Vick

Elsie Knight, dressmaker.

After Daniel Vick‘s death in 1908, Samuel H. Vick took over the care of his nieces Annie and Nettie Jones, whose mother Nettie Vick Jones had been murdered eleven years earlier. Among the items he reported paying for out of Daniel Vick’s estate were dresses for the girls made by “Elsie K,” or Elsie Knight. The Vicks certainly had choices when it came to selecting dressmakers, which suggests Knight was an exceptional talent. (Or perhaps an exceptional value.)

On 26 December 1898, Charles Knight, 21, married Elsie McCullows, 21, in Wilson. Baptist minister W.T.H. Woodard performed the ceremony in the presence of Annie Jackson, Lizzie McCullers, and Florence Whitfield.

In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: day laborer Charles Knight, 24; wife Elsie, 26; daughter Emma, 7 months; and boarders Weldon Standfield, 24, day laborer, and wife Martha, 23.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: barber Charles Knight, 35; wife Elsie, 37; children Charles, 8, and Frank, 6; and boarders Ethel Coleman, 23, and Sarah Jackson, 28, both teachers.

Charles Henry Knight registered for the World War I draft in 1918. Per his registration card, he was born 12 February 1875; lived at 115 Pender Street; was a self-employed barber at 533 East Nash Street; his nearest relative was Elsie Knight; and he had “rheumatism very badly cannot walk well.”

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: barber Charlie Knight, 45; wife Elsie, 47; and son Frank, 16, auto shop laborer.

In the 1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory:

Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory (1925).

Elsie Knight died 20 January 1930 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was 58 years old; was born in Johnston County, N.C., to Willis McCullers and Emma Sanders; was the widow of Charles Knight; lived at 511 Vance Street; and was buried in Wilson [likely, Vick Cemetery.] Andrew McCullers was informant.

More on the trial of Caesar Wooten.

Wilson Advance, 12 November 1891.

I posted here about the death of Mittie Strickland and the years-long search for her killer, Caesar Wooten. This account of the trial reveals a new detail — the jury included two African-American men, Ishmael Wilder and Daniel Vick.

An account of the estate of Daniel Vick.

Samuel H. Vick was administrator of his father Daniel Vick‘s estate and guardian of his deceased sister Nettie Vick Jones‘ children Samuel, Annie, and Nettie Jones. Vick filed this detailed account of receipts and expenditures from March 1908 through November 1909.

The estate’s $562 income consisted of monthly rent from tenant housing, a yearly rental payment for a farm, and a one-time death benefit payment of $100 by the Odd Fellows.

Vick paid out $82.50 for expenses related to his father’s final illness ($8 to Drs. Moore and Dickinson) and death ($45 for a coffin, $5 for a hearse, $12 for carriages), as well as a loan repayment to Wilson Building & Loan Association.

In December 1908, Vick also began to buy material, including lumber, windows, doors, moldings, porch posts, shingles, brick, etc., “for another house adjoining homestead.” Where? For whom? The precise location of Daniel Vick’s house has not been identified, but he owned acreage in the area of what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.

Another surprise: “Repairs Brick Store.” Vick had awnings installed, shelving built, a new room partitioned and plastered, and a new tin roof put on a store building at Nash Street and Stantonsburg Road. See below the detail from the 1908 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson showing that intersection. Was Daniel Vick’s store at (A) or (B), adjacent to Charles H. Darden‘s undertaking and blacksmith shops? What did he sell?

Sam Vick also made repairs and improvements to rental houses at “#11,” 504, and 509 Stantonsburg Road and at 520-526 Church Street.

Per the 1908 Sanborn fire insurance maps of Wilson, 520-522 and 524-526 Church Street were one-story wooden duplex dwellings with a front porch spanning the width of the building. 

The largest expenditures were paid out for Daniel Vick’s heirs. Son William H. Vick, at this point a practicing pharmacist in New Jersey, received regular payments in 1908-1909 totaling $420, apparently his share of the estate. Youngest son James Oscar Vick received a one-time $25 disbursement.

Daniel Vick’s granddaughters Annie and Nettie Jones were boarding students at Mary Potter Academy in Oxford, North Carolina. Their expenses included carfare to and from Oxford; dress goods at Oettinger’s store in Wilson; payments to Elsie Knight for dressmaking; tuition and board; shoes, hosiery, hats, gloves, and handkerchiefs; and cash.

Account Records 1905-1910, Wilson County, N.C., Records, http://www.familysearch.org. 

Historic Black Business Series, no. 29: Collins & Vick Livery Company.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

During its brief existence, Collins & Vick Livery Company sold buggies at this location (but perhaps in a predecessor building.)

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2024.

Visitors to Cape May.

In August 1925, the Pittsburgh Courier posted a long list of recent guests at Cape May, New Jersey’s Hotel Dale, which included:

Pittsburgh Courier, 15 August 1925.

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  • Hotel Dale

Image of postcard courtesy of Hope Gaines, “A Place to Stay,” Cape May magazine, June 2018.

A post office that is a credit to the town.

The Morning Post (Raleigh, N.C.), 4 January 1902.

Samuel H. Vick‘s post office was located on the ground floor of the newly built Seabrook Hotel. We met Vick’s assistants Braswell R. Winstead and Levy H. Peacock here.

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 8 April 1902.

The 1903 Sanborn map of Wilson describes the Seabrook as a boarding house and shows the post office on the right side of the building’s ground floor. The site is now a parking lot.

Sanborn fire insurance map, page 4, Wilson, N.C., 1903.

Wilson’s remarkable hospital.

On 22 February 1914, the Wilmington Morning Star published this detailed account of the establishment of the Wilson Hospital and Tubercular Hospital, which eventually became Mercy Hospital. Originally envisioned with a farm, countryside cottages, and a nurses’ home, only the administrative building was built. Nonetheless, Dr. Frank S. Hargrave‘s vision was “remarkable” indeed, and the hospital served the community for 50 years. (I was born there, in fact, just before it closed.)

[Sidenote: Hospital co-founder J.D. Reid was principal of the Colored Graded School and advisory board member Charles L. Coon was school superintendent. That Samuel H. Vick broke with them just four years later to side with teachers and parents in the 1918 school boycott is all the more astonishing.]

William Alston buys a lot on Mercer Street.

In January 1913, William Alston purchased Lot Number 9 of the Winona subdivision from Samuel and Annie Washington Vick for $1225.

Deed book 97, page 21, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

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In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Winona Road, farmer William Alston, 30, and wife Annie, 23. [Apparently, the Alstons were living on Mercer Street before they bought property from the Vicks.]

In the 1920 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Alston Wm (c; Anna) farmer h 1020 Mercer

In the 1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Alston Wm (c; Anna) farmer h Mercer nr Five Points

In the 1925 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Alston Wm (c) farmer h Mercer nr Mill Rd

In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Alston Wm (c) farmer h 1025 Mercer