Pender Street

Before Pender Crossing.

This week, the Wilson Times reported “Residents are already moving in at Pender Crossing, a 48-unit affordable apartment community on the site of the former Pender Street Park. A grand opening event with a ribbon-cutting was held Tuesday morning.

“Pender Crossing is a 2.13-acre development owned and managed by Woda Cooper Companies. A new city park is being built on the same block and will open soon.”

Pender Crossing stands on Pender Street between Gay and Stemmery Streets. This area was on the edge of Wilson’s earliest industrial district, close to Little Richmond, which sprang up in the shadow of Richmond Maury Tobacco Factory. Later, Southern Cotton Oil Mill,  Farmers Cotton Oil Mill, and Wilson County Gin Company added clangor and pungency to the air of the neighborhood.

Moore Street once was the western edge of a trapezoid formed by Stantonsburg (now Pender), Stemmery, and Robeson (now Gay) Streets, separating a residential block from the Southern Oil Mill complex. (The enormous cotton seed house built on the site about 1945 — it replaced a smaller one — was dismantled and moved to a location north of the city in 2018.)

Wilson Daily Times, 11 February 1930.

By 1930, per a Sanborn fire insurance map, the block contained a bottling plant, a wood yard, three stores, four shotgun houses, and two larger dwellings facing Stantonsburg/Pender Street.

Wilson Daily Times, 20 October 1930.

One house fronted on Moore, and a set of mirror-image L-shaped houses stood on Stemmery. The easternmost of the twins was the last dwelling in the block, having been demolished after 2019.

The twin houses and the old cotton seed house in June 2012, per Google Street View.

B.W.A. Historical Marker Series, no. 14: Camillus L. Darden House.

In this series, which will post on occasional Wednesdays, I populate the landscape of Wilson County with imaginary “historical markers” commemorating people, places, and events significant to African-American history or culture.

We been here.

DARDEN HOUSE.

1925. Black brickmason John M. Barnes built this Charles Benton-designed house for undertaker Camillus L. Darden and wife Norma. Now home to local chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, August 2024.

Public meeting on future Pender Street Park and Center.

This public notice appeared on the City of Wilson’s website, http://www.wilsonnc.org, on 10 March 2024. Pender Street Park lies within historic East Wilson and was once the site of housing for workers employed in nearby tobacco factories and cotton oil mills. The City recently announced plans to develop affordable housing near the park.

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Please join us for a public meeting to discuss future plans for Pender Street Park and Center. City staff and the project team will present options for the new park and center and solicit feedback from the public on potential designs. 

WHEN: Thursday, March 14, 2024, at 6 p.m.

WHERE: 300 Pender Street, Wilson, NC 27893

Last year the city announced plans for Pender Crossing, a new affordable housing project near the site of Pender Street Park. The multifamily property will include 48 apartments with a mix of 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom units and will have onsite parking, a community building, and other amenities. The apartments will be priced to be affordable by people who work in the surrounding area. 

The city will build a new park and center in the area. This public meeting will provide additional details on the park relocation and site layout, as well as review the amenities proposed for the new center. These amenities include a basketball court, playground, open space, a walking path, shelter, and meeting space. During the meeting, the team will share potential park and center designs and provide ways for the public to provide input. 

This is a great opportunity to have your voice heard in the planning phase of this exciting new development!

Hat tip to R. Briggs Sherwood for alerting B.W.A. to this notice.  

The Dardens buy another lot on Pender Street.

Deed book 290, page 585, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

Herman Ernest Dannenberg of Baltimore, Maryland, died suddenly during a 1928 visit to Wilson, where he and his family had briefly lived. On 20 March 1941, the trustees of his estate sold to Camillus L. and Norma Duncan Darden a lot on Pender Street for the nominal sum of ten dollars. 

202 North Pender Street, revisited.

One of my favorite East Wilson houses, the two-story George McDaniel house at 202 North Pender Street [202 Pender Street E], is on the market, and its real estate listing offers a glimpse of its interior.

The house has been extensively, and not necessarily kindly, modified, but these photos in particular give a hint at what a handsome dwelling it once was and could be again for the right buyer.

Thanks to Melita Amara for the tip!

201 North Pender Street.

The one-hundred thirty-fourth in a series of posts highlighting buildings in East Wilson Historic District, a national historic district located in Wilson, North Carolina. As originally approved, the district encompassed 858 contributing buildings and two contributing structures in a historically African-American section of Wilson. (A significant number have since been lost.) The district was developed between about 1890 to 1940 and includes notable examples of Queen Anne, Bungalow/American Craftsman, and Shotgun-style architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Formerly 128 Pender Street. The house was demolished between 1982-1988, prior to preparation of the nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District. It appears on Sanborn fire insurance maps as early as 1908 as a large one-story house with a front porch and two add-on rooms.

Sanborn fire insurance map, Wilson, N.C. (1922). 

In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city department: Poole Boyd (c; Henrietta) driver Independent Electric Ice Co h 201 Pender

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 201 Pender, rented at $13/month, ice plant truck driver Boy Pool, 26; wife Henryetta, 24; and lodgers Leslie McCain, 20, tobacco factory stemmer, Jack McCain, 25, farm laborer, Beaulah Woods, 21, tobacco factory stemmer, and Emma L., 6, Mabrain, 5, William R., 2, and Carrie L. McCain, 2.

201 North Pender Street was among several properties offered for sale in an ad that ran 13 June 1936 in the Wilson Daily Times. All were in the vicinity of Saint John A.M.E.Z. Church.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 201 Pender, rented at $14/month, widow Margie Williams, 35, washing, and son Winfried, 1; and roomer Willie Sanders, 30, divorced, tobacco factory laborer.

In the 1941 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Williams Margie (1; c) h 201 Pender

In the 1947 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Evans Ida (c) smtrs h 201 Pender

By 1960, the house at 201 North Pender Street had been converted to a duplex, and two women listed it as their address in the city directory, Ida E. Evans, who owned Ida Evans Dress Shop, and Martha P. Farmer.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2019.

511 South Pender Street.

The one-hundred-twenty-third in a series of posts highlighting buildings in East Wilson Historic District, a national historic district located in Wilson, North Carolina. As originally approved, the district encompasses 858 contributing buildings and two contributing structures in a historically African-American section of Wilson. (A significant number have since been lost.) The district was developed between about 1890 to 1940 and includes notable examples of Queen Anne, Bungalow/American Craftsman, and Shotgun-style architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

The nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District lists this description of 505 South Pender [originally Stantonsburg Street]: “ca. 1922; 1 story; shotgun with shed-roofed porch and gable returns.”

In the 1928 Wilson, N.C., city directory: Barnes Lena (c) dom h 511 Stantonsburg

In the 1930 Wilson, N.C., city directory, the house was vacant.

In 1940, Prince Mincey registered for the World War II draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 18 March 1908 in Wilson; lived at 511 Stantonsburg Street; his contact was wife Alice Hinnh [Hannah] Mincey; and he worked for C.J. Moore, Wilson.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 511 Stantonsburg Street, rented for $8/month, fertilizer plant laborer Prince Mincy, 30, and wife Alice, 29.

The 1941 Wilson, N.C., city directory: Mincey Prince (c; Alice) tob wkr h 511 Stantonsburg

In the 1947 Wilson, N.C., city directory: Mincey Prince (c; Alice) carp h 511 Stantonsburg

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, September 2020.

505 South Pender Street, revisited.

A year ago, Black Wide-Awake featured the abandoned endway house at the corner of South Pender and Hines Streets.

September 2020 finds the hundred-year-old house under complete renovation.

The interior has been gutted to the studs, but the house will essentially retain its original floor plan — an entry door opening directly into a front room, then a middle room, then at rear a kitchen and bath. (The bathroom was originally a back porch and would have been enclosed in the 1950s or ’60s.)

The house was once heated by an oil stove that vented through a chimney.

The house sits on new concrete block pillars, but a skirt of some sort will likely be added to enclose the crawlspace.

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, September 2020.

Property of the heirs of Cecilia Norwood (deceased).

In September 1952, L.M. Phelps prepared a survey of the five lots on East Green and Pender Streets owned by the estate of Cecilia Norwood.

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Norwood’s two-story wooden house faced East Green Street on a lot that joined two others to ran all the way back to Darden’s Alley (now Darden Lane). Around the corner and across Pender, she owned two lots that adjoined Calvary Presbyterian Church, which then stood right at the corner of Green and Pender.

In 1957, Calvary Presbyterian Church purchased lots 4 and 5 from Cecilia Norwood’s estate. In 1970-71, the church constructed a new sanctuary on the Norwood property.

 A Google Maps aerial view shows the former location of Norwood’s house and lots.

On 28 February 1895, Celia A. Hill, 22, daughter of H. and H. Hill, married Richard Norwood, 21, son of B. Norwood of Chatham County, in Wilson. Episcopal minister J.W. Perry performed the ceremony at Saint Marks in the presence of John H. Clark, B.R. Winstead and S.A. Smith.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: odd jobs laborer Richard Norward, 36; wife Celia, 34, public school teacher; Robert T., 14, Richard V., 15, Christine, 11, and Henry E., 8; mother Henry E. Hill, 65, depot janitoress; Mack Peacock, 17, doctor’s office servant; and Joe Burnett, 17, hotel servant.

In 1918, Richard Norwood registered for the World War I draft in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Per his registration card, he was born 31 March 1897 in Wilson; resided at 134 Pender Street, Wilson (and also 935 Baltic Avenue, Atlantic City; was employed by John Moore, North Carolina and Atlantic Avenues, Atlantic City; and his nearest relative of Cecilia Norwood, 134 Pender Street.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 134 Pender Street, Heneretta Hill, 70, A.C.L. railroad matron; Celia W. Hill, 40, teacher; Cora A. Hill, 27, teacher; Hazell Hill, 16; Christina Hill, 19; Barlee Hill, 22, laborer; Rosa Hicks, 22; and Archer Martin, 14.

In the 1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Norwood Cecelia tchr h 205 Pender

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 205 Pender Street, valued at $5000, widowed teacher Cecelia Norwood, 60; granddaughter Cecelia Norwood, 5; grandson Edgear Norwood, 3; Ruth Cobb, 31, public school teacher; Lucie Richards, 50; and lodgers John, 38, carpenter at body plant, and Elizabeth Douglas, 35.

Cecilia Anna Norwood died 27 June 1944 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 14 February 1879 in Washington, North Carolina to Edward Hill and Henrietta Cherry; resided at 205 Pender, Wilson; was widowed; and was a teacher. Informant was Hazel Covington of Wilson.

Plat map 5, page 78, Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.