Hinton

The last will and testament of Ella Clark Gaston Hinton.

With brother John H. Clark nearby, Ella M. Hinton drafted her last will and testament on 15 August 1946. Her major asset consisted of six acres inherited from her father Harry Clark, and she was very particular about to whom it would go.

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In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Harry Clark, 27; wife Flora, 26; and children John, 6, Mary, 5, Ella, 3, and Henriett, 1.

In the 1880 census of Wilson township, Wilson County, farmer Henry Clark, 39, wife, Florah, 38, and children John, 16, Mary J., 14, Ella, 12, Henrietta, 9, Henry, 8, Augustin, 5, Thomas, 3, and Margaret, 10 months.

On 18 September 1884, J.A. Gaston, 25, married Eller Clark, 17, in Wilson. Witnesses were Samuel H. Vick, C.D Howard and Braswell R. Winstead.

John A. Gaston and Ella Clark Gaston divorced prior to November 1899, when he married Sattena Barnes.

In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Ella Gaston, 30, divorced, and children Ralph, 10, and Albert, 2.  Also, per the 1900 census of Wilson, John and Ella’s sons Theodore, 13, Cicero, 10, George Gaston, 8, remained in their father’s household. (By 1910, they lived in Warsaw, Duplin County, North Carolina.)

On 18 December 1902, Alexander Hinton, 29, of Wilson, married Ella Clark, 31, of Wilson, in Wilson. Presbyterian minister E.A. Mitchell performed the service in the presence of Ida R. Clark and E.J. Hooker.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Nash Street, Alex Hinton, 40, college cook, and wife Ella, 39, laundress. Both reported having been married twice, and Ella reported that five of her seven children were living.

In the 1940 census of Hampton, Virginia: at 35 Tyler, Ella Hinton, 72, widow; granddaughters Edna, 21, tea room waitress, and Eloise Gaston, 13; and lodgers Jessie Wright, 75, Elliott Wyche, 32, gardener, and Rebecca Butler, 20. Ella and Edna were born in North Carolina, Eloise in Pennsylvania, Jessie and Elliott in Virginia, and Rebecca in “Africa.”

Ella Hinton died 17 May 1947 in Wilson township, Wilson County. Per her death certificate, she was born 6 June 1871 in Wilson to Harry Clark and Maude [sic; maiden name unknown]; was widowed; and was buried in Rest Haven cemetery. Albert Gaston was informant.

Rev. Clark congratulates The Age.

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New York Age, 9 February 1935.

In 1935, Rev. Thomas G. Clark sent a congratulatory letter to mark the New York Age’s “50 years of untrammeled service to the race, nation and the world.” In it, he revealed details of his early educational struggles, and the epiphany to which Edward A. Johnson’s A School History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1890 brought him. [Johnson, born enslaved in Wake County in 1860, was educated at Atlanta University and wrote A School History at the urging of a school superintendent. The book was the first by an African-American author to be approved for use in North Carolina’s public schools. (Sidenote: I won’t rest until I secure a copy.)]