Republican Party

Black Radicals jailed and tortured.

In 1868, Robert Hilliard Farmer and Haywood White were among 11 “d—d black Radicals” crammed into a tiny jail cell, threatened, given meagre portions of over-salted meat and deprived of water, and viciously beaten because they would not support the Democratic party. White’s cry, under torture, that he had already sworn an oath to support the Constitution and the Union hints that the men may have been members of the Union, or Loyal, League, which formed across the South during Reconstruction to mobilize freedmen to register to vote and to vote Republican. About ten days before this story broke in the Raleigh Standard, Bill Grimes, local president of the League, had been jailed in Wilson for allegedly burning down the house of a white man who had shot a black man named David Ruffin.

New-York Tribune, 19 September 1868.

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  • Robert Hilliard Farmer
  • Haywood White

On 14 September 1869, Haywood White, son of Benj. and Selie White, married Martha Daniel, daughter of Dennis and Exie Daniel, in Wilson County.

In the 1870 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: farm laborer Haywood White, 26; wife Martha, 17; son Robert, 11 months; and Noah Tyson, 21, farm laborer.

Perhaps, in the 1880 census of Jamesville, Martin County, N.C.: laborer Haywood White, 40; wife Martha, 30; and sons Alexandria, 15, and Elisha, 12.

On 13 April 1910, Haywood White, 60, of Black Creek township, married Luetta Oggins, 40, of Black Creek township, at White’s house.

In the 1910 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: laborer Haywood White, 65, and wife Rosetta, 37. Haywood reported having been married three times; Rosetta, twice.

Haywood White died 14 March 1914 in Black Creek township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was born 22 November 1840 in South Carolina; was married; and worked as a farmer. B.S. Jordan of Wilson was informant.

Who was Edward G. Calhoun?

Four of the five African-American men named in 1883 as Republican Party officers or candidates were familiar, long-term Wilson County residents. The fifth, however, is unfamiliar. Who was Edward G. Calhoun?

The scant record reveals that Calhoun may have been born in North Carolina, but came back into the state in the 1870s as a freedman from Bullock County, Alabama. We have some evidence of his political activity in Wilson County in the 1880s, then he disappears from the record.

Calhoun is first found as Ned Calhoun in a 1867 Bullock County voter registration ledger.

On 28 July 1868, freedman Ned Calhoun married freedwoman Rachel Shepherd in Bullock County.

In the 1870 census of Greenwood township, Bullock County, Alabama: Ned Calhoun, 23, farm laborer; wife Rachael, 21; farm laborer; and daughter Rebecca, 1.

By the mid-1870s, the Calhouns were in Wilson County.

In the 1880 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: laborer Ned Calhoon, 35; wife Rachel, 27; and children Henry G., 6, Elexander, 4, James M., 2, and Sarah A.L., 8 months. Ned reported that he and his parents were born in North Carolina. Rachel reported that she was born in South Carolina to North Carolina-born parents.

A notice in the 19 October 1881 Wilmington Morning Star advised that E.G. Calhoun was among residents with letters waiting at the post office. Is this the same man?

In 1882, E.G. Calhoun was elected secretary of the Wilson County Republican Party and in April 1883 submitted a letter to an African-American newspaper in Raleigh.

The Banner-Enterprise (Raleigh, N.C.), 19 April 1883. 

This is our last glimpse of Calhoun in real time.

By 1900, his widow Rachel had remarried and been widowed again and lived in south Georgia with their younger children.

In the 1900 census of Douglas district, Coffee County, Georgia: widow Rachel Towns, 40, and children Henry C., 26, James C., 22, Marcellus, 18, Walter, 13, Bessie, 11, and Ada, 8. Rachel reported that she was born in Alabama to South Carolina-born parents; Henry and James were reported as born in Alabama; Marcellus, Walter, and Bessie, in North Carolina; and Ada in Georgia.

On 22 February 1903, Henry Calhoun married Lessie Sturdivant in Coffee County, Georgia. On 3 May 1903, Marcellus Calhoun married Annie Dixon in Coffee County.

In the 1910 census of Precinct 9, Hernando County, Florida: Walter Calhoun, 23, turpentine laborer, born in N.C., and wife Cora, 17.

In the 1910 census of Precinct 9, Hernando County, Florida: J.M. Calhoun, 33, turpentine laborer, born in North Carolina; wife Elizabeth, 30; and children Bertha, 6, and Willie G., 3.

In the 1910 census of Coffee County, Georgia: Marcellus Calhoun, 28, turpentine laborer, born in N.C.; wife Anna, 21; and children Rozel, 6, Esther, 3, and Lula, 17 months.

In 1918, James Monroe Calhoun registered for the World War I draft in Hernando County, Florida. Per his registration card, he was born 7 August 1877; lived in Centralia, Hernando County; worked as a laborer for L.P. Petteway; and his nearest relative was Elizabeth Calhoun.

In the 1923 Waycross, Georgia, city directory: Calhoun Walter D (Cora) driver h 631 Pittman

In the 1930 census of Brooks County, Georgia: Walter Calhoun, 53, naval stores laborer; wife Pearl, 29; and children Robert, 7, Walter D., 4, Lorena, 2, and Bessie, 3 months.

In the 1930 census of Brooksville, Hernando County, Florida: on A.C.L. Street, renting for $6/month, lumberyard laborer James M. Calhoun, 52; wife Elizabeth, 50; children Willie G., 23, hauling blocks at veneer mill, and Ruby O., 18; and granddaughter Mary L., 11.

In the 1935 state census of Hernando County, Florida: inside Brooksville town limits,  Jim Calhoun, 57, born in N.C., renter, crosstie cutter; wife Elizabeth, 55, born in N.C.; and granddaughter Mary Lee, 16, born in Florida, cook.

James Monroe Calhoun died 20 September 1937 in Brooksville, Hernando County, Florida. Per his death certificate, he was born 7 August 1877 in Wilson County, North Carolina, to Edward G. Calhoun. He was married to Elizabeth Calhoun; worked as a laborer; and died of laceration to his left leg sustained while cutting a tree.

In 1940, Herbert Lee Calhoun registered for the World War II draft in Waycross, Ware County, Georgia. Per his registration card, he was born 20 June 1913 in Orlando, Florida; lived at 719 Daniel Street, Waycross; his contact was father Walter David Calhoun, 911 Daniel Street; he worked at the Bund Building; and he had a defective left eye.

Alabama, U.S., County Marriage Records 1805-1967, http://www.ancestry.com.

Ex-Senator Person speaks out for Samuel H. Vick.

The Washington Bee, 14 March 1903.

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As Samuel H. Vick faced ouster from his postmaster position, William Lee Person wrote a scathing letter to the Washington Bee defending Vick’s honor, chastising United States Congressman Henry P. Cheatham, and excoriating Lily White Jeter C. Pritchard.

Lee Person’s career had multiple parallels to Vick’s, having incorporated several fraternal lodges and founded a bank and a tuberculosis sanatorium. Person also served as Rocky Mount’s postmaster for several years before being elected to represent his district in the North Carolina state senate. There, he fought unsuccessfully to enact laws against lynching and to prevent discrimination in passenger accommodations.