Hargrave

Dr. and Mrs. Hargrave after his election win.

Unidentified newspaper.

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On 19 September 1907, F.S. Hargrave, 33, of Wilson, son of Henry and Laura Hargrave, married Bessie Parker, 20, of Wilson, in Wilson. Presbyterian minister Charles E. Tucker performed the ceremony at Calvary Presbyterian Church in the presence of J.D. Reid, Fred M. Davis, and Lena N. Harris.

Parker was a cousin of Samuel H. Vick and appears in his household in the 1900 census of Wilson.

Courtesy of V. Cowan. Thank you!

615 and 624 East Green Street.

I’ve posted several photographs from Richard L. Mattson’s article “The Cultural Landscape of a Southern Black Community: East Wilson, North Carolina, 1890-1930,” but this one threw me. The photo below is decidedly not Dr. Frank S. Hargrave’s house at 624 East Green Street.

And then I saw this and realized what happened. The photo below is Dr. Hargrave’s house. The photo above is the William Hines house at 615 East Green, which has been demolished. Their captions were accidentally swapped.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 5: Ideal Pharmacy.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

Dr. Frank S. Hargrave, newly arrived in Wilson, established Ideal Pharmacy circa 1905. On 14 September 1906, Dr. Hargrave sold to F.O. Williston “all of the Drugs, Medicines, Sundries, and fixtures of the Ideal Pharmacy,” as well as accounts payable and receivable, but not the soda fountain, tanks, and other apparatus in the shop. Williston, a Cumberland County, N.C.-native who married a Wilsonian, did not remain in town long, and by 1908, Darcey C. Yancey was co-owned of the Ideal with Dr. Hargrave.

1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory.

1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory.

Wilson Daily Times, 11 November 1910.

Per the 1912 Wilson, North Carolina, Industrial & Commercial Directory, “IDEAL PHARMACY — This is the only colored Drug store in Wilson, and it has been established for about seven years. The proprietor, D.C. Yancy, Ph.G., receiving his degree from the Leonard School of Pharmacy, Shaw University Class of 1905-06, has been connected with the store for the past three years and has been sole proprietor for the past year and a half. He reports that the business is constantly growing and he hopes within a very few years to have one of the largest stores in the City. He personally presses over the prescription department and absolute accuracy is his watchword. His motto is ‘Not how cheap but how pure.’ The general stock includes fresh drugs, patent medicines, Tobacco, Sundries, etc, soda fountain in connection. 109 South Goldsboro street, phone 219.”

The 1912 Wilson city directory lists Mark Farmer as a porter at Ideal Pharmacy.

Sometime in 1914, the Wilson Times published a three-page insert highlighting the achievements of the town’s African-American community. Not surprisingly, many of the businesses touted placed ads in the pullout, including Ideal Pharmacy: “Any physician’s prescription will be filled at Ideal Pharmacy exactly as it would be by the best drug stores of the country. We guarantee the quality of drugs, accuracy of compounders, reasonableness of charges, and unexcelled service. Give us a trial.” By then, though, the drugstore had moved from Goldsboro Street to 546 East Nash, nearer Yancey’s clientele.

Where was the Tubercular Home?

When Dr. Frank S. Hargrave and Samuel H. Vick envisioned the healthcare facility they would found to treat African-American patients in Wilson, it had two parts — a hospital and a “tubercular home,” i.e. sanatorium, outside town limits.

Wilson Hospital opened on East Green Street in 1913. Later that year, Sam Vick sold a forty-acre parcel south of downtown to The Wilson Tubercular Home, Inc., for $5000.   Vick had bought the parcel in 1902 from S.W. and Jean S. Venable.

Deed book 97, page 313, Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

Despite reports that a building on the site was near completion, the Tubercular Home apparently never opened. 

With the help of Wilson County’s GIS Coordinator Will Corbett, I have identified the rough location of “high sandy knoll self-drained and one-third of which is covered with native pines” upon which a sanatorium and patient cottages were to be built. Pinpointing the area will require additional research in the Register of Deeds office.

Hargrave’s Drug Store?

Wilson Times, 1 November 1901.

Though physician Frank S. Hargrave opened a pharmacy in Wilson shortly after his arrival, this advertisement does not tout his business:

  • Dr. Hargrave graduated from medical school in 1901, but practiced in Winston-Salem, N.C., for two years before arriving in Wilson in 1903.
  • The wording of this ad suggests a pharmacy that had been in operation for some time and employed more than one druggist. 
  • Per the Wilson, North Carolina, Industrial & Commercial Directory, published in 1912, Dr. Hargrave’s pharmacy (which he sold to D’Arcy C. Yancey before 1910) was established about 1905. It was called Ideal Pharmacy.
  • Ideal Pharmacy was located at 109 South Goldsboro Street. It was not “next door to Post Office,” which at that time was at 117 North Tarboro Street. 
  • And the clincher — the 1900 census of Wilson lists Benjamin Hargrave, 39, white, druggist. B.W. Hargrave died in 1907 and is buried in Maplewood Cemetery, Wilson.

624 East Green Street in its heyday.

As a reminder, here’s what Frank S. and Bessie Parker Hargrave‘s house at 624 East Green Street looks like now. It has been heavily and unfortunately modified, both cosmetically and structurally. 

Happily, though, there are photographs of the Hargraves house at its best, when a deep porch shaded its front windows and a low hedge bordered its front lawn.

624 East Green Street, probably early 1920s.

Photo courtesy of an anonymous reader. Thank you!