Town of Black Creek

Black Creek Cemetery.

I spent a delightful half-hour on the phone the other night with Mrs. Dazell Batts Pearson! In a recent post, I queried “Does Black Creek Cemetery have an African-American section? Is there a separate cemetery?,” and the BWA-hive responded. Yes, said Sebrina Knight Lewis-Ward, and her grandmother not only knows where it is, but went to Minshew School and can locate that, too!

Mrs. Pearson, who is 90, recalled that the cemetery was active when she was a child and into the 1960s. Funeral processions travelled down a dirt path alongside the railroad, crossed a small wooden bridge across a ditch, and then went over an embankment to reach the cemetery. In recent decades, the cemetery, now even more difficult to reach, has become overgrown. Saint John Holiness Church owns the cemetery parcel, but it is not clear whether it actually established the cemetery.

I’m looking forward to meeting Mrs. Pearson during an upcoming visit to Wilson and touring Black Creek township with her and to researching more about Black Creek Cemetery. Stay tuned!

Plat Book 20, page 21, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

Thank you, Sebrina and Mrs. Pearson!

The obituary of John Hearne, servant.

Wilson Daily Times, 20 May 1935.

  • John Hearne 

In the 1900 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farm laborers Sallie Hearn, 65, widow, and son John, 35.

In the 1910 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: at West Railroad Street, Manalcus B. Aycock, 34, farmer; James M. Aycock, 40, farmer/partner; wife Annie, 29; sons Yancey, 10, and Douglass, 8; and servant John Herring, 38.

John Hearn died 19 May 1935 at Mercy Hospital, Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 60 years old; was born in Pitt County, N.C., to John [illegible] and Sallie Lawrence; was single; and worked as a cook.

John Hearn was buried on his employers’ farm, but I have not been able to identify that location. (Manalcus and Annie Moore Aycock were buried in Maplewood Cemetery in Wilson.)

John Hearne lived and worked in this house, built by Manalcus B. Aycock 1900-1901 in Black Creek. The house, which is listed on National Register of Historic Places, still stands on West Center Street.

To have and to hold said land, no. 5.

Abstracts of deeds recording the purchase of real property by African-American churches and lodges in Wilson County:

  • On 25 June 1919, Samuel H. Vick and Mabel Harriss, trustees of Black Creek Council No. 130 of the Lincoln Benefit Society, and Walter Barnes, John Artis, and J.F. Ellis, trustees of Black Creek Lodge No. 8754, Odd Fellows, paid $350 for a lot in Black Creek on the corner of West Railroad and Church Streets.

Deed book 121, page 381, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office.

  • On 20 February 1920, Gary Armstrong and wife Henrietta borrowed $3282.60 from the Endowment Department of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. In exchange, the Armstrongs gave a mortgage on four parcels measuring 34, 112, 55, and 42 acres. If the Armstrongs defaulted on the loan, the Endowment Department would sell the land to satisfy the debt. This mortgage deed was cancelled 3 January 1924, after the debt was paid in full. Deed book 141, page 59.
  • On 29 October 1923, James Rountree, William Thorne, James Bass, Warren Rountree, Phebe Rountree, and Emma Daniel, trustees of Saint Pauls Disciples Church (Colored), sold to Barnes Chapel Lodge #78, Knights of King Solomon, a one-eighth acre parcel on the north side of the old County Line Road and east side of the public road from Wilson to Nashville, N.C., to be used for lodge purposes only and never for “a place of public amusement or in any manner that will be in derogation of the peace and dignity of the church” next door. [Saint Paul’s is an active church on Lake Wilson Road, just east of N.C. Highway 58, the “public road” referred to. I am not clear if the church not to be disturbed is Saint Paul or some other church.] Deed book 146, page 271.
  • On 1 December 1923, J.L. Newsom, Nathan Bass, and James H. Newsom sold W.K. Knight, Willie Newton, Elias Barnes, C.L. Battle, Charlie Newton, L.W. Williams, and Walter Thompson, trustees of First Baptist Church (Colored) of Lucama, for $125 a one-quarter acre parcel adjacent to the Wilson County Public School (Colored)’s lot on the extension of Main Street near the town of Lucama. Deed book 146, page 397.

As this Google Maps image shows, First Baptist Church still stands just outside Lucama. Its parcel is considerably larger than a quarter-acre and may include the land on which Lucama Colored School formerly sat.