had married with consent; that they had not had an address during the War (“being slaves had no need of any Post office”); and Howell Vines died of disease contracted while a soldier.
On 31 October 1891, J.E. Eason wrote a note on Lucilla Vines’ behalf, oddly claiming that Evans “beloning to me and I have owened her all of her life.” (J.E. Eason added her X to a similar document four months later in which she modified her claim to assert only that “Lucilla Eason was once a slave of mine.”)
In August 1893, 63 year-old Charles Vines again testified, stating “that he has known Howell Vines all of his life they both belonged to the same white man John Vines, we both ran off the same time to become soldiers.” Charles Vines was rejected (he “was not found a solid man”) and went North, but Howell Vines enlisted. Charles encountered Howell in New Bern, North Carolina, during the War, and Howell told him he had contracted “camp cough.” He was never a well man after.
In October 1898, 58 year-old Dock Baker of Saratoga, Wilson County, testified that he, too, had known Howell Vines all his life. Baker had enlisted in Company B three months before Vines, and they were “comrid soldiers.” Howell had enlisted as a healthy man, but after working months building breastworks, lifting heavy logs, and throwing up dirt, Vines had been “taken down sick” and hospitalized for a month. Thereafter, he could not do much and was given light duty as a cook. Baker could not recall the name of Vines’ condition, but had seen him so ill with “cramp colic” that “it appeared as though it would draw him double.”
Allen Vines swore that he had known both Howell and Lucilla Vines about 45 years; that he and Howell had both belonged to John A. Vines; that he and Howell were not related, but his mother was Lucilla’s mother’s first cousin; and that Lucilla had belonged to Jackie Eliza Eason. Allen Vines was “standing by” when John A. Vines pronounced Howell and Lucilla man and wife. He also attended Howell Vines’ funeral.
James Vines authenticated his father’s discharge paper. “Prior to the war my mother with us children all lived on Miss Eason’s farm & father lived on John Vines’ farm but visited us every week.” “When Miss Eason (white) came to die last July she did not will my mother any thing but she willed me 180 acres of land for my lifetime & then to my two sisters Lucy & Jennie for life and then to their heirs but the executor Joseph Cobb sold the land to pay the debts of the estate.” [Per her estate file, Jacquea Eason died owning $40 in assets (other than land) and $500 in debt. James Vines and his sister Lucy Vines and Jenny Vines Johnson were her sole heirs. Benjamin F. Eagles bought Eason’s land when it went to auction.]
Watson Vines testified that “Howell Vines lingered four or five years before his death; and he was subject to fainting. I was with him when he died, and he had the running off the bowels constantly and died with the same. He continued to wicken down by the running off the bowels and died June 6, 1881. I superintend over his burring.”
Lucilla Vines was awarded a widow’s pension of $8 per month.
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In the 1870 census of Cokey township, Edgecombe County: farm laborer Doctor Baker, 27; wife Charlotte, 19; and children Richard, 6, and Louisa, 3.
In the 1880 census of Cocoa township, Edgecombe County: farm laborer Dock Baker, 45; wife Charlot, 35; and children Richard, 16, Louiser, 13, Marke, 9, Martha, 7, and Mary, 3.
Probably, on 19 February 1887, Dock Baker, 35, married Ellen Knight, 30, in Saratoga township, Wilson County.
Probably, on 21 August 1892, Dock Baker, 45, resident of Saratoga, married Ester Lewis, 23, of Saratoga, in Wilson County.
File #520895, Application of Luciller Vines for Widow’s Pension, National Archives and Records Administration.