Laura Williams Sutton was born in Nash County and died in Farmville, Pitt County, in 1930, but her body was brought to Wilson, where she had lived for decades, for burial in Rountree Cemetery.
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On 21 March 1906, William Sutton, 27, of Wilson, son of Providence and Marguret Sutton, married Laura Williams, 24, of Wilson, at the Graded School. Free Will Baptist minister John Steward performed the ceremony.
William Sutton registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County in 1918. Per his registration card, he was born 30 June 1878; lived at 620 Stantonsburg Street; worked as a laborer for Southern Oil Mill; and his nearest relative was wife Laura Sutton.
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Robinson [Robeson] Street, oil mill laborer Willie Sutton, 41; wife Laura, 37; and daughter Dora, 2; boarders Fannie Brown, 18, private nurse; Willie Taylor, 19, oil mill laborer; Geneva Jones, 20, cook; and Nelson Thompson, 20, oil mill laborer; and roomer Sadie Hardy, 40, tobacco factory laborer.
Laura Sutton died 23 June 1930 in Farmville, Pitt County. Per her death certificate, she was born 15 December 1888 in Nash County to Jake and Kizzie Williams; was married to Willie Sutton; and was buried in “Round Tree” Cemetery, Wilson.
The plans for famed fireman Benjamin Mincey‘s funeral reveal the breadth of his involvement in civic and social organizations in East Wilson. (Mincey, of course, was buried in Odd Fellows, not Rountree, Cemetery.)
On 22 December 1894, William Pittman, 36, of Wilson township, married Mollie Dew, 30, daughter of Easter Dew, in Wilson. Missionary Baptist minister Jeremiah Scarborough performed the ceremony in the presence of Haywood Sessoms, Mary A. Sauls, and Victoria Moore.
In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Vance Street, William Pittman, 52, wagon shop laborer; wife Mollie, 42, laundress; son General, 27, odd jobs laborer; daughter Lena, 24, family cook; and adopted daughter Bettie, 10.
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Carroll Street, William Pittman, 55, wagon factory laborer, and wife Mollie, 50.
In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Pittman Wm (c; Mollie) h 120 Queen
In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson: at 1202 Queen Street, owned and valued at $1000, William Pitman, 74, tobacco factory laborer; wife Molly, 63, laundress; and sons James, 10, and Joseph, 8.
William Pittman died 1 August 1935 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 73 years old; was born in Halifax County, N.C.; lived at 1202 Queen Street, Wilson; was married to Mollie Pittman; and worked as a laborer.
[Sidenote: Though the obituary states that Pittman was buried in Rountree Cemetery, he probably was actually buried in what we now call Vick Cemetery. He was not a member of Rountree Missionary Baptist church or, apparently, an Odd Fellow, and thus likely not buried in those cemeteries. “Rountree,” however, was the name by which the three conjoined graveyards were commonly known.]
With a slight barb for “those who did not help,” the War Mothers thanked the many people who helped with Memorial Day observances. The day included a three-mile walk to “Roundtree Cemetery” (most likely, in fact, Vick and Odd Fellows Cemeteries), which had been cleaned by Camillus L. Darden and staff ahead of their visit.
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Sarah Shade — Sarah Shade was about 16 years old in 1927.
In June 1964, the Rocky Mount Telegram reported the tragic death of two teenaged siblings from Spring Hope, Nash County. Seventeen year-old Nora Jane Mercer had drowned trying to save her 16 year-old brother William Earl Mercer, who also drowned in a pond a few miles north of Bailey.
Rocky Mount Telegram, 12 June 1964.
Nora Mercer’s death certificate listed her cause of death as “drowning … while swimming in farm pond” and described her accident as “trying to save her brother.” William Toney’s Funeral Home, still active today in Spring Hope, handled the burial, which took place in … Rountree Cemetery? In 1964?!?
William Mercer’s death certificate also lists Rountree Cemetery in Wilson as his burial place. Why would two Spring Hope children be buried more than 20 miles away in Wilson?
I first wondered if this were a family cemetery — Rountree is not an uncommon surname here — located just over the Nash County line in Wilson County. (I don’t know of any such cemetery, but I wondered.) However, the double obituary for the siblings made clear that they were indeed buried in Rountree (or its sister cemeteries, Vick and Odd Fellows, collectively and confusingly known as Rountree). Further, their funeral was also in Wilson — at Piney Grove Free Will Baptist Church.
Rocky Mount Telegram, 14 June 1964.
The obituary gives Nora and William Mercer’s parents as Mr. and Mrs. Willie Austin. However, this was likely their stepfather and mother (and the surname, per the death certificate, was Alston.) Louise Alston was informant for the certificates, and she named the children’s parents as William Mercer and Louise Webb. William Mercer and Louvenia [actually, Louisianna] Webb were married in Wilson County in September 1946. Both were Wilson County natives. It appears that they divorced, and Louise Webb Mercer married an Alston. So, as we can establish that the Mercer children did have close ties to Wilson, we can be more certain that they were buried in one of the set of cemeteries on (former) Lane Street collectively called Rountree Cemetery.
Now to the most puzzling fact — 1964.
This is an aerial view of Vick, Odd Fellows, and Rountree Cemeteries in 1964.
Vick Cemetery had been condemned in the late 1950s as unfit for human burial. (Vick is the most likely of site of the children’s burials as it was a public cemetery, they were not members of Rountree Missionary Baptist Church, and there is no evidence that their father was an Odd Fellow.) By 1964, all three cemeteries were severely overgrown, with none of the bare-earth family plots so readily observable in earlier decades.
I checked Joan L. Howell’s Wilson County Cemeteries, Vol. V: The Two City-Owned African-American Cemeteries, which contains a list of 600+ burials from the last 25 years or so these cemeteries were active as burial sites. In her searches of local death certificates, the latest burials Howell found were three from 1960, six from 1961, and one from 1962. Thus, as far as now known, Nora Jane and William Earl Mercer were the last people buried in Vick, Odd Fellows, or Rountree Cemeteries.
Many thanks to Noelle Vollaro for bringing the Mercer siblings to my attention.
Lane Street Project is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick cemeteries. We welcome community volunteer support to achieve our goals of reclaiming the cemeteries and honoring the sacred remains of our ancestors. At present, Rountree and Odd Fellows are covered with 40+ years of overgrowth. Burials date back to the 1890s, and many of the graves have collapsed. It is a fragile environment.
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Q: I found a headstone! What do I do?
A: Congratulations!
First, do no harm. The markers in Odd Fellows and Rountree cemeteries are 75-125 years old. The stone markers are generally marble, which is fragile. The cement markers are brittle. Don’t lean on them. The obelisks may shift from their bases. The headstones may break.
Mark the grave marker’s location with a red flag, and notify a Lane Street Project team member.
If the stone is upright, leave it as it is.
If it has fallen, but the inscription is readable, leave it as it is.
If it is buried, remove as much debris as possible by hand, then cut away vines or roots around the stone. Gently dig around the stone with a spade to loosen it from the soil and expose the inscription.
Do not move a headstone (or even pieces of broken headstone) from its original location.
Clean markers with water and a nylon-bristle brush only. Do not use soap, dishwashing liquid, detergent, or any other cleaning product to clean a grave marker, no matter how safe, gentle, biodegradable or natural the product claims to be. Do not use sponges or dish scrubbers. Brush gently to remove dirt and debris.
Take before and after photos!
Gray Pender’s headstone was recovered in December 2020. His daughter Louvenia’s marker was found nearby.
Lane Street Project is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick cemeteries. We welcome community volunteer support to achieve our goals of reclaiming the cemeteries and honoring the sacred remains of our ancestors. At present, Rountree and Odd Fellows are covered with 40+ years of overgrowth. Burials date back to the 1890s, and many of the graves have collapsed. It is a fragile environment.
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Q: So … what’s the plan?
A: Glad you asked.
You’ll be assigned to a lane marked at the edge of the overgrowth. Try to work straight back toward the rear of the property, maintaining social distance between you and the next person.
The short-term goal is clear the cemetery of trash and undergrowth — vines, privet, vines, small shrubs … did I say vines? Wisteria and smilax (green with thorns) are probably the worst invaders, with honeysuckle a close third. You can’t go wrong by cutting every vine you see, both at ground level and as high as you can reach.
Wiley Oates’ lovely monument was covered with a cape of honeysuckle vine. If the vines aren’t cut back hard, the obelisk will disappear again come summer.
Watch out — vines can snap back and pop you pretty hard.
Also, watch your feet. Vines can trip you, and you’ll want to avoid stepping into sunken graves, animal burrows, or other holes in the ground.
Please don’t try to cut down any trees.
Please haul out any trash you find, but do not move grave markers. Here’s what to do instead. Markers may look like chunks of concrete or rocks, so to be on the safe side, don’t move any of either.
An entry into Odd Fellows opened by volunteers in December 2020.
Lane Street Project is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick cemeteries. We welcome community volunteer support to achieve our goals of reclaiming the cemeteries and honoring the sacred remains of our ancestors. At present, Rountree and Odd Fellows are covered with 40+ years of overgrowth. Burials date back to the 1890s, and many of the graves have collapsed. It is a fragile environment.
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Q: Hey! I’ll be there! What should I bring?
A: Thank you! The most important thing, of course, is a MASK! This will be a COVID-conscious event, and masks and social distancing will be required.
Also:
Your own particular talents. Whether strong arms or strong voices of encouragement, we need what you bring!
Protective clothing such as long sleeves, gloves, and boots.
Hand tools only — hand pruners, loppers, hedge trimmers, mattocks, rakes, spades, etc.
No chainsaws. No other mechanized or heavy equipment.
Jugs of water and nylon-bristle brushes for cleaning headstones, but no soaps, detergents or other cleaning agents. They will damage the headstones.
Lane Street Project is preparing the announcement of its 2021 kick-off clean-up of Odd Fellows and Rountree cemeteries on January 16 and 18 to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and National Day of Service. Stay tuned and, in the meantime, here’s an article by Drew C. Wilson that ran 16 December 2020 in the Wilson Times.
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About 45 minutes into an effort to clear vines and overgrowth from African American graves, volunteers fulfilled one of their major objectives Tuesday, locating Samuel H. Vick’s resting place.
The prominent Wilsonian is Vick Elementary School’s namesake.
“He was born enslaved in Nash County and came to Wilson at an early age,” said Lisa Henderson, a historian and organizer of the Lane Street Project to locate missing graves in Wilson’s Rountree and Odd Fellows cemeteries. “He was an educator, was a businessman, was one of the founders of Calvary Presbyterian Church, was postmaster of Wilson, very politically involved and arguably, in the first half of the 20th century, was the most prominent African American citizen of Wilson.”
It was Vick who famously brought Booker T. Washington to Wilson on Nov. 3, 1910.
“It’s pretty incredible,” Henderson said. “It’s really what the Lane Street project is all about. It’s not only raising awareness of the condition of these cemeteries, but also bringing back graves that have been lost for 50, 60, 70 years.”
Armed with loppers, pruners and picks, volunteers chopped and cut their way through inches-thick, decades-old vines.
“This grave that we just found is a Pender,” Henderson said as grime was smoothed away from the tannin-stained face of Gray Pender’s marble marker.
“Honestly, that is a Wilson family name. This person may have relatives right here in Wilson right now,” Henderson said. “It is indescribable to me. It’s really what it’s about.”
Henderson said she hopes individuals and groups will get involved in recovering this lost history.
“Pick a Saturday, come out here with some loppers, some hand pruners and just knock back some weeds,” Henderson said. “Hopefully, maybe by spring we will be able to see that there is a cemetery again, and that will help us decide what the best course is going forward. Obviously, I would ask anybody who comes out here to be respectful. This is hallowed ground, even if it is abandoned. But other than that, this belongs to everybody.”
Henderson said more than 1,500 graves are in the 11 acres of cemetery land at the east Wilson site.
“There are three cemeteries. We are now standing in Rountree Cemetery. East of Rountree is Odd Fellows and beyond that is a big open field that’s actually a cemetery, that’s Vick. African Americans were buried in these three cemeteries,” Henderson said.
Henderson said African American history is Wilson’s history.
“It is all of our history. It is something that we all can be proud of. It is something that contributed to the city as a whole and the same with these cemeteries,” Henderson said.
Castonoble Hooks, one of the volunteers, said he had mixed emotions about the effort.
“First of all, I am honored to be restoring honor to people who have been overlooked for so long, understanding as I do the sacrifices these people made,” Hooks said. “I am appalled by the fact that they have been allowed to come to this point of desecration and to be allowed to stay that way for so long. I am delighted to discovered the ones we are discovering, but then when I looked across the field at the thousands of slaves and regular citizens whose tombstones and markers and indicators were removed under and agreement to be placed back and a promise never kept, that saddens me tremendously. I am going to do whatever I can in my lifetime to restore some dignity to these people’s names and memories.”
Hooks was referring to the nearby Vick Cemetery.
Henderson said the city of Wilson basically desecrated the graveyard.
“They leveled it. They removed all the tombstones, put them somewhere and have now lost them. We have no idea, no record of who was buried in that cemetery,” Henderson said. “Obviously, there are two streams of responsibility. There is the responsibility of our own community for stepping into the breach and doing something about this. There is also the responsibility of the city of Wilson, which denied its ownership of that cemetery of Vick for decades and then, when they stepped in to do something, they destroyed it and made it impossible for people to find out who was there.”
Henderson said it’s not clear what path forward the project will take.
“All we are out here to do today is to try to make it easier for people to get in here,” Henderson said. “There is long-term goal and there is a role for the city of Wilson to play in terms of making this situation right. There is a role for all of the owners of these cemeteries to play, a role for all of us.”
For native Wilson families, Henderson said there’s likely a connection to the people buried here.
“If you are here and you have roots in Wilson, you’ve got somebody in these cemeteries,” Henderson said. “You’ve got lots of somebodies in these cemeteries. I can’t stand and wait for the city to do something when we can do something. It just takes a little bit of effort and commitment and a decision to honor who’s here to get some amazing things done, so we will be out here Thursday.”
Volunteers plan to meet from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday to continue clearing around any graves they locate.
Charlie Farris, chairman of the Wilson Cemetery Commission, said he’s heartened that the group cares for Wilson’s departed.
“I’m glad that there are people wanting to locate the graves of people buried 70 or 80 years ago, and I wish the city of Wilson would come out with its equipment and clear this whole area,” Farris said. “There are graves 100 feet deep inside that haven’t been seen in years. I am just thrilled that there are concerned citizens that can come out and help clean it. These are cemeteries within the city, and something needs to be done.”
For more information, visit Henderson’s website, “Black Wide-Awake,” at https://afamwilsonnc.com. The site details a broad range of African American history in Wilson.
Photo by Drew C. Wilson, courtesy of Wilson Times.
It first started to come together Christmas Eve a year ago when I fought my way into the thicket of Odd Fellows cemetery. At the time, I didn’t even know its proper name. Shaken by what I found, I posted a quasi-manifesto that included this passage:
I confirm that I’m feeling pretty reactive right now, but here are my initial thoughts on next steps for the reclamation of this important African-American burial ground, reaffirmation of respect for our dead, and restoration of common decency:
If this account contains inaccuracies, I welcome correction by any authoritative source.
I restate my request for a copy of the survey prepared by PLT when Vick cemetery was cleared. A copy, if not the original, of this survey should be shared with Wilson Cemetery Commission and made available to descendants, genealogists, or other researchers as requested.
As, through the city’s actions, the locations of the graves in (A) have been obliterated, the city should map (A) and (B) with ground-penetrating radar and make the results available to the public.
If (C) is part of Vick cemetery, it is the city’s responsibility to maintain it, and it should do so immediately. The city should also survey and catalog the cemetery’s headstones, leave them in situ, and utilize ground-penetrating radar to determine the locations of additional graves.
If, as it appears, the city has no legal responsibility for (D) the Odd Fellows cemetery, I implore community groups to intervene to clean it up, survey it, and create a record of the identifiable graves remaining there.
And then the pandemic.
Ten days ago, though, the Lane Street Project regained its legs and is putting into place a 2021 action plan. As we begin, what’s the status of last year’s “next steps”? In bullet-point order:
No inaccuracies found. (Or at least not by any “authoritative source.” I corrected and updated posts as I uncovered better information.)
The city’s eventual response to my records requests included PLT’s survey of the locations of graves at Vick. Apparently, neither PLT nor the city catalogued the gravestones removed from Vick, and those names are thus lost.
This demand stands.
(C) is Rountree cemetery. It does not belong to the city.
(D) is Odd Fellows cemetery. Lane Street Project has begun to take the steps listed and will announce a schedule of events and opportunities in early January 2021.
