Good Fishing Ground, Contentnea Creek, Wilson, N.C.
This undated postcard depicts several men (and perhaps one woman) on the banks of Contentnea Creek in Wilson County. One, at far left, appears to kneel in a pirogue. A closer look reveals that several, including the woman, are African-American.
The on-line guide to Newberry Library’s Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection features digitized versions of the geographical index to the company’s historical postcards. The index cards are arranged alphabetically by state and then town or other geographic entity. Here is the Wilson, N.C., card listing the four postcards with African-American subjects. Numbered in sequence, all were taken in 1923.
A gift from Samuel C. Lathan arrived in the mail recently:
It’s a Curt Teich & Company postcard depicting Saint John A.M.E. Zion Church. Per the Guide to Dating Curt Teich Postcards, this one was issued in 1923, and was perhaps meant to commemorate the church building’s tenth anniversary.
Here’s a cleaned-up version:
This rare postcard depicts an equally rare image of East Wilson’s early business district in the 500 block of East Nash Street. Close examination of the photograph reveals fascinating details, many of which help date the image. The photographer set up his camera near the curb (a surprising feature!) on the south side of the street. First Missionary Baptist Church, built in 1913, would have been across from and slightly behind him. On the far horizon looms the brick bulk of the Hotel Cherry, built in 1917.
At least ten people — all of whom appear to be male — were captured in the image, including these seven standing or walking along the right side of the street:
These commercial buildings supply clues to the location of the photo. The three-story building, constructed in 1894, is Odd Fellows Hall, home to Hannibal Lodge #1552. Its ground floor contained an ever-changing array of store fronts, and a sign for Maynard’s Market/Fish & Oysters is visible here. As early as 1914, Samuel Vick‘s Globe vaudeville and moving picture theatre was housed on the second floor. The sign hanging from the corner of the building pointed the way to the theatre’s side entrance.
The three-story frame building beside the Odd Fellows Hall was the Hotel Union, managed by Mary Jane Sutzer Taylor Henderson. Here lies a clue to the photograph’s date. In the 1908 and 1913 Sanborn fire insurance maps, there is an empty lot between the Union and the hall.
1908.
1913.
However, by 1922, a one-story wooden structure, housing a barber shop and sharing a wall with the hotel/boarding house, appears in the gap. See below. (Note also that the theatre’s exterior staircase is gone, traded for enclosed access.) This building, with its shallow gable-end roof, is visible in the postcard image.
1922.
The Model T Fords (and a single mule and wagon) also help date the photo to the early 1920s.
There is an artificial quality about the neatly trimmed hedges and suspiciously uniform trees ranged along the left side of the street. Though this portion of the image may have been hand-drawn, that side of the 500 block was in fact lined with private homes.
Families living in this block included the Mitchells, (#540), the Sutzers (#536), and the Yanceys (#538).
This stretch of East Nash Street today, courtesy of Google Maps. The commercial buildings on the right side of the street, including the historic Odd Fellows Hall, were demolished in the 1990s.
Postcard image courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III, Historic Wilson in Vintage Postcards (2003).
This linen postcard depicts scenes from Wilson, including notable buildings, a tobacco auction, and three African-American fieldhands — all children — posing under the watchful eye of a white boss.
The Curt Teich & Co. card is undated, but in Historic Wilson in Vintage Postcards (2003), J. Robert Boykin III places it in the 1930s. He also identifies the farmer overseeing the children as C.D. West.
Update, 21 January 2021: Terry Royal West recently reached out to share information about the original photograph of the children. The photo was taken in the early 1930s on the farm of his great-great-grandfather Cullen D. West, who lived, in fact, on Highway 1058 near Faro and the  Wayne/Green County line, rather than Wilson County. The man in the white shirt and hat was Charles Dollison West and the boys’ nicknames were Laney, Punch, and Sambo. Despite the actual location, the photo was used on the Wilson Chamber of Commerce annual calendar, supposedly because the tobacco leaves were so perfectly formed. The Chamber also used another image from West’s farm depicting cotton pickers and brazenly labeled “A Cotton Field in Wilson County.” Below, the original hand-tinted photo of the boys in the tobacco field, which measures about 16 inches by 20 inches, shared by Terry R. West.
