Wayne County NC

Studio shots, no. 239: Harry B. Harris.

Harry Bryant Harris (1914-1950).

In the 1920 census of Nahunta township, Wayne County: on Stantonsburg Road, farmer Benjamin Harris, 25, and siblings Rhodie, 22, John, 20, Nanie, 18, Vicie and Nicie, 16, Edgar, 14, Oscar and Rosca, 11, Leland, 9, and Hamilton B., 7.

On 30 October 1937, Harry B. Harris, 24, of Wilson, son of Ed and Bettie Harris, married Sarah Lee Graham, 22, of Wilson, daughter of Rosa Graham, in Wilson. Luther Locus applied for the license, and Elder Isaac Williams performed the ceremony.

In 1940, Harry Bryant Harris registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 15 April 1914 in Wayne County, N.C.; lived at 206 South Reid Street; his contact was brother Ben Amos Harris, 701 Lane Street; and he worked for Ben A. Harris.

In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 208 Manchester Street, bricklayer Harry B. Harris, 36, and wife Sarah, 34.

Harry Bryant Harris died 26 May 1960 at his home in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 15 April 1915 in Wayne County to Ed Harris and Bettie Daniel; was married to Sarah L. Harris; lived at 208 Manchester Street; and worked as a laborer. Vicy Scott, 813 Stantonsburg Street, was informant.

Photo courtesy of Harry B. Harris Jr.

Recommended reading, no. 19: Stantonsburg Fort.

Philip Fort did not live in Wilson County, but his daughter Hannah Forte Artis and her husband Walter S. Artis owned property in and around Stantonsburg, and that’s enough of a hook for me.

Stantonsburg Fort: Phillip Fort and the 135th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops, a children’s book, is a fictionalized account of the life of Phillip Fort, an enslaved man who joined the Union Army during the Civil War. Fort was born in far northeast Wayne County, near Eureka. (An area that now has a Stantonsburg zip code.) It is not the book I would write (but, then, I haven’t written a book, have I?), but it is an appealing introduction for young people to the role of the U.S. Colored Troops and an intriguing example of what can be done to bring historical material to a broader audience.

In memoriam: Elder Abram Hill.

Wilson Daily Times, 1 June 1996.

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In the 1900 census of Nahunta township, Wayne County, N.C.: Abram Hill, 57, farmer; wife Zilphia, 50; and children Charlie, 16, Emma, 13, Abram, 12, Mary, 10, and Oscar, 2.

Om 7 October 1906, Abram Hill Jr., 20, son of Abram and Zilphia Hill, married Winnie Lewis, 18, daughter of Louis and Precilla Lewis, in Wayne County.

In the 1910 census of Nahunta township, Wayne County: Abram Hill, 21; wife Winnie, 21; son Theady A.L., 6 months; mother Zilphia Hill, 53, widow; sister Mary, 20; brother Oscar, 13; and nephew George W., 2.

In the 1930 census of Eureka township, Wayne County: Abram Hill, 42, farmer; wife Winnie C., 42; children Perilla, 17, Celia, 13, Rachel T., 11, Havard L., 9, Edna V., 7, and Judith M., 5; mother Zilphia J., 70, widow; and grandson Abraham Jr., 2.

Zilphia Hill died 11 May 1937 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was 60 years old; was born in Wayne County to Manuel and Rachel Hall.

On 8 January 1938, Abram Hill, 49, of Wilson, son of Abram and Zilphia Hill, married Ruth Lee, 22, of Wilson, daughter of Worker and Eliza Staton, in Wilson County. Missionary Baptist minister F.F. Battle performed the ceremony in the presence of J.T. Artis, Joe Battle, and Roxie Grimes.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 505 Manchester, city laborer Abron Hill, 40; wife Ruth, 42; children Celia, 22, Howard, 19, Edna, 17, and Judis, 14; and lodger Walter Brunson, 22.

In 1940, Havord Lee Hill registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 25 December 1919 in Wayne County; lived at 505 Manchester Street, Wilson; his contact was father Abram Hill; and he worked for the Town of Wilson.

In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 505 Manchester, Ruth Hill, 42, tobacco factory worker; husband Abram, 61, sewage inspector for city streets department; son-in-law Henry Willis, 24, sawmill laborer; and daughter Ann, 25.

Theadie Hill died 30 November 1958 in Eureka, Wayne County. Per his death certificate, he was born 11 November 1909 in Wayne County to Abram Hill and Winnie Lewis; was married to Berneatha Hill; worked as a laborer; and was buried in Turner Swamp church cemetery.

Abram Hill died 11 February 1978 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 1 June 1887 in Wayne County to Abraham Hill and Zilphia Reid; was married; lived at 602 Manchester Street; was a minister and laborer for the City of Wilson; and was buried in Turner Swamp church cemetery. Informant was Edna Revell, 602 Manchester.

Local men fought for freedom.

Last week, Wilson County Genealogical Society presented a program on the 135th Regiment of the United States Colored Troops featuring local descendants of Jack Sherrod, whose farm lay just across the Wayne County line and whose family had close Wilson County ties.

Wilson Times, 5 March 2024.

Thank you, Leonard P. Sherrod Jr., for bringing this event to my attention.

Rooted in Faith: the 160 Year History of First African Baptist Church.

Not Wilson, but 25 miles down the road (and I’m sure with a Wilson link or two if I dug hard enough.) I hope to be able to take in this Wayne County Museum exhibit about venerable First African Baptist Church. Please add it to your Black History Month doings!

Mack D. Coley, Colored Graded School principal.

When Henry C. Lassiter and Turner G. Williamson graduated Lincoln University in June 1895, their classmates included Mack Daniel Coley. Coley was born in 1864 in northern Wayne County. He graduated from Hampton Institute’s preparatory division in 1890.

Excerpt from Twenty-Two Years’ Work, see below.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree at Lincoln, he returned to North Carolina.

New York Times, 5 June 1895.

M.D. Coley’s remarkable career as educator (which included a stint as principal of Wilson Colored Graded School circa 1920-21) and lawyer is chronicled in Arthur Bunyan Caldwell’s History of the American Negro and His Institutions (1921):

Coley did not helm the Graded School for long. He and his family are listed in the 1920 census of the Town of Mount Olive, Wayne County, and he may have boarded alone in Wilson during his short tenure. He died in Mount Olive in 1950.

Twenty-Two Years’ Work of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute at Hampton, Virginia (Records of Negro and Indian Graduates and Ex-Students with historical and personal sketches and testimony on important race questions from within and without, to which are added, by courtesy Messrs Putnam’s Sons, N.Y., some of the Songs of the Races gathered in the School (Hampton Normal School Press, 1893).

Family ties, no. 8: James Daniel brought up some corn one time.

Wilson’s emergence as a leading tobacco market town drew hundreds of migrants in the decades after the 1890s. Many left family behind in their home counties, perhaps never to be seen again. Others maintained ties the best way they could.

Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. left Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, around 1905. They came to Wilson presumably for better opportunities off the farm. Each remained firmly linked, however, to parents and children and siblings back in Wayne County as well as those who had joined the Great Migration north. This post is the eighth in a series of excerpts from documents and interviews with my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks (1910-2001), Jesse and Sarah’s adoptive daughter (and Sarah’s great-niece), revealing the ways her Wilson family stayed connected to their far-flung kin. (Or didn’t.)

When Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. married Sarah Henderson in Wayne County in 1895, his children ranged in age from newborn to 14 years old. When Jesse and Sarah Jacobs moved 40 miles north to Wilson circa 1905, the youngest children, Doctor and Annie Bell, came with them, and even the eldest, James Daniel Jacobs, settled briefly in the Elba Street house.

Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory (1908).

“Jeem Daniel. Jeem Daniel Jacobs. He and Roxie lived down in Clinton down there, and he come to Wilson when they got married, before they had a family. I remember that. They talked about me coming to visit, but he used to come up to bring tobacco. I remember, ‘Why in the world he had to come all the way to Wilson – ‘

James D. and Roxie Simmons on their Sampson County farm, circa 1950.

“I just do remember him, by him – lots of times they would come by the house, see Papa, wanted to know how he was doing, and whatever. They didn’t stay no time, had to get back and see what time they was gon sell tobacco. So, I don’t know whatever became of him. Now, Mamie [Henderson Holt, her sister] went down when Jeem Daniel got married. He married Roxie, a girl named Roxie, and they was still down there in Clinton, wherever, somewhere down … Anyway, I know it wasn’t Mount Olive, and so Mama, when she got pregnant, Roxie got pregnant, then Jeem Daniel wanted Mamie to come down there and stay with his wife. He said, ‘I’ll pay for her to look after her, stay with her in the house,’ ‘cause he was working down in the field and needed someone to look after her. So Mamie went down there to stay. Didn’t stay, but I never did go down there. I never did see ‘em, after that, except Jeem Daniel brought up some corn one time to see Papa ‘cause he was sick.”  

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In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Jacobs James D lab h 106 Elba

In the 1910 census of Brogden township, Wayne County, N.C.: John Brewington, 27; wife Hattie, 25; children Lillie, 3, and Kirby, 1; and boarder James D. Jacobs, 30, farmer.

On 22 November 1916, James D. Jacobs, 35, married Roxie Simmons, 25, in Sampson County, N.C.

In 1918, James Daniel Jacobs registered for the World War I draft in Clinton, Sampson County. Per his registration card, he was born 2 February 1881; worked as a farmer; and his nearest relative was Roxie Jacobs.

ln the 1920 census of South Clinton township, Sampson County: farmer Jimmie Simmons, 43; mother Pennie, 77, widow; brother-in-law James D. Jacobs, 37; sister Roxie, 33; and nephews Jessie W., 2, and Chacie, 1 month.

In the 1940 census of South Clinton township, Sampson County: farmer James D. Jacobs, 58; wife Roxie, 55; children Chasie, 20, Redick, 17, Macy, 16, Rillie, 14, Lifton, 10, and Jessie, 22; and granddaughter Glacinie, 2.

In the 1950 census of South Clinton township, Sampson County: farmer James D. Jacob, 68; wife Roxie, 64; son Jessie W., 33, widower; granddaughter Glacenia, 12; son Lifton, 20, and daughter-in-law Mary E., 18.

James Daniel Jacobs died 6 April 1952 in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, N.C. Per his death certificate, he was born 3 February 1883 in Sampson County to Jesse Jacobs and Sallie Bridges; lived near Clinton, Sampson County; was married; and was a tenant farmer.

Interview of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson adapted and edited for clarity. Copyright 1994, 1996. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy of Carla Carter Jacobs.

How the Hendersons came to Wilson.

My paternal grandmother’s family arrived in Wilson circa 1905 from southern Wayne County, North Carolina. Jesse and Sarah Henderson Jacobs came first, and Sarah’s teenaged nephew Jesse “Jack” Henderson arrived a few years later. My grandmother Hattie Mae Henderson was born in Dudley in June 1910. In six months or so, her 19 year-old mother Bessie Henderson was dead.

Said my grandmother:

“I thought of many times I wondered what my mama looked like. Bessie. And how old was she, or whatever. Looked at Jack, and I said, they say he was 17 years old when he come to Wilson. From down there in Dudley, down there in Wayne County.

“My mama was helping Grandpa, Grandpa Lewis [Henderson.]  The pig got out of the pasture and, instead of going all the way down to where the gate opened, she run him back in there, to try to coax him in there. They picked him up. They picked him up and put him over the fence. And when they picked him up, and put him over the fence, she had the heavy part, I reckon, or something, and she felt a pain, a sharp pain, and so then she started spitting blood. Down in the country, they ain’t had no doctor or nothing, they just thought she was gon be all right. And I don’t think they even took her to the doctor. Well, she would have had to go to Goldsboro or Mount Olive, one, and doctors was scarce at that time, too, even if it was where you had to go a long ways to get them. Or go to a hospital and stay. And so she died. She didn’t never get over it. You never know what you’ll come to.

“But I don’t remember ever staying down there. ‘Cause they brought me up to Wilson to live with Mama and Papa [Sarah and Jesse Jacobs]. I stayed with them after Bessie died. I don’t remember Bessie. But my sister Mamie says she remembers her.”

At left, the only known photograph of Bessie Henderson (1891-1911). At right, a colorized version, which highlights surprising details of the backdrop. Does anyone recognize these trees and white ducks from an early twentieth-century Goldsboro or Mount Olive photography studio?

Adapted from interviews of Hattie H. Ricks by Lisa Y. Henderson, 1996 and 1998, all rights reserved; photo in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Braswell’s 19 children.

Wilson Daily Times, 2 November 1939.

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In the 1910 census of Pikeville township, Wayne County, N.C.: Isaiah Braswell, 48, farmer; wife Belia, 47; children Thomas, 20, Lena, 14, Julia, 12, Mary, 10, and Blonie, 7; and brother Marcus, 23.

On 14 March 1912, Thomas Braswell and Minnie Cox were married at Billie Smith’s place in Pikeville, Wayne County.

In the 1920 census of Nahunta township, Wilson County: farmer Thomas Braswell, 30; wife Minnie, 26; and children Sadie, 10, Missie, 9, Aira, 7, Sallie, 1, Mary, newborn, Ira, 6, Kennon [Kennell], 5, and Roland, 3.

In the 1930 census of Cross Roads township, Wilson County: farmer Thomas Braswell, 39; wife Minne, 37; and children Ira, 16, Kennen, 15, Roland, 14, Sallie, 12, Pennie, 10, Irene, 9, Hessie C., 7, Allen, 6, Hazel, 5, Bessie, 3, Leslie, 2, and William T., 10 months.

In the 1950 census of Springhill township, Wilson County: farmer Thomas Braswell, 60; wife Minnie C., 57; children Minnie, 19, Grant, 17, and Matthew, 14; and grandchildren Ira Jr., 12, Jean, 4, and Delois, 2.

Thomas Braswell died 30 March 1954 at Mercy Hospital, Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 2 October 1888 in Wayne County to Isaac Braswell and Belia Ann Coley; was married to Minnie Braswell; and worked as a farmer.

They were sold for their father’s debts.

Tarborough Southerner, 13 March 1852.

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There are levels of terribleness to this report of the sale of nine enslaved people at a Wayne County, N.C., auction.

The nine people sold were the grown or nearly grown children of an enslaved woman and a free man of color, plus four grandchildren of that couple. They were purchased by enslavers in three different counties, including Dr. Lewis J. Dortch, who lived in Stantonsburg, in what is now Wilson County but was then Edgecombe. I have not been able to discover the names of the woman and children Dr. Dortch bought.

Adam Winn was born about 1805 into a large free family of color, most likely in Duplin County, North Carolina. He was a prosperous farmer who was also a slaveowner — with devastating consequences. Wynn, who never legally married, took two white women and an enslaved African-American woman as common-law wives. His children by the former were free, but his children by the latter were, like their mother, enslaved. He lived openly with his children and, in the 1850 census of North Division, Duplin County, Adam Winn, 45, is listed with William, 13, Marshal, 11, John, 9, Woodard, 7, and Woodley Winn, 5, as well as Moses Simmons, 18. The Winn boys were his sons and, despite their census appearance, were not free.

Adam Winn was land-rich, but cash-poor, and mortgaged his property heavily. In April 1849, for example, he borrowed money from a neighbor named Benjamin Oliver and put up enslaved people Bethana, Martha, and Oliver as security, along with 133 acres of land. In the early 1850s, his financial affairs crashed down around his head, and he lost not only the nine people whose sale was reported above, but several others. Winn had mortgaged six enslaved people to secure debt to Furnifold Jernigan (who purchased a 22 year-old man at the sale above) and, after Jernigan’s death, Winn’s fight to regain them reached the North Carolina Supreme Court in William K. Lane v. Jane Bennett et al., 56 N.C. 371 (1858).

By valid will, Furnifold Jernigan had made several provisions for the disposal of his slaves.  To his wife Jane Jernigan (who later married Thomas Bennett), he left 13 people, including Bill Winn, John Winn, Simpson, and Anne. To his daughter Mary Anne Kelly, he left eight people, including Olive. He also provided for the liberation of “negroes, Dave, Tom, Morris, Lila and Mary” and their transport to a free state and directed that ten additional enslaved people be sold. John A. Green and William K. Lane were named executors.

Before Jernigan’s legacies were distributed, Adam Winn filed suit to recover John Winn, Bill Winn, Simpson, Anne, Olive, and Dave, claiming that (1) he had mortgaged the slaves to Jernigan to secure payment of money Jernigan loaned him, and (2) he had a judgment attesting that he had repaid the money, and the slaves had been reconveyed to him.

The executors filed a “bill” with the court seeking guidance on the will’s provisions.  Jane Bennett and Mary Anne Kelly claimed the full value of the slaves bequeathed to them or, in the alternative, the amount paid by Winn to redeem them.  The court found that each was entitled to the amount of the redemption. (And Dave, having been redeemed by Winn and returned to slavery, lost the freedom Jernigan  intended for him.)

[Do not mistake Jernigan for a benevolent man. In 1834, Furnifold Jernigan and David Cole were charged in Wayne County Superior Court with taking Kilby O’Quinn, a free boy of color, from Wayne to Bladen County for “their own use.” In 1837, Jernigan was indicted for selling Betsy Dinkins, the free “colored” daughter of a white woman. In the three years between, Jernigan and at least four co-defendants appeared on the Wayne County docket ten times on charges of selling free negroes, but never vent to trial. Despite Jernigan’s notoriety (he had fourteen other unrelated court appearances in the same period,) the state’s solicitor in the Dinkins case was compelled to complain to the judge that “the defendant by the influence of several men of standing … has … so many of the Court yard, in his favor, that it would be a mere mockery to enter upon this trial in Wayne.” The case was ordered removed to Greene County, but never appeared on the docket there. In 1850, Jernigan, still living in Wayne County, owned $5000 in farmland and 43 slaves.]

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In the 1850 census of Edgecombe County, N.C.: Dr. L.J. Dortch, 32, physician, and L.H. Moye, 32.

In the 1850 slave schedule of Edgecombe County, L.J. Dortch is listed with 8 enslaved people — women and girls aged 35, 32, 29, 11, and 1 month, and boys aged 11, 6, and 4.

Lewis Jackson Dortch died 28 October 1854 in Stantonsburg. More about him later.

Deed Book 21, page 215, Duplin County Register of Deeds; Minutes of the Superior Court of Wayne County, Spring Term, 1834, and Minutes of the Superior Court of Wayne County, Spring Term, 1837, Records of Wayne County, North Carolina State Archives; State Docket, Superior Court of Wayne County, vol. 1, 1834-1843, Records of Wayne County, NCSA;Petition from Edward Banly to Superior Court, April 6, 1837, Box 4, Records Concerning Slaves and Free Persons of Color, Records of Wayne County, NCSA.