Haskins

Studio shots, no. 222: Simeon Haskins.

Simeon Haskins (1895-?).

We recently met Simeon Haskins at the beach. Above, he sits for a formal portrait at O.V. Foust’s downtown Wilson studio, using with what appears to be Howell G. Whitehead III’s dog. The photo is intriguing. What is the small round button on Haskins’ lapel? What was his relationship to the dog? Also, in this period, most African-Americans seeking such services went to George W. “Picture-Takin'” Barnes, an African-American photographer who likely was more economical. Foust, however, was the studio photographer of choice for Haskins’ employers, and they may have influenced his decision or even paid for the sitting. The image has been preserved among Whitehead family pictures.

Haskins appears in the 1910 census of Wilson in the household of his grandparents Damp and Stella Haskins, but is otherwise frustratingly elusive in records.

Thank you to Jane Cooke Hawthorne for sharing.

At the beach.

When wealthy Wilsonians shifted their households to the beach in summer, their domestic servants were pulled with them. Jane Cooke Hawthorne recently shared several photographs taken circa 1910-20 at the North Carolina shore, with thoughtful commentary about her evolving understanding of the relationships between her ancestors and the men and women who eased their lives. These photographs, which captured posed, but casual, groupings of an extended family of wealthy tobacconists, include “the help.”

In the first photo below, Lucy M. “Nolia” Gardner Whitehead stands in a white dress on the porch of the family’s Morehead City, North Carolina, summer home, surrounded by extended family. (For more about the house, which was built as headquarters of the precursor to the North Carolina Education Association, see here.) Her daughter Nolia Whitehead (later Davis) sits on the steps beside Edward K. Wright, who years later would inherite the farm that wraps around Vick Cemetery. The elderly woman in black standing at right is Matilda “Mattie” Bynum Barnes, who, with her husband Frank W. Barnes, sold Rountree Baptist Church land for its cemetery and sold Samuel H. Vick the land that would become Odd Fellows and Vick Cemeteries. The woman leaning on the newel post with clasped hands is Elizabeth Barnes Davis, who received the letter from Johnnie Farmer we read here. The little girl seated on the rail is Virginia Davis Pou, in whose daughter Virginia Pou Doughton’s papers that letter is found. Behind her are her parents Frank Barnes Davis and Helen Patterson Davis. And seated in front of Mattie Barnes is her daughter Alice Harriss Barnes Wright, from whom Ed Wright inherited Wright Farm. At the far edges of the group are four African-American women and one African-American man. The women, whom we have not been able to identify, were likely cooks, laundresses, nannies, and maids. The man is believed to be Simeon Haskins, and he probably worked as a general factotum.

Below, Howell G. Whitehead III sits at top left with a dog. Sim Haskins holds a small boy at bottom left.

Below, Mattie Barnes stands in the middle of another family grouping, with three African-American women and one man sitting cross-legged below. They appear to be a different group than those depicted in the first photograph.

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Do you recognize these men or women?

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on “N&S RR” [Norfolk & Southern Rail Road], farmer Damp Haskins, 60; wife Stella, 52, servant; children Martha, 23, cook, James, 18, wagon factory laborer, Lessie, 16, lumber mill laborer, John, 15, lumber mill laborer, Annie, 8, Earnest, 7, and Damp, 3; plus grandsons Simeon, 15, retail grocery laborer, and Ambrose Haskins, 7. [Damp Haskins was buried in Vick Cemetery.]

Many, many thanks to Jane Cooke Hawthorne. 

Lane Street Project: in memory of Damp Haskins (1851-1915).

I’ve spoken of the database I am developing of likely burials in Vick, Odd Fellows, and Rountree Cemeteries. My spreadsheet draws upon death certificates, obituaries, and other sources — most distressingly imprecise. The term “Rountree Cemetery” on these documents may refer to Vick, Odd Fellows, or Rountree. Some documents broadly refer only to burial in Wilson. However, in the absence of official burial records for any of the cemeteries, we make do.

This series honors the men, women, and children who never had grave markers, or whose stones have been lost or stolen or destroyed. Memorials for graves believed to be in Vick Cemetery, which the City of Wilson stripped of remaining markers in 1996, will be identified with a Vick Cemetery logo. Memorials for men and women born in slavery will be identified with a broken chain.

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Damp Haskins died 22 April 1915 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 64 years old; was born in North Carolina to Charles Haskins and a mother whose name was not known; worked as a farmer; and was buried in Wilson by C.H. Darden & Sons. William Haskins was informant.

Tragedy befalls the Haskins family.

We read here of the electrocution death of John Haskins by a downed live wire. This brief article reveals that his seriously ill sister died the same day, and their father two weeks later.

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 9 April 1915.

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In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: farm laborer Damp Haskins; wife Hester, 43; and children Dora, 24, Martha, 19, Lossie, 18, Robert, 16, William, 15, James, 13, Lesley, 10, John, 9, Norma, 7, Earnest, 4, and Damp, 1.

John Haskins died 7 April 1915 in Wilson township. Per his death certificate, he was 20 years old; married; had no occupation; and was the son of Damp Haskins and Steller Sharp. William Haskins was informant.

Dora Thomas Haskins [Haskins Thomas?] died 7 April 1915 in Wilson township. Per her death certificate, she was 42 years old; a widow; a cook; and was the daughter of Damp Haskins and Stettie Sharp. William Haskins was informant.

Damp Haskins died 22 April 1915 in Wilson [and not of tuberculosis, but of inanition (exhaustion caused by lack of nourishment) due to hemiplegia (paralysis on one side of the body). Per his death certificate, he was 64 years old; was married; was born to Charles Haskins and an unknown mother; and had been a farmer. William Haskins was informant.

Other suns: Elijah and Marie Haskins Warren, Washington, D.C.

Donna Warren Davis reached out to me after discovering references to her ancestors at Black Wide-Awake. Elijah Warren, Marie Haskins Warren, and their family joined the Great Migration in the mid-1930s, landing, like so many North Carolinians, in Washington, D.C.

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In the 1910 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: William Warren, 42; wife Millie J., 42; and children Ezekiel, 18, Keturrah, 17, Joseph, 14, Elijah, 13, Samuel, 11, Deborah, 9, William, 8, Millie, 5, Alchester, 3, and Edie, 2.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: widow Ada Haskins, 27, odd jobs laborer; daughter Arena, 12, born in Virginia, house servant [is this Marie?]; and lodger Alfred Williams, 32, widower, machinist.

On 21 October 1928, Marie Williams, 26, of Wilson, married Elijah Warren, 29, of Black Creek, in Wilson. Primitive Baptist church Johnie Bunch performed the ceremony in the presence of Cora W. Farmer, William Warren, and Wilson Farmer. [This was a second marriage for Marie Haskins Williams.]

In the 1930 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farmer William Warren, 62; wife Millie, 62; daughter-in-law Marie, 26; grandson Jerome, 11 months; granddaughter Mary, 10; sons Elijah, 32, Chichi, 23, and Sam, 30; and adopted son Richard Edmundson, 12.

In the 1940 census of Washington, D.C.: at 2816 Pennsylvania Avenue, W.P.A. laborer Elijah Warren, 38; wife Marie, 38, beauty parlor operator; step-daughter Mary Williams, 20; and children Jerome, 10, Jonathan, 9, and O’Donnell Warren, 7. All were born in North Carolina, except Mary, who was born in Pennsylvania. The census taker noted that the family had been living in the “same place” in 1935, which narrows the date of their migration to D.C. to about 1934.

In February 1942, Elijah Warren registered for the World War II draft in Washington, D.C. Per his registration card, he was born 2 April 1897 in Fremont, Wayne County; lived at 2816 Pennsylvania Avenue; worked for National Defense Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.; and his contact was Marie Warren.

The Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 21 August 1942.

The Evening Star, 11 March 1944.

In the 1950 census of Washington, D.C.: at 2816 Pennsylvania Avenue, beauty shop proprietor Marie Warren, 46; children Jerome, 20, mechanic at auto dealer, Donald, 17, and William V., 6; and mother Ada Haskins, 80, widow.

In the 1950 census of Washington, D.C.: at 1616 – 10th Street N.W., lodger Elijah Warren, 54, separated, mechanic at Navy Yard.

The Evening Star, 6 January 1954.

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  • Whitelaw Hotel — designed, financed, and built by African-Americans for African-Americans, the Whitelaw was an upscale apartment hotel in the U Street Corridor neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
  • First Baptist Church of Georgetown
  • 2816 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. — Elijah and Marie Warren arrived in Georgetown in the last decades of the long period that it was home to a sizable African-American minority. By the 1950s, gentrification was pushing Black Washingtonians out. Built about 1900, the two-story brick building at 2816 Pennsylvania Avenue now houses a high-end spirits retailer and is just down the street from the Four Seasons Hotel.

Funeral program courtesy of Donna Warren Davis. Thank you!

1200 East Hines Street.

The one hundred thirty-ninth in a series of posts highlighting buildings in East Wilson Historic District, a national historic district located in Wilson, North Carolina. As originally approved, the district encompasses 858 contributing buildings and two contributing structures in a historically African-American section of Wilson. (A significant number have since been lost.) The district was developed between about 1890 to 1940 and includes notable examples of Queen Anne, Bungalow/American Craftsman, and Shotgun-style architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

As described in the nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District, this building is: “ca. 1930; 1 story; bungalow with engaged gable-roofed [sic; it is shed-roofed] porch and heavy square porch posts on brick piers; asbestos veneer.”

The address of this house was 1200 Wainwright Avenue prior to the extension of Hines Street in the early 1970s.

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In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Haskins Damp (c; Sudie B) driver 1200 Wainwright av; Haskins Estelle (c) dom 1200 Wainwright; Haskins Hester (c) h 1200 Wainwright

In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Haskins Hester (c) h 1200 Wainwright

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 1200 Wainwright, valued at $1700, Coca-Cola Plant laborer Damp Haskins, 24; wife Sudie B., 21; children Damp Jr., 2, and Hellen, 6 months; mother Hester, 72; brother Joseph, 18; sister Martha Pitt, 52, servant; and nephew Jim R. Haskins, 10.

In 1940, Johnnie Hagans registered for the World War I draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 26 June 1917 in Wilson; was unemployed; lived at 1200 Wainwright Street; and his contact was mother Mamie Hagans. 

In the 1941 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Hagan Jas (c) lab 1200 S Wainwright av;  Hagan Mamie (c) farmer 1200 S Wainwright av; Hagan Sarah (c) tob wkr 1200 Wainwright av

In the 1947 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Price Louis (c; Nellie) farmer h 1200 S Wainwright av

Wilson Daily Times, 9 July 1948.

Louis Price died 23 August 1948 at his home at 1200 Wainwright Avenue, Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 2 June 1903 in Harnett County, N.C., to Walter Price and Amy McNeil; and was buried in Smith Grove, Dunn, N.C.

Wilson Daily Times, 19 June 1962. 

[Personal sidenote: During my childhood, 1200 Wainwright was the home of William and Mable Tyson Foreman. My sister and I spent many happy hours playing with their three grandchildren, our “play cousins,” on their visits from Washington, D.C.]

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, November 2021. 

The obituary of Robert D. Haskins, voting rights warrior.

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the passing of Robert D. Haskins, the named plaintiff in a landmark 1982 civil rights lawsuit filed against Wilson County over its at-large system for electing county commissioner.

Wilson Daily Times, 31 October 1986.

Attorneys G.K. Butterfield Jr. (now a U.S. Congressman) and Milton “Toby” Fitch Jr. (now a North Carolina State Senator) with Robert D. Haskins. In the early 1980s, on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, photographer Jim Peppler documented Black Wilson County citizens’ efforts to secure representation on the county’s Board of County Commissioners. The series of photographs are housed at Alabama Department of Archives and History. 

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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Robert Haskins, 37, insurance agent; wife Gertrude, 28; and children Mandy, 14; Elizabeth, 12; Estelle, 10; Robert, 7; Lossie, 5; Laurence, 4, and Thomas, 11.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Robert Haskins, 44, insurance agent; wife Gertrude, 39; and children Mandy, 22, private family cook; Elizabeth, 20; Estell, 18; Robert, 17; Lossie, 14; Larence, 12, and Tommie, 11.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Robert Haskins, 55, drug company salesman; wife Gertrude, 48; and children Mandy, 36; Elizabeth, 33, cook; Estelle, 29, beauty shop cleaner; Robert D. Jr., 29, hotel kitchen worker; Lossie, 24, N.Y.A. stenographer; and Thomas, 20, barbershop shoeblack; plus granddaughter Delores Haskins, 15, and lodger Henry Whitehead, 21.

In 1940, Robert Douglas Haskins registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 1 June 1913 in Wilson; lived at 1300 Atlantic Street, Wilson; his contact was father Robert Haskins; and he worked for Robert Haskins as a salesman.

Hat tip to LaMonique Hamilton for the link to these photos.

Green Street updates.

On a recent visit to Wilson, I noticed clean-up and renovation underway at several houses in East Wilson Historic District, including:

The Charles and Ella Tate Gay house was built about 1913. Its entire exterior has been renovated. (I wish they’d kept the porch posts.)

It’s not clear to me what is happening at the Nathan Haskins house, also built about 1913. It has been missing a porch post for years and remains boarded up, but its yard is regularly and thoroughly maintained.

The Isaac and Emma Green Shade house, one of two Tudor Revival cottages built in the 1930s on this stretch of East Green, has undergone a lovely external transformation. I hope it’s got an updated interior to match!

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, June 2021.

John Haskins electrocuted while walking home.

Wilson Daily Times, 9 April 1915.

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In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: farm laborer Damp Haskins; wife Hester, 43; and children Dora, 24, Martha, 19, Lossie, 18, Robert, 16, William, 15, James, 13, Lesley, 10, John, 9, Norma, 7, Earnest, 4, and Damp, 1.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, WIlson County: on “N&S RR,” farmer Damp Haskins, 60; wife Stella, 52, servant; children Martha, 23, cook, James, 18, wagon factory laborer, Lessie, 16, lumber mill laborer, John, 15, lumber mill laborer, Annie, 8, Earnest, 7, and Damp, 3; plus grandsons Simeon, 15, retail grocery laborer, and Ambrose Hoskins, 7.

Damp Haskins died 22 April 1915 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 64 years old; was born to Charles Haskins and an unknown mother; and had been a farmer. William Haskins was informant.

John Haskins died 7 April 1915 in Wilson township. Per his death certificate, he was 20 years old; married; had no occupation; and was the son of Damp Haskins and Steller Sharp. William Haskins was informant.

“Had no physician. The deceased came in contact with a heavily charged electric wire causing instant death.”

Freeman’s Pond.

Among the many ventures to which Oliver Nestus Freeman turned his hand was the establishment of a recreation area for African-Americans. The exact location of the park is surprisingly hazy, given that it contained a pond large enough to swim and boat in. This article about the 1933 drowning of Lawrence Haskins is the only written reference to Freeman’s Pond that I’ve found. The “fair grounds,” which had hosted horse racing, bicycle racing and baseball since the late 1800s, was beyond city limits in a wooded area just beyond present-day Dick’s Hot Dog Stand and Wells Elementary School.

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Wilson Daily Times, 29 July 1933.

This photo of Connie Freeman and friends in small rowboats on Freeman’s Pond is reproduced at the Freeman Round House and Museum.

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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Warren Street, Robert Haskins, 37, bottling company laborer; wife Gertrude, 28; and children Mandy, 14, Elizabeth, 12, Estelle, 10, Robert, 7, Lossie, 5, Lawrence, 4, and Thomas, 1.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: insurance agent Robert Haskins, 44; wife Gertrude, 39; and children Mandy, 22, Elizabeth, 20, Estell, 18, Robert, 17, Lossie, 14, Larence, 12, and Tommie, 11.

Laurence Edward Haskins died 29 June 1933 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 10 September 1917 in Wilson to Robert Haskins and Gertrude Farmer; he was a school boy; and he lived at 1300 Atlantic Street. Cause of death was “accidental drowning while in [sic] bathing in Contentnea Creek.” [This does not comport with the conjectured location for Freeman’s Pond above.]