Odd Fellows cemetery

Lane Street Project: S6 D1 is in the books!

An enthusiastic thank you to the crew that opened Season 6 of Lane Street Project’s cemetery cleanups yesterday! Workday 1 is in the books!

On a warm, overcast morning, volunteers focused on cutting and clearing wisteria sprouts that sprang up inside the tree line in the off-season. This is critical to prepare for future work at Odd Fellows. Special thanks to newly elected District 6 council member Eduardo Herrera-Picasso, who looked, listened, and learned — and got to work with a string trimmer!

The next volunteer opportunity comes on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday — Monday, January 19! There’s work for everyone, of every ability, and we welcome all!

WE CARE!

Installation by Jen Kehrer. Photo courtesy of Olivia Neeley.

Lane Street Project: Season 6 starts in two weeks!!

Lane Street Project’s Cleanup Season 6 starts in two weeks. It’s more important than ever that the community shows how much it cares about its historic cemeteries — help us make this the best season ever!

As always, workdays are 10:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M., weather permitting. We’ll be focusing on clearing the ground of weeds, young vines, and small saplings as we prepare to intensify our search for graves and grave markers. All are welcome!

Lane Street Project: see it for yourself.

Rather than the dialogue we have begged for, in September 2025 the City announced its choice to communicate about Vick via the passive, uni-directional, highly controlled medium of its website. Judging by its lax updating of info about prized projects like the baseball stadium — “what’s next? The buildings in the stadium footprint will be demolished soon.” — we knew where this was going. The City of Wilson is nothing if not predictable, and here we are.

One week and a day later, and silence still from the City of Wilson concerning what happened at Vick and Odd Fellows Cemeteries. No information, no explanation, no apology. From where I sit, the silence is an ineloquent “f**k you” to the cemeteries’ descendant communities and to anyone else who cares about what happens to these sacred spaces.

I’m finally in Wilson, and here’s what I saw yesterday afternoon.

 

Learn more about the Tate family plot here. Also, review this video from February 2020. From about 1:10-1:15, I’m walking past the high point of Odd Fellows at the Dawson and Tate plots. You can see a bit of one end of the exposed Tate wall at 1:12, then a section of the missing fourth side abutting the other end a couple of seconds later. That section is gone, scooped up and hauled away, I guess, and dumped wherever they dumped everything else they scraped away.

Here’s Vick Cemetery, post “flattening,” as Rebecca Agner put it.

 

 

And here, video from July 2023, when I walked the full front edge of Vick. The little orange-painted stobs I refer to above are visible in the first 3:30 minutes. You can see how far into the top surface of Vick the excavator cut to flatten the ditch bank.

And finally, is it another broken-up grave marker? Rip-rap? The City isn’t talking.

 

 

Videos by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2025.

Lane Street Project: yesterday, the City found a grave marker in the ditch bank at Vick Cemetery.

Yesterday morning, city contractors scraping the ditch bank alongside Vick Cemetery uncovered — and broke — a marble grave marker.

This terrible development is shocking, but hardly surprising. We’ve been screaming to anyone who will listen that there are graves in the public right-of-way.

First, the Wilson Times‘ coverage (which includes my inarticulate comments — I was so wound up). Then my less temperate thoughts about what is happening.

——

Tuesday afternoon, I got a text:

Was the City working on the drainage issue? Last I heard, they were just exploring a plan. Nobody seemed to know.

Then yesterday morning, I got a call from Mayor Carlton Stevens — thank you! — who explained what had happened and assured me that work had stopped until further guidance from New South Associates. I asked for photos of the broken stone, and he obliged by returning to the site to show me via FaceTime.

Let me back up for a moment.

On 2 September 2025, I sent a letter to mayor, city manager, and council that requested, among other things:

On 25 September 2025, I posted the City’s newly revealed plans for spending the $50,000 allotted by the General Assembly for capital expenditures at Vick Cemetery. The City’s bullet point is in blue. My response (which largely tracks my communication to mayor and council) is in red. In black, further commentary.

In summary: (1) please don’t — yet again — rely solely on tools from the public works box to address the erosion problems and (2) WE NEED TO SURVEY THE PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY.

I have no idea what the plan was when work started on Bishop L.N. Forbes Street Tuesday. But I know what it was not — either of the above. Apparently, contractors were “flattening the surface … in advance of stormwater work,” i.e. scraping the ditch bank not only alongside Vick Cemetery, but Odd Fellows as well. The discovery of a marble slab tilting out of the soil stopped the work, but what about this?

This is the ditch alongside Odd Fellows, and that is the broken end of the low concrete wall that once enclosed the Tate and Dawson family plots. It was exposed by the “flattening” that someone decided was a great way to stop the encroachment into and undercutting of the edge of these cemeteries by open drainage ditches.

Here, in 2025, the City of Wilson’s hubris is leading it to make the same mistakes that resulted in the removal of headstones and grading and resurfacing of Vick Cemetery circa 1995; the paving over of graves to create a parking pad in the late 1990s; the installation of power poles in Vick and Rountree Cemeteries in 1997; the destruction of headstones in City storage in the early 2000s; and the alleged damage to graves in Odd Fellows by heavy equipment while repairing a high-voltage line, also in the early 2000s (I haven’t even talked about that.)

Where does it stop? When will they listen?

There’s a City Council meeting tonight, folks. The three new council members will be installed and a mayor pro tem will be elected. After the reports, there will be a call for audience comments. I can’t be there, but I hope you can. Ask them what fresh hell they are putting our ancestors through. Tell them how you feel about the continued rough handling of our people’s graves. If these are not your people, speak out anyway. Practice radical empathy. Express your outrage. Demand better.

Lane Street Project: finding Mark H. Cotton.

On the morning of the 4th, having just spent several days mowing and clearing off the front section, the Senior Force returned to Odd Fellows Cemetery to assist a family searching for the gravestone of their ancestor.

Terri Foster is a descendant of Mark Henry Cotton, whose marker I found even before Lane Street Project started clean-ups. She reached out to me with news that her family would be in town,  planned to visit Odd Fellows, and wished to engage assistance. I contacted Castonoble Hooks, who readily agreed to search in the area I roughly sketched, which is inside the wood line and, this time of year, is covered with wisteria sprouts. Once located, Hooks, Senior Force member Briggs Sherwood, and Curtis Jackson beat back the summer growth to expose the small marble lozenge incised “M.H. Cotton” and the Odd Fellows’ three links.

To paraphrase Cass Hooks:

The Lane Street Project connected a family to the burial place of Mark Henry Cotton; a daughter’s diligent search lands her in the Odd Fellows Cemetery! It was indeed a joy to witness the connection of spirit when first they saw his tombstone. Momentary silence followed by questions, first among themselves and to Cass, asking him to explain “Odd Fellows.”  For more than a hour, they discussed Wilson’s African American history, toured first Mark Henry Cotton’s home, then Dr. Frank S. Hargrove and Sam Vick’s homes and Mercy Hospital, then ended at Parker’s BBQ!

This is why we do what we do. Lane Street Project is not simply cleaning up cemeteries. It is reknitting loose threads left by the passage of time, the fading of memory, and the flow of families out of Wilson.

——

On 27 February 1878, Mark Cotton, 23, married Jane Freeman, 22, in Wilson. Minister Joseph Green performed the ceremony in the presence of I.S. Westbrook, S.W. Westbrook, and Charles Smith.

On 26 June 1895, Mark Cotton, 45, son of Dempsey and Fereby Cotton, married Mahalia Black, 22, daughter of Turner and Effie Battle, at M. Battle’s. Henry C. Rountree applied for the license, and Missionary Baptist minister F.M. Davis performed the ceremony in the presence of Thomas J. Day, J.T. Deans, and J.T. Tomlinson.

In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Mark H. Cotton, 45; wife Mahaly, 27; daughter Mary E., 2; and adopted daughter Rosa L., 11.

On 29 December 1904, George H. DuBose, 30, of Goldsboro, N.C., son of W.J. and Annie C. DuBose, married Rosa L. Cotton, 18, of Wilson, daughter of Mark and Mahalia Cotton. Fred M. Davis performed the ceremony at M.H. Cotton’s in the presence of Richard S. Allen, E.C. Brown, and Hardy J. Tate Jr.

In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Cotton Marcus H (c) janitor Public Graded School h w Gold cor Hill

In the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Cotton Mark H (c) janitor h 201 W Gold

In the 1916 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Cotton Marcus H (c) janitor h 708 Viola

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: widower Mark Cotton, 72, school janitor.

In the 1925 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Cotton Mark H (c) lab h 708 Viola

In the 1928 and 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directories: Cotton Mark H (c; Minnie) h 708 Viola

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 708 Viola, owned and valued at $2000, Mark Cotton, 87; wife Minnie, 37, servant; and stepdaughters Ruline, 19, and Eunice Brooks, 17, farm laborer.

Photo courtesy of Castonoble Hooks.

Lane Street Project: as we ease into summer.

A big thanks to Castonoble Hooks for engaging Curtis Jackson to mow and clear clippings at Odd Fellows Cemetery. Though we don’t schedule cleanups during summer months, we strive to keep our “front yard” clean. We use this maintenance to provide opportunities for paid labor, but can do so only with donations. We are grateful to those who’ve given!

Photos courtesy of Castonoble Hooks.

The challenges of tracking burials in Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick Cemeteries.

Tracking burials in Wilson’s African-American cemeteries is complicated by the imprecise names listed on death certificates as place of burial.

As a refresher, here’s a rough timeline of Black cemeteries operating in the city of Wilson in the 19th and 20th centuries:

Until about 30 years ago, Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick Cemeteries were locally known collectively as “Rountree Cemetery.” When the City of Wilson erected granite pillars at the entrance to its parking lot in the late 1990s, they were inaccurately engraved “Rountree-Vick Cemetery.” I was a few years into Black Wide-Awake before I completely understood that the three cemeteries are separate entities.

I’ve been building a database of known and likely burials in R/OF/V, based on death certificates, headstones, obituaries, and a few family stories. The death certificates detailed below show why the task is so complicated. Tentative assignments, if I can guess at all, are based on context clues like church membership, fraternal affiliation, locations of burials of close family members, and location of residence.

  • Green Mercer, 1910

The Town of Wilson began requiring death certificates in 1909; the county not until 1914. Enforcement was irregular for the first few years after the mandate. Green Mercer’s death certificate cites his place of burial as “Wilson N.C. Colored Cemetery,” which, in 1910, could have been Oakdale or Masonic or Rountree or Odd Fellows, but was probably Oakdale.

  • Bruce Adams, 1914

Undertaker C.H. Darden most often broadly designated place of burial as “Wilson” or “Wilson, N.C.” Bruce Adams, who died in 1914, could have been buried in Oakdale, Rountree, Vick, or Masonic Cemeteries.

  • infant Guest, 1918

This unnamed infant, who died in 1918, was buried in “Wilson Cemetery,” which likely was the cemetery we now know as Vick.

  • Robert Bruce Hardy, 1918

Robert Hardy, who also died in 1918, was buried in “Roundtrees Church” cemetery. Taken at face value, he was buried in the cemetery owned by Rountree Missionary Baptist Church.

  • Wesley Barnes, 1919

Wesley Barnes’ 1919 death certificate cites “Wilson Co[unty] NC.” Barnes was my great-grandmother’s brother. Though it’s possible he was buried in the county, Wes Barnes lived in town and probably was buried in Vick Cemetery.

  • Buster Ellis, 1924

His death certificate simply cites “Wilson, N.C.,” but Buster Ellis‘ headstone has been found with those of his grandmother and other family members in Rountree Cemetery.

  • Noah J. Tate, 1926

Undertaker Columbus E. Artis of Artis & Flanagan generically marked Noah Tate as buried in Wilson, though he interred him in the Tate family plot in Odd Fellows Cemetery.

  • James Edward Humphrey, 1936

On the other hand, the headstone of James Edward Humphrey, engraved “Ed Humphrey,” whose death certificate also states “Wilson, N.C.,” stands in Odd Fellows Cemetery.

  • George Rountree, 1942

George Rountree’s death certificate bears the unusual designation “Rountree Potters field.” Presumably Vick, as a public cemetery, had a potter’s field, and that’s probably where Rountree was buried.

  • Bessie Baldwin, 1944

Bessie Baldwin’s death certificate says she was buried in Rest Haven, but her obituary says Rountree Cemetery. Her funeral was held at Rountree church. If she were a member, she likely was buried there.

Wilson Daily Times, 8 December 1944.

  • Dempsey Lassiter, 1946

Dempsey Lassiter’s 1946 death certificate states that he was buried in Rountree Cemetery, as does his newspaper obituary. However, his headstone is standing in Odd Fellows Cemetery.

  • Joseph Blue, 1950

Burials attributed to “Rountree Cemetery” dropped off sharply after 1950.

  • Annie Teachey Coley, 1955

Where, in fact, what Annie Teachey Coley buried? Rountree? Odd Fellows? Vick? The 1954 aerial view of the sites shows all were fairly open well into the decade

  • Carolyn Evans, 1960

Carolyn Evans’ burial in 1960 was among the last in Rountree/Odd Fellows/Vick Cemeteries. The 1964 aerial view of the cemeteries shows clear abandonment.