
Wilson Daily Times, 16 June 1921.
Wilson Daily Times, 16 June 1921.
Wilson Daily Times, 17 October 1911.
Wilson Daily News, 7 February 1938.
I have not found record of Frank Geary, but Frank Gear was born in 1909 and died in 1958 in Wilson County.
John G. Thomas’ “Wilsonia” column appeared in the Daily Times regularly during the 1930s and ’40s. A raconteur of human-interest stories, Thomas — typically, for the times — was drawn to tales of picaresque negroes living in Wilson’s colored section. In his 8 January 1937 column, Thomas introduced his readers to the sad and curious tale, derived via hearsay, of the “conjuration” of Duncan Hargrove. Just 11 months later, on 11 February 1938, Thomas revisited the story, adding considerable detail to the plight Hargrove, now called “Jake,” and augmenting hisĀ armchair anthropologist’s analysis of rootwork, a deep-rooted African-American spiritual practice. (“You probably won’t believe that in this day and age a simple thing like a hole bored in an oak tree could kill a person by itself. Now would you? But 1938 isn’t such a far cry after all, when it comes to superstition among the negroes of the south. It was several years back when I became interested in such things over here.”)
In a nutshell: Hargrove, who lived on Carolina Street, had a “leaky heart” (valve regurgitation.) After an argument, a friend cursed Hargrove by boring a hole into a tree and pronouncing that Hargrove would live only until the tree’s bark had grown over the hole. After watching the hole with fearful obsessiveness, Hargrove traveled to Georgia and Florida searching for a conjurer to lift the “hand” placed on him. He failed and, as the old folks used to say, after “going down slow,” he died.
Wilson Daily Times, 9 February 1937.
Now the remix, EP version, with Duncan as “Jake,” the friend as a rootworker in his own right, and the maple as an oak:
Wilson Daily Times, 11 January 1938.
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During our conversation in February, Samuel C. Latham told me that Peter Lupe was the only black person “allowed” to sell beer on the 500 block of East Nash. This piece, floating somewhere between news and society column, supports Mr. Lathan’s observation.
John G. Thomas’ first bit of “triviata” — Attorney George Tomlinson appeared at an alderman meeting on behalf of Willie Prince to complain that the police were showing favoritism toward Lupe while harassing Prince and others and that Prince’s on-premise wine license had been revoked, but Lupe remained free to pour. City tax collector Richard R. Smiley step up to resolve part of Prince’s complaint by revoking Lupe’s license on the spot.
The second item — One Saturday night, exactly five minutes after a “negro woman” was booked on a liquor charge, Lupe bonded her out.
The third — The police arrested James Patrick on a vagrancy charge and found his pockets full of “good luck negro charms.” (Again, “jo-mo.” Was this actually a local variant on “mojo”?) Patrick explained that, in exchange for rent, he had promised to get his landlady’s boyfriend to come back. [Sidenote: Vagrancy laws essentially criminalized joblessness and were wielded to harass poor people, especially those of color. After a number of constitutional challenges, in the 1960s most vagrancy laws were replaced by statutes prohibiting more specific behavior, such as public intoxication or disorderly conduct.]
Wilson Daily Times, 9 September 1940.
From anĀ interview ofĀ Hattie Henderson RicksĀ (1910-2001) by her granddaughterĀ Lisa Y. Henderson in which she explains the method Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. used to bring his estranged wife Sarah Henderson Jacobs back home to Wilson, and the aftermath:
“The one I heard about at that time was Doctor Buzzard. And he was in the country. And you had to go to him. He didnāt come to you. You go to him. And you had toĀ take some kind of clothes that you wear next to you, if you and your boyfriend or your husband falls out and had a misunderstanding, well, he could take the clothes you wear next to you and put something on it. It looked like, the thing what I opened where came out that tree looked like little roots, just little stems from a tree, and it was on a white piece of cloth, and it was just wrapped up in it and where Papa bored that hole in the tree, and it had a bottle stopper, it was a half-a-gallon stopper. It come in a jug, one of them little cork stoppers. Well, when he bored that hole in the tree, he took that little piece of rag or clothes or whatever. Mama was ā I reckon it was Mamaās. He didnāt know whether it was her clothes or whose. But he got some rags and put in there, and he wet on it for nine mornings. Heād go wet on that tree. And he corked it up with the stopper. But I reckon he must have taked the stopper out when he wet in it.
“And so Mama claimed she got sick. So she was talking to some old witchcraft person or something, heād know what to do for her, and I think she got somebody to take her. And he told her a whole lot of junk and mess, and thatās when he said, āYou look in any ā you got any trees in the yard?ā And she said, yes, she had a apple tree and a peach tree. So when she come home was telling it, MamaĀ said something, and PapaĀ said it was one of them trees out there. HeĀ had put some stuff in it, not to kill her but to make her sick. And so I said, āWell, if itās out there, Iām gon find it.ā And sho ānough, I went out there and saw that cork and stuff sticking up in that tree, the peach tree. I went back in the house and got the ice pick. And I prised the stopper out and sho ānough it was some rags and a little piece of cloth was wrapped around this little sticks and things was in there. And I was scared then after that. I said, āLord, this here mess! What is this stuff?ā And Mama claimed that when I taken the cork stopper outn that tree, she said seem like something just went all over her. That could have been a tale, but thatās what she said ā seem like something fell off her. So she got better. And so, she outlived him.”
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Interview of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson adapted and edited for clarity. Copyright 1994, 1996. All rights reserved.
Wilson Daily Times, 25 August 1911.
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In the 1900 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: Dolison Powell, 58; wife Sallie, 50; and childrenĀ Dorsey, 15,Ā Wiley, 13, andĀ Howard, 12.
In the 1910 census of Wilson township, Wilson County, on Saratoga Road, Dolison Powell, 68, wife Sallie, 62, and son Wiley, 24.