Hargrave

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!

Snaps, no. 96: Frank and Bessie Parker Hargrave.

Detail of photograph of Frank S. and Bessie Parker Hargrave. 

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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.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: medical doctor Frank Hargrave, 32; wife Bessie, 23; and boarder Lena Harris, 26, an insurance bookkeeper. Bessie Hargrave reported that she borne two children, but none were living.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 625 [later 624] Green Street, doctor Frank S. Hargrave, 40, and wife Bessie, 30.

In the 1930 census of Orange, Essex County, New Jersey: at 83 Kenilworth Place, valued at $10000, doctor Frank Hargrave, 50; wife Bessie E., 38; and South Carolina-born lodger Alexander Wilson, commercial dry goods salesman.

In the 1940 census of Orange, Essex County, New Jersey: at 83 Kenilworth Place, doctor Frank S. Hargrave, 58, and wife Bessie, 50.

Dr. Frank S. Hargrave died in March 1942. 

Bessie Parker Hargrave died 18 May 1971 in Orange, New Jersey.

Photograph shared anonymously.

The re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan.

On 21 December 1920, Dr. Frank S. Hargrave penned a letter to the editor of the Wilson Daily Times expressing quiet alarm about anonymous invitations sent to white men to become members of “the most powerful secret organization in America,” the Ku Klux Klan.

Wilson Daily Times, 22 December 1920.

Though not framed as a direct response, the Times published a tepid editorial a week later in which it cautioned against the rise of secret societies comprising the “worst,” not the “best” men in the county. “We just throw this out as food for thought, for we believe we know some of the gentlemen who are members of the Ku Klux Klan, and we believe also that they would not have joined if they had for one moment suspected that they had a single member in the fraternity with brains so small and intelligence so little” as to have written J.D. Gold an unspecified note — perhaps the invitation to which Dr. Hargrave referred?

Wilson Daily Times, 31 December 1920.

As we now know, Gold gave the “best men” of Wilson too much credit. By the end of the decade, the Klan held its regular meetings in the white Odd Fellows Hall upstairs at 208 South Goldsboro Street, along with all of the other white-only benevolent and fraternal organizations except the Masons.

Filling in the gaps.

Last week in Wilson.

My thanks to Wilson County Historical Association, Wilson County Tourism Development Authority, Drew C. Wilson of Wilson Times (where you can read the accompanying article), Reginald Speight of Congressman G.K. Butterfield Jr.‘s office, and local elected officials and members of the public who took time to show interest and support.

New historical markers.

Though the coronavirus pandemic has forestalled the customary installation ceremonies, Wilson County Historical Association has erected two of four planned markers commemorating significant African-American people and places in Wilson’s history.

Charles H. Darden. Born in Greene County, 1854. Arrived in Wilson after Civil War. In 1875, here established the first African-American funeral business in Wilson, diversified by son C.L. Darden. Operated for more than 100 years. Local high school named in his honor. (Jackson Chapel First Missionary Baptist Church is at rear.)

Dr. Frank S. Hargrave. Born in Lexington, NC. Graduated Leonard Medical School, 1901. Arrived in Wilson, 1903. Founder and Chief of Staff, Mercy Hospital. In 1914, elected President, National Medical Ass’n. President, Lincoln Benefit Society. Home was at 624 E. Green St. (Hargrave’s former home is at left, and Samuel and Annie Washington Vick‘s at right.)

I collaborated with W.C.H.A. on the subject, text, and siting of these markers. I give thanks to the Association and honor to these ancestors.