Samuel H. Vick

Vicks visit “thriving Afro-American settlement.”

Philadelphia Tribune, 19 August 1916.

In 1916, Samuel H. Vick drove his “big touring car” on a visit to Whitesboro, New Jersey, with his young son George White Vick, Clarence Dillard, and Alfred Robinson. On the way back, they stopped in Washington, D.C.

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Death claims S.H. Vick.

 Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 27 July 1946.

John H. Mincey was an occasional correspondent to Norfolk’s regional African-American newspaper, the Journal and Guide, and it fell to him to write an obituary for Samuel H. Vick. Some of the facts are a little off, but the piece reveals little-known  details like Vick’s desire to study medicine.

Robbers convicted of attack on Vick and Robinson.

The Virginian-Pilot, 19 May 1921.

When we first read of the robbery of Samuel H. Vick and Alfred Robinson (not Albert Roberson), a man named George Jenkins had been arrested. However, Henry Berkley and Jack Bullock were found guilty of the crime and sentenced to seven years in state prison.

Vick family and friends take a roadtrip.

The Afro-American (Baltimore, Md.), 25 September 1926.

Samuel H. Vick, his daughter Doris Vick, and Vick’s cousin (whom he informally adopted) Bessie Parker Hargrave drove from North Carolina “North” (probably to New Jersey) with Presbyterian minister and educator Clarence Dillard and Eliza Bass, whom I have not identified further.

The Vicks sell land to a hosiery company.

In 1917, Samuel and Annie Vick sold a lot on Cemetery Street to Crescent Hosiery Company of Scotland Neck, North Carolina. Crescent paid $500 for the land, which adjoined property of Smith Mercer, Columbus Goffney, and Henry Forbes.

Deed book 94, page 9, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

It does not appear that Crescent ever operated a factory on the site, or even built upon it, unless this unoccupied brick building depicted in the 1922 Sanborn map of the street was theirs. (Cemetery Street’s name was briefly changed to Contentnea Street.) By 1930, per the Sanborn map, the building was being used for cotton storage by an unnamed proprietor.

1922 Sanborn fire insurance map of Scotland Neck, North Carolina.

Infamously, Lewis Hine photographed children working in Crescent Hosiery Company for his expose of child labor conditions in Southern textile mills.

Nannie Coleson, age 11, working as a looper at Crescent Hosiery in 1914.

1908 Sanborn fire insurance map of Scotland Neck, North Carolina.

Photo courtesy of National Child Labor Committee Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print.