Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Photographs

Family cemeteries, no. 8: The Nicholsons.

The map was not entirely clear, but the graveyard was definitely on Barnards Mill Road, which branched off Harmony Highway somewhere above Hunting Creek. Though morning, the sky was dark with impending rain. I kept an eye on the left side of the road. A bridge over the creek … an unmarked road … “Bridge Out.” Wait, wasn’t the cemetery by a bridge? I backtracked and turned off the highway. After a half-mile or so, the blocked bridge and a path, marked No Trespassing, leading into the woods. I am not a fool. I trotted up to the closest house and knocked. A middle-aged woman peered through a window, then motioned me around to the side door. “I’m looking for a cemetery near here. Welch-Nicholson.” She gestured behind me and smiled. Up the hill across the road, a low stacked-stone wall inset with a simple iron gate surrounded the remains of a hundred years of Nicholsons.

My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather James Nicholson bought a mill on the creek in the late 1820s and probably established the graveyard. His father, Revolutionary War veteran John Stockton Nicholson, who was born 1757 in Princeton, New Jersey, and migrated to North Carolina circa 1800, is buried Muddy Creek Friends cemetery, Kernersville, North Carolina. He died in 1838.

John was married twice, to Mary McComb, then Catherine Anne “Caty” Stevenson. Mary bore one son, the James Nicholson above. Caty bore ten, including John S. Nicholson Jr. Mary McComb Nicholson is buried near John Jr., whose stone is shown above. Caty is buried at Muddy Creek.

James Nicholson married Mary Allison in 1815; their children were Thomas Allison Nicholson and John McComb Nicholson. Thomas A. Nicholson married his first cousin Rebecca Clampett Nicholson, daughter of John S. Nicholson Jr. and Mary Fultz.

Thomas Nicholson’s broken gravestone is propped next to that of Rebecca.

Thomas and Rebecca’s oldest child James Lee Nicholson, my great-great-great-grandfather, is also buried here. He died a few weeks short of his 30th birthday in 1871.

Photos taken by Lisa Y. Henderson in December 2013.

Births Deaths Marriages, Free People of Color, Land, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin, Photographs

A lot in Negro Town.

This convoluted case involves a dispute between two parties claiming title to a lot that once belonged to Needham Kennedy, Mathew W. Aldridge’s father-in-law. The ins and outs of the lawsuit are difficult to extract from the decision and, in any case, are not the most interesting aspects of the matter for me. Rather, my focus is on the evidence of relationships among Kennedy’s children (and their spouses) and the light shed on the affairs of a family that had quickly accumulated property post-slavery.

There is astoundingly little in conventional records about Needham Kennedy. I assume he was native to Wayne County, perhaps the former slave of one of several Kennedy families in the area. However, to my confusion and dismay, I have found neither him nor his family in any census records prior to 1900. Where were these landowners???

All the more important, then, is the personal information that can be gleaned from the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision in Bradford v. Bank of Warsaw, 182 N.C. 225 (1921). The main opinion in the case gives some information, but the fullest, clearest details are set forth in a dissenting opinion. A distillation of it all:

Needham Kennedy bought a lot measuring 42 feet by 210 feet in “’Negro Town,’ a suburb of Goldsboro,” on 12 January 1870 and registered his deed six years later. He also owned other property. Needham died intestate about 1898, leaving five children – Fannie Kennedy Aldridge, Ida Kennedy Darden, Bryant Kennedy, William Kennedy, and Levi Kennedy – and a wife, the children’s stepmother, who died in 1908. (Their birth mother was named Patience, maiden name possibly Kennedy.) After the stepmother’s death, the children arranged to divide the property so that William and Bryant, who lived in New Jersey, would receive cash and their sisters and Levi would divide the land. Ida was to get the contested lot (A); Fannie, lot B; and Levi, lot C.

In 1909 and 1910, William, Bryant and Levi conveyed their interest in A to Ida. The deeds from William and Bryant were not recorded until 1921, and Levi’s was lost and never recorded. On 21 March 1910, at lawyer A.C. Davis’ office, Fannie Aldridge and husband Mathew conveyed her interest in A to Ida and her interest in C to Levi. Levi and wife and Ida Darden and her husband John conveyed their interest in B to Mathew Aldridge. These deeds were immediately probated, and Fannie, Ida and Levi took possession of their respective lots. (Levi later sold his.)

To secure a sum of money that Ida owed Mathew, Ida gave him a mortgage on A dated 22 March 1910, which was recorded that day. Ida had received rents from A since her stepmother’s death and continued to do so until 20 May 1912. On that day, Mathew Aldridge sold the mortgaged property to Captain A.J. Brown, who recorded the deed on 11 June 1912.

Captain Brown, and later his heirs, received rents from A from the date of purchase until 27 March 1915. On that day, the heirs sold the lot to defendant Bank of Warsaw, which recorded its deed on 1 May 1916. The bank then began to receive rents.

In the meantime, on 14 July 1916, William, Bryant and Levi Kennedy conveyed their undivided 3/5 interest in lot A to J.J. Ham. The deeds were registered 24 August 1916. On 17 October 1917, Ham conveyed his interest in the lot to N.E. Bradford, who registered the deed 24 October 1917. Thus, both Bradford and the Bank claimed interests in the title to A on the basis of deeds executed by various heirs of Needham Kennedy.

My year of property law class is far behind me, and I won’t attempt to untangle the dense reasoning set forth in the majority opinion in this matter. Suffice it to say, the Bank of Warsaw lost its appeal.

——

Fannie’s husband Mathew W. Aldridge, brother of my great-great-grandfather John, died in 1920. Seven months later, Fannie married W.D. Farmer. (What’s the story there?) I have not found her death certificate.

Eliza Balkcum Aldridge and her daughter-in-law, Fannie Kennedy Aldridge, circa 1920.

Levi Kennedy died 6 February 1940 in Goldsboro. His death certificate notes that he lived at 310 W. Pine Street, that he was a clothing merchant, and that he was married to Anna Kennedy. He was born in 1875 in Goldsboro, and his parents were listed as Needham and Patience Kennedy. He is buried in Elmwood cemetery.

Ida Kennedy Darden Lamb died 18 December 1954 in Goldsboro. She was a widow and resided at 305 West Elm Street. She was born 18 March 1874 to “Needman” and Patience Kennedy.

I’ve been unable to trace William and Bryant Kennedy in New Jersey.

Free People of Color, Migration, Newspaper Articles

Rubbing a little too close.

Logansport Pharos Times, 8 January 1903.

Montraville (or Montreville) Simmons was, of course, the irascible husband of Anna J. Henderson Simmons. After many years in Ontario, the family settled in rural Cass County, Indiana, near the community of Kenneth. Not far away was an African-American settlement dating back to the mid-1800s, when southern free people of color began migrating to the Midwest. The Bassett family, originally from North Carolina, anchored that community, and two of Annie and Montraville’s daughters married into the family.

Montraville, occasionally his sons Dock and Edward, Annie (once), and Montraville’s second wife Eliza (often and dramatically) popped up in the pages of nearby Logansport’s newspaper much more regularly than one might expect. He had a penchant for clashing with his neighbors, for lawsuits, and for violence, and local reporters gleefully recounted his mayhem and mishaps.

Free People of Color, Land, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Rights

A win for Uncle Mathew.

Goldsboro Headlight, 5 March 1890.

I don’t know why Matthew W. Aldridge sued Calvin Foy, but I’ll try to find out next time I’m in Raleigh. “Little Washington” was a black neighborhood south of Pine Street and west of Virginia Street, just outside Goldsboro city limits. The community was largely lost to urban renewal projects.

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Oral History, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Remembering Mother Dear.

I had pneumonia twice. The first day I went down to Graded School, that day it rained. I come back – there was a hole in my shoe, and I slopped in all the water and got my feet wet. That’s what Mama said, anyhow, and I taken with a fever.

If I got wet – when I went to Graded School, it rained, and I slopped in all the water coming back from there. Had a hole in my shoe. Had pasteboard in there. And then I’d go to sneezing and coughing. And so Mama said, “You know you oughtn not to got wet!” Well, how was I gon help from getting wet? Had to come from school! So that was the first year I went to school. I remember that. And I was sick that whole rest of the year. I mean, wasn’t strong enough to go down to Graded School – she wouldn’t let me go down there. So I stayed home, and Mama put all them old rags, that old flannel cloth, and she’d put it in red onions and hog lard. And I had pneumonia. And they was sitting up with me. Said I hadn’t spoken in three days. And so that old clock where Annie Bell took, it was up there on the mantel, it struck two o’clock. Mama was sitting on one side of the stove, and Papa on the other. So I said, when the clock struck, I said, “It’s two o’clock, ain’t it, Mama?” And they thought I was dying. So they had been sitting up with me. So I think didn’t think nothing ‘bout it. I went on back to sleep. I didn’t know nothing ‘bout it. Said I had double pneumonia. So Mama got – honey, I had to wear a piece of cloth up here on my chest, one on the back, with Vick’s salve and hog grease or whatever that stuff was, mixed all up together and pinned it to my undershirt.

And I thought about it, with Bessie dead — she died when I was eight months old. And Mama Sarah took me as a baby and brought me to Wilson. And I was the only child there. Well, that’s how come, look like Papa, he felt sorry for me, I reckon. Her husband did, and I called him the only Papa I knew. So they all – I was always sickly and puny and: “Give her anything she wanted,” that’s what Dr. Williams – white doctor – so he said, “She can’t live nohow.” And that’s when I had the pneumonia. And so I didn’t want nothing but water. So, “Well, give her all the water she want ‘cause she can’t live nohow.” But I fooled ‘em! Dr. Williams’ gone, Mama’s gone, all of ‘em, and I’m sitting right here!”

The mantel at 303 Elba Street, 2014.

And for most of my life, she was right there indeed. Every summer, when we drove up from North Carolina to spend a week with her in Philadelphia. Every winter, when she came down to spend the holidays with us and my aunt’s family and her sister. Later, when I was in law school and grad school, I spent my breaks with her, and I even lived with her a short bit when I moved to Philadelphia. I will regret till I’m gone that I did not visit her more often after I left, but when I did I had the good sense to record her stories. Her death was my first real loss, the one that broke the spell, and it pangs me almost as much now as it ever did. I miss this woman.

Remembering Hattie Mae Henderson Ricks (6 June 1910-15 January 2001), my Mother Dear.

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Migration, North Carolina, Oral History, Photographs

Minnie Beulah McNeely Hargrove.

But there was Aunt Minnie, and then after Aunt Lethea died, Aunt Lethea told her to take care of me, and she just took me on, you know. And she was always crazy about me. The first percale sheets that I ever had Aunt Minnie sent them to me, and I never bought anything but percale sheets. Boy, they were just so luxurious and so nice and everything.

Jay stayed with Aunt Min ‘cause Aunt Min reared him after Aunt Lethea died. And he was at this same house with Aunt Minnie and Grandma. Let’s see. It was Aunt Min and Grandma and Uncle Luther and Jay and I. We were all in the same house during the summer that I worked up there.

Ardeanur. And she had a brother named James. And their mother died when they were little children, and Min reared them. Reared the children.

——

Aunt Minnie, who had no children of her own, reared everyone’s. When her sister Addie McNeely Smith died in 1917, Minnie took responsibility for her children, Ardeanur and James. When sister Elethea McNeely Weaver died five years later, Minnie stepped in to care for her youngest boy, 11 year-old Irving “Jay” Weaver, and promised to keep an eye on Lethea’s favorite niece, my grandmother.

Aunt Min shared a home with her mother Martha Miller McNeely in Bayonne, New Jersey, and after her mother’s death, she and Ardeanur moved to Columbus, Ohio, to live near another sister, Janie McNeely Taylor. She was in her fifties when she defied her disapproving family and married John Hargrove. He did not live long to plague her, though, and in a reversal of roles, she spent her last years with Ardeanur. Minnie Beulah McNeely Hargrove died 2 December 1982 in Columbus. She was 93 years old.

Above: Minnie hovering behind her flock. From left, a Murphy boy, Bertha Hart Murdock, Bertha’s cousin Alonzo Lord, Aunt Minnie, and Ardeanur Hart Smith, Statesville, circa 1920.

Minnie in Bayonne, perhaps the late 1920s.

Minnie in later years, Columbus, Ohio.

Aunt Min marries John Hargrove, Columbus, early 1950s.

Minnie McNeely Hargrove at the 1980 Colvert-McNeely family reunion, Newport News, Virginia. I was not there. At the time, I was too callow to know what I was missing. Today, I kick myself. I never met her.

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs, Religion

Family cemeteries, no. 7: Turner Swamp Primitive Baptist Church.

Rev. Jonah Williams once led the flock at Turner Swamp, and its cemetery is full of kin.

There’s Richard Artis (whose father Richard was Jonah’s — and my great-great-great-grandfather Adam Artis‘ — brother) and his wife, Penny Coley Artis …

… Richard’s brother John Henry Artis (1896-1963) and sister Emma Artis Reid (1877-1964) …

… and several of Richard and Penny’s children, including Alfonza Artis (1908-1948), C. Columbus Artis (1910-1985), Louis D. Artis (1916-1983), Jonah Artis (1918-1966) and Jesse L. Artis (1919-1960) …

… and Magnolia Artis Reid (1871-1939), daughter of Richard and Jonah’s sister Loumiza Artis Artis (wife of Thomas Artis, no kin);

… and descendants of Adam, Richard, Jonah and Loumiza’s sister Zilpha Artis Wilson, wife of John Wilson, including her daughter Elizabeth Wilson Reid‘s children Milton C. Reid (1890-1961) and Iantha Reid Braswell (1893-1955) …

… Nora Artis Reid (1894-1965), who was married to her cousin Milton Reid and was the daughter of Adam Artis’ son Noah Artis, and …

… even Wade Ashley Locus (1897-1945), a distant Seaberry relative of Adam’s wife Frances Seaberry Artis.

Photos taken by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2013.

DNA, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

DNAnigma, no. 13: high-school classmates?

Over the weekend, I did one of my infrequent checks for matches at Ancestry DNA. I found a new match to C.B., an estimated 5th-8th cousin. Heaving a sigh, I idly checked his family tree — and immediately recognized many of his surnames as common to Wilson County, my birthplace. I looked a little more closely at his profile, and … I’ll be damned. His daughter was my high school classmate! How in the world are we connected?

M.W. is the second Beddingfield High School grad that I’ve matched in Ancestry or 23andme. The other was a classmate of my sister. I have no clue how we match M.R. either.

I can assume the C.B. match is on my father’s side, as is M.R. I also assume that it is through an Anglo ancestor. What throws me is that I don’t know of any white ancestors from Wilson County or northern Wayne or southern Edgecombe Counties, from which Wilson was created. Clearly, I have one, or some, though, as these and a couple of other Wilson County matches attest. The most likely conduit is through my Artis-Seaberry-Hagans, who had obvious Euro ancestry about which I know nothing and who lived in northern Wayne County.

An initial exchange of messages with M.R. has fallen silent, but I’m hoping a collabo with M.W. will get me somewhere.

Births Deaths Marriages, Free People of Color, Migration, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

Misinformation Monday, no. 5.

The fifth in a series of posts revealing the fallability of records, even “official” ones.

——

What’s right with this death certificate? Annie Simmons‘ name — more or less, as she seems to have been called Anna in her youth. Presumably, her date and place of death. Her birthday may be right, though the birth year is probably three or four years late. She was certainly female.

But she was not white.

Annie Simmons was mixed-race, described as “mulatto” in early life and “colored” (and even “African”) thereafter. She is consistently classified in census records in two states (North Carolina and Indiana) and a province (Ontario), as well as her marriage license. The local newspaper avidly carried news of her husband Montraville Simmons’ antics and was quick to point out his non-white status. (She was certainly married, if unhappily.)

(By the way, Basedow’s disease is more commonly known as Graves’ disease, or hyperthyroidism.)

Annie was probably 54, rather than 50, and she was certainly born in North Carolina, but not to “James Harrison” and “Eliza Henderson.” Rather, as is clearly set forth in her application for a marriage license in Duplin County NC, her parents were James Henderson and Eliza Armwood. Montraville Simmons probably had not seen his in-laws in more than 40 years when he gave this information. His errors are perhaps excusable, but there they are, enshrined as “fact” and forever leading researchers astray.

Maternal Kin, Migration, North Carolina, Oral History

Finally they just trickled on.

Me: When did your aunts and uncles that moved to Ohio — when did they move? And who was the first one to go. Why did they pick Ohio?

My grandmother: Well, Mama had a sister named Janie, and she had three children by this man. And he didn’t even –

Me [unfortunately, interrupting *sigh*]: That was J.T. and Charles and —

My grandmother: No, no, no, no, no. That was –

Me: Oh, Willa and them. Okay. Yeah.

My grandmother: Mm-hmm. And he went to Columbus, Ohio, and he would want them to come, but they didn’t ever go. So finally my Aunt Min and my cousin moved to Ohio — Columbus. And my Aunt Dot and her family just trickled on.

Me: Okay. So Aunt Min and who?

My grandmother: Ardeanur.

Me: Ardeanur. Okay.

My grandmother: Ardeanur. And she had a brother named James. And their mother died when they were little children, and Min reared them. Reared the children. So anyway after they went to Ohio, after she went, after Aunt Dot went to Ohio, I think. Ardeanur and Aunt Min lived in Jersey City. But they moved out there.

Me: Okay. So that’s how everybody wound up in Columbus.

My grandmother: Columbus, Ohio.

——

Janie C. “Dot” McNeely, born 1894, was the youngest of the McNeely sisters. I’m not sure who the man who moved to Ohio is, but he probably was James M. Taylor, whom she married in 1923 shortly before their son Carl was born. (They’d had a daughter, Willa Louise, in 1918 and had a second son in 1925. Janie and her children (including older daughters Sarah and Frances) appear in Statesville in the 1930 census without James Taylor.

It’s still not clear to me when the McNeelys moved to Ohio. My grandmother’s statements about who went first seem to conflict, but I am fairly certain that she meant to say that Janie and her children were there before Minnie and Ardeanur. Minnie and Ardeanur were in Bayonne, New Jersey, before 1930, when Janie was still in Statesville. However, because all of them — wherever they were — seem to have been omitted from the 1940 census, it’s difficult to guess when the move to Ohio took place.

Unfortunately, the Ohio branch of the McNeelys is now largely unknown to my family. Janie’s daughter Willa may still be living, but last we heard was fighting Alzheimer’s. Few of Janie’s children had children, maybe only one, and links to them have been lost.

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Monthly Archives: January 2014