Fourteen year-old Wright Mitchell, a free boy of color, was apprenticed to serve John A. Lane until age 21. Lane had married Sarah Applewhite in 1852 and likely lived in the Stantonsburg area.
Minute Docket, Wilson County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, October Term 1858, Wilson Court Dockets 1855-1868, http://www.ancestry.com
Oazie Jones Mitchell was among the two dozen or so seniors I interviewed last year about their memories of Wilson County’s Rosenwald schools. Her precise recollections of Williamson Graded and High Schools, the rigors of tenant farming, Mary Grove Missionary Baptist church, her father’s involvement with the NAACP, home remedies, and other aspects of her childhood helped me better understand the community in the part of Wilson County with which I’m least personally familiar.
I learned just today that Mrs. Mitchell passed away on the closing day of last year. My sincere condolences to her family, especially daughter Tondra Mitchell-Talley and sister Edith Jones Garnett. I will not forget Mrs. Mitchell’s warmth and generosity, and I wish you comfort in memories of happy times with her.
In 1911, Annie Mitchell filed suit against Rev. Owen L.W. Smith over a land dispute. In 1907, Mitchell had purchased from Smith a lot in what is now the 500 block of East Nash Street. Per the deed, the lot measured 44 1/4 feet by 210 feet.
Soon, though, Mitchell learned that the lot was only 147 feet deep and that the back 63 feet that she thought she owned in fact was R.J. Taylor’s lot. She sued for the difference in the values of the full lot and the lot she got.
For reasons unstated, the court granted O.L.W. Smith’s motion to add Edward Moore as a party.
On 15 February 1913, Judge B.D. Cline ordered Smith to pay Mitchell $125, plus interest, and Moore to pay Smith $100, plus interest.
Civil Action Papers Concerning Land, Wilson County, N.C., 1908-1916; Wilson County, N.C., Court Records 1904-1916; http://www.familysearch.org.
Family reunion season continues, and I was thrilled when Tondra Mitchell-Talley shared news of the upcoming Mitchell Family Reunion. This Mitchell family descends from Primus Mitchell, born in the early 1840s, and his wives Caroline Mitchell and Ophelia Davis Mitchell. The Mitchells lived in Toisnot township, likely in the Sharpsburg area, which was once part of Edgecombe County. Their largest branch descends from son Lawrence Mitchell Sr., born about 1868, who eventually settled in Cross Roads township in southern Wilson County and married Easter Darden, daughter of Martin and Jane Dew Darden, and later Louisa Dew, daughter of Isaac and Easter Edmundson Dew.
The story of the resurrection of the Mitchell Family Reunion, which had gone dormant more than 20 years ago, is told at the National Family Reunion Institute’s website. It’s an inspiring tale of healing and redemption within a family and the role of reunions in making that possible.
Extra shout out to Tondra’s mother, Oazie Jones Mitchell, who graciously agreed to be interviewed as part of my exploration and documentation of the life in Wilson County before the Civil Rights era.
Have a great reunion!
Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 17 June 1944.
Stationed “somewhere in Corsica,” Technical Sergeant Kester C. Mitchell wrote the editor of the Journal and Guide to praise the newspaper for keeping him up-to-date and counsel against a “war at home” while the World War raged.
The best-preserved of the early twentieth-century African-American county schools, Mitchell School, is gone. Built about 1919 on what is now Lake Wilson Road, the building was demolished in recent weeks.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2025.
Sending extra-special 100th birthday wishes to the beautiful, warm, charming Amanda Gray Mitchell Cameron!
Mrs. Cameron lives independently on the land she grew up on and is always so generous with her time and memories of the Elm City area, Frederick Douglass High School, and her family’s fight for educational and economic opportunity. She is a treasure!
During a recent visit to Wilson, I drove out toward Elm City to visit with Amanda Mitchell Cameron and follow up on the delightful interview she gave me last month. At 99, Ms. Cameron is a fount of information about her part of the county, and the people and places she mentioned will keep me researching for months.
Among the topics she touched on was the fight by rural African-American parents for school buses to transport students to the new Elm City and Williamson Colored High Schools:
“That first year, we were able to get a bus. That was in ’41 that we got it. … [A]nd my second oldest brother drove the school bus, but getting those buses was not easy. My father [Kester R. Mitchell] and Phil Lindsey, Sidney Harris, Johnny Parker, Robert Mitchell, all of them joined Howard Farmer. They went to Raleigh to talk about getting a bus for these children to ride school, and Mr. Curtis, I think was the name, Mr. [Kader R.] Curtis, told him at that time, “Well, we can furnish you — what you do, you go back to you to your superintendent,” and, well, you know, at that time we had two superintendents. Elm City had a superintendent and Wilson, but Curtis was the county superintendent. He was the county. And that group of men came back at some point, from what I heard, went to Mr. Curtis, and Mr. Curtis furnished two buses. As I said, my brother drove one, and the other one was Fred Armstrong, and he lived way out what now you call 42, not 42 — Langley Road.
“… And then later on they found out that two buses were not enough to pick up. They were only picking up high school students, not the elementary students. Not grammar. You know, you had to be a high school student. And so, they added on one other bus, and that bus was to be driven by Roosevelt Sharp. …”
During my visit, Mrs. Cameron showed me a display prepared by Frederick Douglass High School students in honor of those who led the demand for buses and the early drivers, which also included Thelma Ward Williams.
Interview with Amanda M. Cameron, all rights reserved; image courtesy of Amanda M. Cameron.
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In the 1930 census of Taylors township, Wilson County: farm laborer Joe Williams, 32; wife Bettie, 25; children Leroy, 15, Rosa L., 11, Hurbert, 13, and Madie, 7; and mother-in-law Minnie Williams, 40, widow.
On 20 December 1939, William Mitchell, 24, of Wilson County, son of J.G. and Mamie Mitchell, married Rosa Lee Williams, 19, of Wilson County, daughter of Joe and Hattie Williams, in Nashville, Nash County, North Carolina.
In the 1940 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: farm laborer William Mitchell, 23; wife Rosa, 20; father Gray, 65; and brother Samiel, 21.
In 1940, William Pharroh Mitchell registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 7 November 1917 in Wilson County; lived on Route 2, Elm City; his contact was wife Rosa Lee Mitchell; and he worked for Ernest Batts.
Funeral program courtesy of Amanda M. Cameron.
