Town of Elm City

Elm City in 1923.

I regularly mine Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Wilson for information, but only now have discovered the 1923 maps of Elm City. Sheet 4 covers the town’s historic African-American east side. Three inserts show streets beyond the borders of the map.

Though the street grid has not changed much in a hundred years, the names of Elm City’s streets have.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Elm City, N.C. (1923).

Tarboro Road is now East Langley Road. The “First Baptist Church (Colored),” founded 1875, remains an active congregation, now known as First Missionary Baptist Church of  Elm City. The building now sits perpendicular to the road.

Corker Street is now Tyson Lane. The Elm City Colored Graded School stood near its intersection with Church Street.

Wilson Street retains it name. A lodge hall — Masons? Odd Fellows? — stood near the current location of Wynn’s Chapel Church.

Further east on Wilson, the First Presbyterian Church (Colored), which would gain national attention nearly 40 years later when targeted by the Ku Klux Klan.

Sheet 5 shows the area south of Elm City’s business and residential center. The Free Will Baptist Church (Colored) beneath J.D. Winstead Cotton Gins was Wynn’s Chapel in its original location.

Elm City, Wilson County, N.C., Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Library of Congress.

Elm City schools consolidated.

Frederick Douglass High School (formerly known as Elm City Colored School) was the first Wilson County high school for African-American students outside the city of Wilson. In 1949, several one- and two-room schools administered by the Elm City School Board were consolidated with Douglass. Once additional classroom space was completed, children who had attended Mitchell, Pender, and Turner Schools were bussed into Elm City to attend Douglass. (Like Darden, though called “high school,” Douglass had both elementary and secondary divisions.)


Wilson Daily Times, 29 December 1949.

 

Principal’s report: Elm City Colored School, 1941.

High school principals were required to file annual reports with the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction. In 1941, Robert A. Johnson filed this report for Elm City Colored School for the preceding school year.

The school year was only 120 days and ran from 10 February 1941 to 28 June 1941. Seven teachers taught at Elm City — two men and five women. They taught 164 children — 48 boys and 116 girls. Elm City Colored School housed all grades in one building. It had no restrooms, lunchroom or auditorium. It had no librarian, but it did have a library room.

The high school offered classes in English, general mathematics, geometry, algebra, citizenship, American history, world history, sociology, general science, biology, home economics, and French.

Classes met at 8:45, 9:35, 10:30, 11:30, 1:00 and 2:00. Odelle Whitehead Barnes taught English and French; Clara G. Cooke taught history and English; Mabel Brewington taught home economics and history; Earl C. Burnett taught science and math; and Robert A. Johnson taught math and tended the library on Fridays.

All the teachers were college graduates. Barnes had the most tenure at Elm City, with 8 years; Brewington and Burnett were newcomers.

The school had no laboratories or maps. It published a newspaper, The Elm City Journal; had both girls’ and boys’ glee clubs; a 4-H Club; and an English Club. Elm City Colored School graduated fourteen in the Class of 1941 — William Bynum, Volious Harris, Willie R. Mitchell, Mary Armstrong, Minnie E. Armstrong, Nelia Brown, Essie Bynum, Alice Ellis, Bessie Lancaster, Clara Lancaster, Eva Lindsey, Ada B. McKinnon, Georgia Toliver, and Marie Wynn.

High School Principals’ Annual Reports, 1940-1941, Wayne County to Wilson County, North Carolina Digital Collection, digital.ncdcr.gov.

Moneys should be kept in the bank.

Wilson Daily Times, 13 January 1920.

—–

Perhaps, in the 1930 census of the Town of Elm City, Toisnot township, Wilson County: in a house owned and valued at $1000, widow Mary A. Batts, 50, servant; daughter Mamie, 26, servant; and son Lonnie, 35, farm laborer.

Thanks to J. Robert Boykin III for sharing this clipping.