migration to Mississippi

Affidavits of good behavior, no. 3.

I’ve been hunting for digitized evidence of the trade of Wilson County slavers like Wyatt Moye, Robert S. Adams, Stephenton Page Jr., and Joshua Barnes in Aberdeen, Mississippi. I finally found some in a deed book dated 1847-1850. (Wilson County, of course, had not yet formed, but these and other traders lived or had lived in parts of Edgecombe, Nash, Wayne, or Johnston Counties that are now Wilson County.) These registered affidavits attest to the affiants’ personal acquaintance with an enslaved person who had been sent from North Carolina to Mississippi for further sale.

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Deed Record 13, page 640. Chancery Clerk’s Office, Monroe County, Mississippi.

Know all men by these presents that we Jesse Simpson and Isaac Williamson Citizens and free holders of the County of Nash and State of North Carolina do hereby certify that we are acquainted with a negro man named Abram aged about twenty three years old a Stout Strong well musselled boy about five feet two inches high and darke culler and cross eied, furthermore that said Slave has not been guilty or convicted of murder arson burglary or felony within our knowledge or belief in said County nor no other County.  /s/ Jesse Simpson, Isaac Williamson

Deed Record 13, page 640. Chancery Clerk’s Office, Monroe County, Mississippi.

Know all men by these presents that we Jesse Simpson and Isaac Williamson Citizens and free holders of the County of Nash and State of North Carolina do hereby certify that we are acquainted with a negro man named Aberdeen aged about twenty three years old, a large Stout Strong Boy and of dark complection, furthermore that said Slave has not been guilty or convicted of murder arson burglary or felony within our knowledge or belief in said County of Nash or any other County.  /s/ Jesse Simpson, Isaac Williamson

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  • Abram and Aberdeen — Abram (or Abraham) and Aberdeen appear in the 1835 will of Elisha Applewhite, who devised them to his daughter Smithey D. Applewhite. Eventually, they came into the hands of Bartley Deans, whose daughter Elizabeth had married Smithey’s brother Robert Applewhite. In 1848, Deans placed both Abram and Aberdeen with the slavetradiing firm Moye & Adams to sell or hire out in Monroe County, Mississippi, a transaction that ended in litigation.
  • Jesse Simpson — Simpson is listed in the 1850 slave schedule of Nash County, N.C., with three enslaved people — two men, aged 55 and 33, and a young woman aged 16.
  • Isaac Williamson — Williamson is listed in the 1850 slave schedule of Nash County, N.C., with two enslaved people — two women, aged 40 and 24.

Documents reproduced at www.familysearch.org.

Notes from Mississippi: Wyatt Moye.

Among the documents I perused at Aberdeen’s Evans Memorial Library were local historian John Rodabough’s newspaper columns from the 1970s. Densely detailed and wide-ranging, Rodabaugh’s articles did not shy away from chronicling Monroe County’s roots as a center of Mississippi’s slave trade.

Let me remind you: Wyatt Moye (1793-1862) lived in Greene and Edgecombe Counties in the general vicinity of Stantonsburg. He served as Greene County sheriff for a while, then as an Edgecombe County legislator, where he sponsored legislation to create Wilson County. He was also a slave dealer. Working with other men from Edgecombe County, Moye was a trader and factor, moving “excess” or troublesome Black people from the Upper South to the Lower, where vast cotton fields awaited them.

The photograph of Wyatt Moye’s house, above, makes plain the abundant wages of human trafficking. In his 14 March 1972 “Port of Aberdeen” column, Rodabough described the house as “[t]he finest raised cottage of antebellum Aberdeen.” “The first floor was brick. The main floor above it was frame with a hipped roof. Brick piers supported the gallery of the main floor. A staircase rose from the walkway to that level. The floor of the lower porch was brick. Inside center halls bisected four rooms on each floor.”

As to Moye himself, Rodabough wrote, “Wyatt Moye was a partner in the banking firm of Cunningham, Moye & Co., which flourished in Aberdeen in the 1850’s. After his first wife’s death, he remarried in 1858 “and put his house up for sale. He moved to Memphis.”

Moye was also a director of Mississippi Mutual Insurance Company, which was incorporated in 1850. Among the lives it insured were those of enslaved people — to the benefit of their enslavers. Per Rodabough’s 31 August 1972 column: “In 1855 this firm was two doors from the northwest corner of Commerce and Locust Streets. On September 20, 1858, they purchased the building of Cunningham, Moye & Co., located [at] the present site of the western third of the First National Bank.” “Cunningham, Moye & Company was formed January 11, 1854, with a cash capital of $200,000. The firm was comprised of William R. Cunningham, Wyatt Moye, Robert S. Adams, and Moses J. Wicks.”

The Yazoo Democrat, 2 February 1853.

The I. Y. Johnson Home (Moye-Johnson) on the corner of Canal and Hickory Street in Aberdeen, Mississippi, built in 1855 by Wyatt Moye; Rodabough (John E.) papers, Special Collections Department, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State University Libraries (electronic version).

Peg-Leg Williams and the Exodusters.

Goldsboro Headlight, 6 November 1889.

This brief, disparaging piece appeared in the Goldsboro Headlight in 1889, but very well could have described attitudes in Wilson County. Silas Herring was an African-American Wayne County native, but Alabama-born, former Confederate Robert A. “Peg-Leg” Williams criss-crossed the Upper South as a labor agent, partnering with local Black men to entice African-Americans to migrate to the Deep South.

On 27 November 1889, the Wilson Mirror reprinted a Goldsboro Argus piece that described Williams and Herring as “railroad hirelings and speculators.” “However much the desire should be divided among our people — and by this we mean the white people — for the negro to exodus this country or remain, the solid, stubborn truth shall not be kept from the poor, deluded, half-informed negro, that this is his home, the climate of his nature; that our people are the most tolerant and generous in the world; and his best friends, and that, therefore, he should stay right here where his associations date back through the centuries; where his faults, and there are many (but who of us is without faults?) are borne with from custom; where his privileges as a free citizen are unquestioned and untrammeled, and where his destinies are linked by law with the whites, who, under a Democratic administration, have for twenty years paid 90 per cent. of his government and education, while he has furnished 90 per cent. of the crime and ignorance of the State.” Best friends, indeed.

The 20 December 1889 issue of the Wilmington Messenger chimed in with mockery, noting that “Peg leg Williams and Silas Herring have not dissolved copartnership. Peg leg is now in [Goldsboro], and he and Silas are as active as bees in inducing the ‘coons’ of this section to leave their homes of peace and plenty here, to go the far off miasmatic lands of the West, there to die like cattle with the black tongue.”

“Peg-Leg” Williams is memorialized in 100 Americans Making Constitutional History: A Biographical History, edited by Melvin I. Urofsky. Described as the most famous and successful of Southern “emigrant agents, Mississippi-born Williams, a Civil War veteran, assisted 16,000 African-Americans in leaving North Carolina in the wake of discriminatory labor laws passed in 1889.”

Working as an agent for plantation owners and railroad companies from the lower Mississippi Valley states and Texas, Williams recruited laborers to work their immense cotton plantations or, in the case of the railroads, buy up their vast acreages of former federal land. Williams generally paid transportation costs for migrating families, who would have been required to enter into onerous agreements to repay the money the planters had fronted to Williams.

Daily Journal (New Bern, N.C.), 28 May 1890.

Mecklenburg Times (Charlotte, N.C.), 25 December 1891.

After two years of perceived depredations, in 1891 the North Carolina legislature joined other states in enacting a law aimed directly at men like Williams, imposing one thousand dollar fees on labor recruiters, who overwhelmingly targeted African-Americans. The law stayed on the books for seven years.

The Wilmington Messenger, 5 November 1901.

By 1913, Peg-Leg Williams was the stuff of nostalgia….

The News-Herald (Morganton, N.C.), 3 July 1913.

… and as late as 1947, his name and work could still inspire journalists. If you skim the condescension off the top, this lengthy piece is noteworthy for details about Exoduster life provided by men and women who made the journey (or knew someone who had.)

News and Record (Greensboro, N.C.), 26 October 1947.

Nathan Best of the Confederate Veterans Home.

An abstract of “‘Every Comfort, Freedom, and Liberty‘: A Case Study of Mississippi’s Confederate Home,” Susannah J. Ural, Journal of the Civil War Era, volume 9, number 1 (March 2019), tells us:

“This case study of Mississippi’s Confederate veteran home, popularly known as Beauvoir, challenges historians to see these southern facilities as more than relics of the Lost Cause. This state-run home had a diverse resident population that included women as early as 1904 and that also included three African-American residents. It provided well-trained physicians in the Beauvoir hospital, and a powerful and popular woman superintendent ran the home as early as 1926. This article analyzes the lives of the veterans, wives, and widows of Mississippi’s Confederate home as well as the state’s policies for them, revealing a facility connected to the Civil War, but grounded in New South efficiency, regulation, and reform.”

One of Beauvoir’s three African-Americans, all former Confederate body servants, was Nathan Best, born enslaved in Greene County, North Carolina, in 1845. Henry Best, then his son Robert, held Nathan Best in slavery and sent him to war to serve Robert’s younger brother Rufus Best. Nathan Best and his family moved to Wilson County before 1880, then migrated south to Georgia’s turpentine belt, then further south to Ocean Springs, Mississippi. In the early 1930s, as he neared 90, Nathan Best applied for admission to Beauvoir.

Nathan Best, at right, with Frank Childress, another former body servant, at Beauvoir. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Dixie Press Collection.

Nathan Best was interviewed by a Works Progress Administration fieldworker during his time at Beauvoir. His “slave narrative” does not explicitly mention his time in Wilson County, but does offer a wrenching account of his experience on the Best plantations near Snow Hill — an experience that would have been familiar twenty miles up the road.

1880 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County.

In the 1900 census of Worth County, Georgia, Nathan Best headed a household that included wife Hester and three grandchildren. The elder two were born in North Carolina in 1886 and 1888, and the youngest in Georgia in 1891. The Bests, then, migrated from North Carolina around 1890, when hundreds left the state’s depleted turpentine industry for Georgia’s piney woods. Presumably, Best’s children and grandchildren born in the decade between 1880 and 1890 were born in Wilson County.

Nathan Best was eventually released from the Confederate Home and died at his daughter Lina B. Jones’ home in Biloxi. (Was Angelina Best Jones born in Wilson County? Per her headstone in Biloxi City Cemetery, she was born 25 November 1882.)

Sun Herald (Biloxi, Miss.), 18 January 1940.

[Side note: Elnathan Tartt was Beauvoir’s superintendent most of the years between 1916 and 1945, which encompasses the time Best was there. Tartt’s unusual first name signals his descent from slaveholding Tartts who lived in the area between modern-day Wilson and Saratoga in eastern Wilson County.]

James H. Adams of Gary, Indiana (by way of Wilson and Mississippi).

Most African-American migrants to the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, came from the Middle and Deep South. James H. Adams was born in Wilson County, but his family migrated to Mississippi in the 1890s. More than 20 years later, he joined the Great Migration stream north.

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On 4 January 1880, Arnley Adams, 23, married Sarah Atkinson, 18, at Handy Atkinson‘s in Wilson County.

In the 1880 census of Springhill township, Wilson County: Arnol Adams, 24, and wife Sarho, 18. [Next door: Arnold Adams‘ widowed mother and siblings, farmer Spicy Adams, 39, and children Frank, 19, Carline, 15,  James, 12, Calvin, 8, Albert, 6, and Dora, 1.

In the 1900 census of Beat #3, Coahoma County, Mississippi: farmer Arnold Adams, 42, and children James, 21, Bettie, 16, John, 13, and Rosa, 7. All were born in North Carolina except Rosa.

In the 1910 census of Beat #3, Bolivar County, Mississippi: farmer Arnold Adams, 54, and sons James, 30, and John, 22. All were described as widowers.

In 1918, James Adams registered for the World War I draft in Bolivar County, Mississippi. Per his registration card, he was born 15 September 1876; lived in Boyle, Bolivar County; was a farmer; and his nearest relative was Ida Adams.

In the 1930 census of Gary, Lake County, Indiana: at 2201 Madison, steel plant laborer James Adams, 48, born in N.C.; wife Ida, 46, born in Mississippi; and grandchildren Ida, 12, born in Mississippi, and Raymond, 5, born in Indiana.

In the 1940 census of Gary, Lake County, Indiana: on West 22nd Avenue, steel mill laborer James Adams, 59, born in N.C.; wife Ida, 46, born in Mississippi; and grandson Raymond, 15, born in Indiana.

In 1942, James Henry Adams registered for the World War II draft in Gary, Indiana. Per his registration card, he was born 15 September 1881 in Wilson, North Carolina; lived at 320 West 22nd Avenue; his contact was John Mason; and he worked for C.I.S. Mill, Gary.

James H. Adams died 18 April 1953 in Gary, Indiana. Per his death certificate, he was born 15 September 1881 in North Carolina to Arnold Adams and Sarah Atkinson; was a widower; lived at 320 West 22nd Avenue; and was retired. [Sister] Rosie Bentley of Chicago was informant.

Exodus to Mississippi.

A lesser studied migration took African-American farm families from North Carolina to Mississippi in the last decade of the nineteenth century. A recent post about Sharpsburg Cemetery evoked a reader response that revealed one such family. Robert Cooper, his wife, and children set out for the Delta around 1890, settling in Sunflower County, about 50 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee (and home of Charley Patton, Howlin’ Wolf, and Pop Staples.)

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In the 1870 census of Joyners township, Wilson County: Samuel Cooper, 40, farm laborer, and children Trecy, 23, Jordan, 18, Nancy, 17, Robert, 8, Silas, 7, Ellis, 4, and Robbin, 3.

In the 1880 census of Upper Town Creek township, Edgecombe County, N.C.: farmer Sam Cooper, 51; wife Frona, 40; and children Robert, 20, Silas, 19, Robin, 13, Polly, 8, Amey, 7, and Tempey, 3.

On 10 November 1885, Robert Cooper, 24, married Rutha Ann Lassiter, 18, at Silas Lassiter‘s, Wilson County.

In the 1900 census of Sunflower County, Mississippi: day laborer Robert Cooper, age unknown, widower; children S.P., 11,  and David B. Hill Cooper, 7; and “part” [partner?] Richard Dodd, 36, and Lizzie Reed, age unknown. Robert and S.P. were born in North Carolina; David in Mississippi.

In the 1910 census of Sunflower County, Mississippi: farmer Robert Cooper, 44, widower, and sons S.P., 20, and Robert, 17.

Jordan Cooper died 21 November 1914 in Toisnot township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was about 60 years old; was the son of Sam Cooper and Fronie [no maiden name given]; was a widower; and a tenant farmer. He was buried in Sharpsburg Cemetery, and Josh Armstrong was informant.

Robert Cooper registered for the World War I in Sunflower County, Mississippi, in 1918. Per his registration card, he was born in November 1874; lived in Lombardy, Sunflower County; farmed for W.L. May; and his nearest relative was Della Cooper.

In the 1920 census of Sunflower County, Mississippi: farmer S.P. Cooper, 30, widower.

Silas Cooper died 11 September 1920 in [illegible], Halifax County, N.C. Per his death certificate, he was 60 years old; was born in Elm City to Sam Cooper and Frony Jones; was a farmer; and was buried in Enfield, N.C.

Nancy Lucas died 6 February 1922 in Toisnot township, Wilson County. Per her death certificate, she was 65 years old; was the daughter of Samuel and Flona Cooper; was the widow of Offie Lucas; and was buried in Elm City. George Cooper was informant.

Ammie Winstead died 17 October 1928 in Coopers township, Nash County, N.C. Per her death certificate, she was 55 years old; was born in Nash County to Samuel Cooper and Froanie Coley; was married; and worked as a farmer. Samuel Winstead was informant.

In the 1930 census of Bolivar County, Mississippi: farmer Samuel P. Cooper, 40; wife Savanna, 26; children Arthur, 7, T.K., 6, Willie, 4, and Cornelius, 1; and stepdaughter Callie Cay, 9.

In the 1930 census of Sunflower County, Mississippi: farmer David Cooper, 36; wife Genora, 20; children Percy, 6, and Willie M., 3; and mother-in-law Mary Williams, 47, widow.

In the 1940 census of Sunflower County, Mississippi: farmer Dave Cooper, 40; wife Genora, 31; Mary Williams, 50; and stepson Percy J. Stewart, 15.

Map courtesy of Wikipedia.

The estate of Phebe Barden of Pontotoc County, Mississippi.

The third in a series documenting enslaved people held by the Bardin/Barden family, who lived in the Black Creek area in what was once Wayne County, but is now Wilson County.

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Phebe Barden was born in 1826 to William and Nancy Cook Barden. After their father’s death in 1837, Phebe Barden and her siblings migrated to Mississippi, primarily to Pontotoc County.

Phebe Barden died shortly after her 18th birthday in 1844. Her brother Jacob Barden was appointed administrator of her estate. On 8 February 1845, he sold Phebe Barden’s property — four enslaved people. Phebe had received Cherry and one of Cherry’s children in the distribution of her father’s estate. It seems likely the boys Addison, Jack, and Nathan were Cherry’s sons. Phebe’s brother William Barden purchased Cherry, whose price was either discounted or suggests poor health, and the children were parted from their mother (or mother figure) when Phebe’s brother-in-law John Smith (married to Penelope Barden Smith) bought Addison and brother James Bardin bought Jack and Nathan.

I have no further information about Cherry, Addison, Jack, or Nathan.

Book 2, pages 436-437, Pontotoc County, Mississippi Wills and Probate Records 1780-1982, http://www.ancestry.com.

The will and estate of William Barden.

The second in a series documenting enslaved people held by the Bardin/Barden family, who lived in the Black Creek area in what was once Wayne County, but is now Wilson County.

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When William Barden (1785-1837 drafted his last will and testament on 3 October 1835, he disposed of his enslaved property in two paragraphs. First, “my negro man Dred” was to be sold. Second, “all the rest of my Negroes” were to be equally divided among his children Celia Barden, James Barden, Jacob Barden, Penelope Barden Holmes, John Barden, Henry Barden, Nancy Barden, William Barden, Phebe Barden, Charity Barden, and Sally F. Barden.

William Barden died in 1837.

Immediately, on 20 March 1837, his executor hired out several enslaved people to bring in income.

A 15 May 1837 note in Barden’s estate file reveals that, even before he died, Barden authorized his son Jacob Barden “to carry out of the state and sell the negroe boy Dred.” Accordingly, J. Barden took Dred to Alabama and sold him to John Cook for $1000 — $500 down and $500 on credit.

On 6 June 1837, a committee divided the men, women, and children who had lived together as Arthur Barden’s enslaved property:

  • Ben, valued at $600, to Sally F. Barden
  • Whitley, valued at $550, to James Barden
  • Hardy, $525, to Nancy Barden
  • Tom, $500, to William Barden
  • Wilie, $425, to Jacob Barden
  • Milly, $500, to John Barden
  • Cherry and child, $550, to Pheraby [Phebe] Barden
  • Jerry, $325, to Penny Holmes
  • Mary, $325, to Henry Barden
  • Pursey and Ruffin, $425 to Lilia Barden
  • Lany and Patrick, $500, to Charity Barden

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All William Barden’s children moved to Pontotoc and Itawamba Counties, Mississippi, within a few years of their father’s death. They undoubtedly took with them named here, pulling them hundreds of miles from the families and communities they knew and loved. I have only been able to locate what appears to be further record of one — Dred, who was sold away.

  • Dred

On 14 August 1867, Dred Cook, colored, registered to vote in Precinct No. 17, Greene County, Alabama. (John J. Cook had settled in Greene County as early as 1825.)

In the 1870 census of Mount Hebron township, Greene County, Alabama: Dred Cook, 83, farmer, born in North Carolina; presumed wife Mahala, 50, born in N.C.; and Wiley, 19, and Delia Cook, 15, both born in Alabama.

Also, in the 1870 census of Boligee township, Greene County, Alabama: Dred Cook, 83, farmer; presumed wife Haley, 50; and Wiley, 18, and Deley Cook, 15, all reported born in Alabama.

Estate File of William Barden (1837), Wayne County, North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.

The last will and testament of Trial Williamson.

Trial Williamson, born about 1805, is likely the “Trion” mentioned in the 1829 will of Hardy Williamson and is certainly the “Trial” mentioned in the 1858 estate records of Hardy H. Williamson. His blood relationship to other enslaved people held by the Williamsons is unknown.

Trial Williamson dictated his will in April 1878 and died the next month.

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In the name of God Amen! I Tryal Williamson do make and declare this my last will and testament as follows:

Item 1 I give and devise to my wife Rosetta the lands whereon I now live during her natural life or widowhood and at her death or marriage to be equally divided between my daughter Mary wife of John Boykin and my daughter Cherry wife of Daniel Hocutt during their lives and at their deaths to be equally divided between the children of each; that is the children of Mary to have one half and the children of Cherry to have the other half the said lands to be free from the control of their respective husbands John Boykin and Daniel Hocutt.

Item 2 I give and bequeath to my said wife my mare one ox all the hogs bacon and corn & fodder of which I may die possessed. Also all my kitchen and household furniture and farming implements.

Item 3 It is further my will and desire that my cattle one mule colt bees and any other property that my wife does not want be sold and the proceeds of said sale with whatever money I may have at my death be used by my wife for her sole benefit and use the interest to be used by here whenever she needs it.

Item 4 I hereby constitute and appoint my wife Rosetta executrix to this my last will and testament

Signed and declared my last will and testament This 6 day of April 1878    Tryal (X) Williamson

Witness J.M. Taylor, A.S.J. Taylor

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In 1866, Trial Williams [sic] and Roseta Williams registered their 17-year cohabitation with a Wilson County justice of the peace.

In the 1870 census of Springhill township, Wilson County: farm laborer Trial Williamson, 65; wife Rose, 60; and daughters Mary, 21, and Cherry, 19.

On 18 September 1874, Cherry Williamson, 19, married Danl. Hocutt, 24, in Wilson.

In the 1880 census of Springhill township, Wilson County: farmer John Boykin, 42; wife Mary, 29; and children Dock, 19, and Dick, 15 (both sick with whooping cough), Turner, 7, Troy, 5, Betty, 3, and John, 1. [Per the 1870 census, Zadoc and Richard — Dock and Dick — were John’s children.] Next door, widowed farmer Rose Williamson, 68.

In the 1880 census of Springhill township, Wilson County: farmer Daniel Hocutt, 30; wife Cherry, 29; and children Jiney, 4, James T., 3, and Tilda An, 1.

Rose Williamson died in 1891. Ishmael Wilder was appointed administrator of her estate. Her meager household goods, purchased by friends and family, netted less than nine dollars.


Handy Atkinson, John Boykin, and Spencer Shaw were among the purchasers at Rosetta Williamson’s estate sale.

Per the terms of Trial Williamson’s will, at Rosetta Williamson’s death, the family farm passed in equal shares to their daughters Mary Williamson Boykin and Cherry Williamson Hocutt.

In 1902, by their attorney W.A. Finch, Cherry Hocutt and her heirs filed a Petition to Sell Real Estate for Division, Including Infants Interest. In a nutshell: (1) Trial Williamson died in 1878 and left a will with the above provision; (2) before Trial died, his land was divided, and the halves were allotted to his daughters; (3) after Rosetta Williamson died about 1891, Cherry Hocutt took full possession of her half; (4) Cherry Hocutt is now 49 years old and has these living children — J.A. Hocutt, age 27, J.T. Hocutt, age 25, M.A. Hocutt, age 22, Ben Hocutt, age 20, Settles Hocutt, age 17, Ida E. Hocutt, age 15, Willie J. Hocutt, age 14, and Lenore Savannah Hocutt, age 12 — and no grandchildren; (5) B.A. Scott has been appointed to represent the interests of the minor children; (6) the Hocutts are tenants in common on their half of Trial Williamson’s 23 1/2 acres in Spring Hill township; (7) in 1889, Daniel and Cherry Hocutt and their children migrated to [Cotton Plant,] Tippah County, Mississippi; (8) the Hocutts wish to sell their half because they “derive no benefit whatever” from it, are too far away to look after it, derive no net income from renting it out, and “the land is hilly and badly washed” and getting worse; and (9) the land is too small to divide among them.

The Superior Court approved the sale, it was advertised, and J.T. Rentfrow was high bidder at $500. Rentfrow promptly filed to partition his property from the half held by Mary Boykin and her heirs — Turner Boykin and wife; Laura Boykin; William Boykin and wife; Cora Boykin; Bettie Boykin; John Connor Boykin; Minerva Boykin; Sarah Boykin; James Boykin and wife; Ella Boykin; Buck Boykin; and Lizzie Boykin. Turner, Laura and John Connor Boykin no longer lived in North Carolina.

The court ordered this survey, then approved the partition as platted:

Estate Records of Trial Williamson, North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com; Estate File of Rose Williamson, Estate File of Trial Williamson, North Carolina Estate Files, 1663-1979, http://www.familysearch.org.