Lane Street Project

Lane Street Project: a request to Councilmember Morgan for information.

If you’ve been down Bishop L.N. Forbes Street in the last few months, you will have noticed the gravel laid alongside the Lane Park ballfields under fluttering pennants and, occasionally, mass staging of heavy equipment at the site. Last night, I submitted the letter below to Councilmember Gillettia Morgan, requesting information about this development; about potential utility work by Piedmont Natural Gas on B.L.N.F.; and, of course, the mysterious designation of Vick and Odd Fellows Cemeteries as “vacant” on future land use maps.

If you head down to City Hall in the next twenty minutes, perhaps you can ask Morgan these questions in person. Let me know.

Lane Street Project: in memory of Robert Ashe Jr. (1949-1949).

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. 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.

Robert Ashe, Jr., died 16 September 1949 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 20 May 1949 in Wilson to Robert Ashe Sr. and Josephine Avery and lived at 614 Darden’s Alley. He was buried in Rountree Cemetery, Wilson. [Baby Ashe may have been buried in Rountree Church Cemetery, but more likely was buried in what we now know as Vick Cemetery.]

Lane Street Project: distractions.

I heard that last week’s city council outburst about the courthouse’s Confederate monument also included a charge that Pender Street was named for a Confederate general and should be renamed. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But while living, breathing Wilsonians are still weeping for the desecrated graves of their loved ones, I am uninterested in the performance of outrage about 150 year-old street names.

Still, if you want to be mad about institutions and entities named for men complicit in upholding the institution of slavery, start with the city and county of Wilson, who were named for politician and Mexican War general Louis Dicken Wilson.

Louis D. Wilson (1789-1847)

Louis D. Wilson died in 1847. His will was simple — a couple of individual bequeaths, proceeds from property to care for the poor of Edgecombe County, and all his slaves to his sister Ann Wilson Battle. The sister died before he did, and her heirs, James L. and Mary A.S. Battle, duly stepped up to take their share of their uncle’s wealth. A court-appointed committee allotted to Mary A.S. Battle 17 men, women, and children — “Ben Jackson Frank Gilbert Willie Turner John Steller & child Rose Amandy Albert July Lucy Mary Mariah & child Providence & Martin valued at Six thousand two hundred & five dollars.” James Battle received another 17 — Ellick Guy Clinton Ephraim Henry Boston Edmond Bill Winney Nancy Dinah Martha Anicka & child Sabry Tener Bob & Mary valued at Six Thousand one hundred & fifteen dollars.” The siblings were given equal shares in one man, who was called Bill Hall. (Note that Wilson claimed 78 enslaved people at the time of the 1840 census. I have no information about the apparent sell-down between then and the distribution of his estate.)

I don’t know if any of these 35 people or their descendants have ties to Wilson, but I say their names as our spiritual, if not literal, ancestors. Their enslaver, of course, has the whole town and county named in his honor. I tell you this not because I want names changed. I tell you so you understand how inextricably tied to slavery the history of this city is.

Back to the subject at hand — Vick Cemetery.

Deed book 24, page 523, Edgecombe County Register of Deeds, Tarboro, North Carolina; credit for portrait of Louis D. Wilson here.

Lane Street Project: season 4, workday 3.

The weather has not been kind early this season, but we’re getting it done. Scarborough House Resort always comes through, and both Senior and Junior Force put in work!

We have a clear path now to the pile of headstones midway back in the cemetery. This is where I found my great-grandmother Rachel Barnes Taylor‘s marker in January 2021. Every season we have to release it from the previous summer’s outlandish wisteria growth, but perhaps this will be the last time. If we can clear the ground around this pile, we can begin to probe for more markers buried under decades of leaf mulch.

The Junior Force is continuing its fence beautification project.

Odd Fellows Cemetery has not looked this good in half a century. Special thanks to the City of Wilson’s sanitation crews for removing our work day debris.

Our next work days are February 9 and 23. Celebrate Black History Month with us!

Photos and video courtesy of Jen Kehrer. Please consider Scarborough House Resort for all your event venue and bed-and-breakfast needs!

Lane Street Project: in memory of Alice Artis (1877-??)

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. 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.

In the 1900 census of Ingrams, Johnston County: widower farmer Archie Artis, 78; daughters Bathanie, 32, and Alice E., 22; and granddaughters Victoria, 13, Effie, 10, and Pollie, 1.

In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Artis Alice (c) cook h Vance nr Pender

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Joe Evans, 26; wife Effie, 17; daughter Never E., 3; sister Victory E., 22, widow; [her?] children William, 7, Maggie, 6, and Harvey, 3; mother-in-law Bettie Artice, 37; aunt Alice, 35; and her daughter Polly, 10.

On 3 Dec 1914, Solomon Ward applied for a marriage license for Jesse Henderson of Wilson, age 21, son [great-nephew] of Jesse Jacobs and Sarah Jacobs, both dead, and Pauline Artis of Wilson, age 18, daughter of Alice Artis. On the same day, Fred M. Davis, Baptist minister, performed the ceremony at his residence before Mary Barnes, Annie Hines, and Willie Cromartie, all of Wilson.  [Jesse and Sarah Henderson Jacobs, who were very much alive, reared Jesse, who was the son of Sarah’s sister.]

In the 1916 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Artis Alice (c) dom h 219 1/2 Pender

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 217 Pender Street, Jesse Henderson with wife Pauline, daughter Bessie, and mother-in-law Alice Artis. Jesse worked as a truck driver for a woodyard. Alice Artis was a cook for a private family.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 318 Pender Street, Jack Henderson, truck driver, 38; wife Pauline, 31, and children Bessie, 12, Alic, 10, Joice, 8, Mildred, 6, and Archy, 4, listed in the household of mother-in-law Alic Artis, 49, private cook, paying $18/month rent.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 309 Pender Street, Alice Artis, 56; daughter Pauline Henderson, 39, household servant; granddaughters Bessie L., 23, hotel elevator girl, Alice, 20, household servant, Joyce, 18, household servant, Mildred, 16, and Doris, 10; and grandson Robert [Bobby], 4.

I have not found Alice Artis’ death certificate. Her grandchildren, however, report that she was buried in Vick Cemetery.