Wilson Daily Times, 12 August 1930.
Serena Suggs Moore (not Moon), an accomplished musician, grew up in Wilson in the household of her parents, Washington and Esther McKinney Suggs. Her daughter Annie L. Moore Kennedy was married to Rev. John E. Kennedy.
Hill’s Wilson, N.C. city directory (1930).
In 1909, Daniel C. Suggs gave attorney Sidney A. Woodard a $3600 purchase option on nine-acre lot just outside town limits adjacent to the Wilmington & Weldon and Norfolk & Southern railroads. The option included the grant of a right of way for construction of a railroad siding “beginning at the second or third telegraph pole from Floyd Bynum’s house” to run through the property.
The description suggests that the nine acres was located in the lowest quadrant of the X formed by the railroads just below Contentnea Guano Company, as shown in this detail from the 1913 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson.
Here is the area today, per Google Maps:
In 1883, Congressman James E. O’Hara of North Carolina’s Second District nominated Daniel Cato Sugg of Wilson to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point in June 1884. However, Suggs, a student at Lincoln University, failed the entrance examinations in arithmetic, geography and history. In fact, the only African-American to gain entry to West Point that year was Charles Young.
U.S. Military and Naval Academies, Cadet Records and Applications, 1800-1908 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com; Brian Shellum, Black Cadet in a White Bastion: Charles Young at West Point (2006), page 36.
State of North Carolina, Wilson County }
Know all men by these presents that for and Consideration of the sum of one Thousand Dollars to me in hand paid the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged doth grant bargain sold and conveyed and doth hereby bargain and sell and by these presents convey unto Jerry Washington his heirs administrators and assigns all that certain piece or parcel of land situate in the State of North Carolina & County of Wilson, near the Town of Wilson and bounded as follows Beginning at a stake on the Barefoot roads and street leading from the African Church to said Road thence with said Road to Jerry Washingtons corner thence with said Washington line Four hundred and twenty feet to a stake thence Two hundred and ten Feet to R.W. Taylors line Thence with said Taylors line to the line of the W&W R.R. Line thence with said R.R. line to Allen Tyson Corner thence with said Tysons line to Washington Suggs Corner thence with said Suggs line to the street Thence with said street to the beginning said to Contain Ten acres Be the same more or less to have and to hold the same forever and I do hereby warrant and defend the title to my whole Interest in said piece or parcel fo land to the said Jerry Washington his heirs and assigns against the claims of any and all persons whatsoever In testimony whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal this the 11th day of Oct 1872 W.M. Gay, Mary Gay
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This deed, the second filed in Wilson County by Samuel H. Vick‘s future father-in-law, Jerry Washington, is notable for its reference to “the African Church.” Though Barefoot Road has not been definitely identified the reference to the church and to the Wilmington & Weldon Rail Road suggest that this parcel was located near modern Hines and Pender Streets.
Deed book 23, page 486, Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
State of North Carolina Wilson County
Know all men by these presents that for and in consideration of the Sum of Sixty dollars to me in hand paid the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged that I Virginia C Edwards of the State and county aforesaid hath bargained sold and conveyed and doth hereby bargain sell and convey unto Washington Sugg of the county and State aforesaid to him and his heirs and assigns a certain piece or parcel of land situate in the County of Wilson State of North Carolina and bounded as follows to wit beginning at a stake Allen Tyson corner thence with Thomas Hadley line two hundred & ten feet to a stake Calvin Blounts corner thence with said Calvin Blounts line two hundred & fifty two feet to a Stake corner grave yard Lot thence with said grave yard lot two hundred and ten feet to a stake on street leading to the African church thence with said street two hundred and fifty two feet to the beginning to have and to hold to him the said Washington Sugg his heirs and assigns in fee simple forever and I Virginia C Edwards for myself my heirs and assigns do hereby warrant and defend the title of the aforesaid land unto the said Washington Sugg his hairs and assigns free from the lawful claim of any and all persons whatsoever. In testimony whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal this 23rd day of March AD 1870 /s/ V.C. Edwards
Witness M.J. Edwards
Received and registered 22 August 1870 …
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This deed is remarkable not only as the first filed by Washington Suggs, just five years after his emancipation in Greene County, but also for its reference to the “graveyard lot” and “the African church.”
If the graveyard lot is, as it surely appears, the cemetery later known as Oakdale, this deed pushes the founding date of that burial ground back more than 25 years.
The African church appears to be the church later known as Jackson Chapel (and later still, after a merger, as Jackson Chapel First Missionary Baptist Church), which was located on Barnes Street just off Pender Street (then Stantonsburg Street), a block south of Nash Street. If so, this deed pushes back the date of the building of the congregation’s first edifice.
Sugg’s new neighbor, Calvin Blount, was also African-American and formerly enslaved. His will, drafted in 1909, contains this provision — “Fourth: To my beloved sons Wright Blount and Tillman Blount, whom I have not heard from in many years — I do hereby give and bequeath to them to share and share alike my other lot of land on the edge of the Town of Wilson, State and County aforesaid, adjoining the lands of G.W. Sugg, Cater Sugg, and the Colored Cemetery, containing about one acre.”
Deed book 4, page 135, Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
During academic year 1882-’83, 73 of Lincoln University’s 214 students were from North Carolina. Five of that 73, all in the collegiate division, were from Wilson County: juniors Frank O. Blount, Cato D. Suggs [Daniel Cato Suggs], and Samuel H. Vick; sophomore Braswell R. Winstead; and freshman Francis M. Hines (whose home was Toisnot.)
N.B.: Though Francis M. Hines’ home was listed as Toisnot, now Elm City, and firmly within Wilson County, it seems certain that he was in fact from the Temperance Hall area of Edgecombe County, a few miles east and just across the county line. Hines graduated from Lincoln in 1886 and, upon his return to Edgecombe County, plunged into local politics. He quickly rose to leadership of the Knights of Labor and, on the strength of the African-American voting power in a county in which they were the majority population, was elected Register of Deeds. Tragically, Hines died of kidney disease at the age of 28. Local newspapers’ laconic reports of his death did not fail to include aspersions.
Tarborough Southerner, 21 February 1889.
He is buried in the cemetery of Pyatt Memorial A.M.E. Church in the Temperance Hall community.
Wilson Daily Times, 18 January 1961.
In the winter of 1960-’61, the Wilson Housing Authority published a series of notices in the Wilson Daily Times concerning its intent to exercise eminent domain over two parcels of land at Suggs and Moore Streets for Project 20-2A. (Hence, the term “the projects.) The family who owned the land were the heirs of George Washington Suggs, who had died in 1914. (Specifically, they were heirs of his daughters Serena Suggs Moore, Edmonia Suggs Perrington, and Julia Suggs Bryant.)
The development, still occupied, remains the property of the Housing Authority.
Daniel C. Suggs‘ toddler suffered a painful death after chewing on matches.
Greensboro Patriot, 3 July 1907.
Wilmington Dispatch, 22 November 1917.
At which Daniel C. Suggs and Bryant P. Coward delivered notable remarks.
