Monthly Archives: August 2014

North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

A reckoning. And recommendation.

I know I have a romantic view of old East Wilson (old, as in before it was ravaged by the crack trade), and though I know that’s attributable to my very safe and happy childhood there, I am reminded of just how shallow my rosy recollection is. One of my cousins, 20 years older than I, has just published a memoir. The early pages of Sherrod Village are set on streets I walked and peopled by folks I knew in East Wilson. Barbara Williams Lewis’ grandmother was my great-great-grandmother’s sister; they were two of the “innumerable” children of Adam T. Artis. (Her mother, in fact, is who described them to me that way.) I thought I would recognize so much in Barbara’s book. But I didn’t.
Children are shielded from so much ugliness (if they’re lucky) and understand so little of what they see. The ragged pasts of sweet old people are not always apparent in their mild presents. Nonetheless, I had believed that my truth was true. I had, perhaps, counted on it. I’d thought that I’d viewed East Wilson as a palimpsest. Instead, though my family’s story there involved poverty and insecurity and pain, I processed little beyond the surface of my own memories of crepe myrtles, corner stores and swimming lessons at Reid Street Center. I knew the history of the place, but not the lives of its people. Fifteen pages into Sherrod Village, I wrote to Barbara that I was “staggered.” I finished the book in the same state of astonishment. I HAD NO IDEA, I told her. No idea. And I thanked her.
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Births Deaths Marriages, Business, Land, Maternal Kin, Other Documents

How the matter stands about the mill property.

From the Nicholson family file in the local history room at the Iredell County Public Library in Statesville, this letter:

Nicholson’s Mills N.C.

March 4th 1886

Wesley J. Smith & Mary J. Smith

Dear Children we received Your letter of the 4 of Feb and was much rejoiced to hear that You had another fine son and all was doing well, but alas the last mail brough us another letter that give us the painful news that you had met with the sad misfortune to loss the child well my dear children greav not for the child it is gone to a far better state of existance and altho You can not call it back You can go to it where parting will be no more for ever in the sweet groves of bliss.  You wished to know how the matter stands about the mill property I can only say that Anderson Obtained Judgement against me at the last Court at Statesville and it will not be sold in a Short time but I do not know when as he has not Advertised Yet but it will not be long if I do not raise the money and there does not seem to be any Chance to do that.  James A. Barnard has been trying to sell his property ever since las fall so that he could buy mine but he has not met with the chance to do it Yet and I fear he will not find any one to buy his and if he dose not mine will have to go and it will go for nearly nothing.  but I can not help it unless some one would come to my help.  Watsons & family are all well except bad colds Barnard & family are in tolerble health only the baba it is not well nor has not been since xhrismast Wesley’s folks were well when he heard last but that is a month ago.  Sandford Reeces children have the hoopen cough very bad and they have lost little Mattie she died last Sunday morning was a week and they buried her ar Flatrock on monday following Cynthia May had been sick about four months and she died the first of Feb.  Old Miles was sick about two weeks and died the last day of January Jacks wife died the day before christmast.  I am no better off with my rhumatisam but get more and more helpless all the time.  Mama is very poorly at this time with cold but the most of the time she is tolerbly stout for one of her age we can not tell when we can go to see you we are feeble and the weather & the roads are bad,  You must come and see us when You can.

Your Affectionat father & mother     T.A. Nicholson  R.C. Nicholson

——
Two months later, Thomas Allison Nicholson was dead. The “mill property” — a cotton factory he had announced so confidently in newspapers —
Rec__amp__Landmark_11_25_1881_cotton_factory
Statesville Record & Landmark, 25 November 1881.
— had been in foreclosure for years.
Nicholson had tried to sell other property to raise cash:
Rec__amp__Lndmark_1_15_1884_Nich_Mill_land_sale
Statesville Record & Landmark, 15 January 1884.
And his creditors had tried repeatedly to unload the factory:
Rec_and_Landmark_4_17_1885_Nicholson_sale
Statesville Record & Landmark, 17 April 1885.
But nothing worked. Thomas Nicholson died with this burden, and soon after, his son’s father-in-law, William I. Colvert, administrator of the estate, announced the liquidation of the cotton factory’s machinery.
WS_Western_Sentinel_12_9_1886_T_Nicholson_sale
Winston-Salem Western Sentinel, 9 December 1886.
The loss of the mill property by no means impoverished the Nicholsons, despite the plaintive tone of Thomas’ letter. When his widow died in 1903, her estate included three large parcels of land on Hunting Creek.
Record_and_Landmark_11_17_1903_RC_Nicholson_sale
Statesville Record & Landmark, 17 November 1903.
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Births Deaths Marriages, Civil War, Enslaved People, Maternal Kin, Virginia

The Allens.

My cousin is the fourth man in this family to bear his name, and those four generations of Johns are the exact measure of my Allen lineage. When Graham Allen married Mary Brown in Charles City County, Virginia, on 22 June 1876, she was six months pregnant with a white man’s child. We know nothing of the circumstances of conception, and nothing of the man’s identity beyond the Y-haplotype — R1b1b2a1a1 — that my uncles and cousins carry. [Update: I have identified John C. Allen‘s father.] Graham adopted Mary’s baby boy at birth, gave him his name, and reared him, as far as we know, with no distinction from their later children. So. We are Allens.

Graham Allen was born about 1852 in Prince George County, Virginia. His first marriage records lists his parents as Mansfield and Susan Allen. His second, as Edmund and Susan Allen. I have found no other trace of Edmund/Mansfield. However, in the 1870 census of Brandon, Prince George County, laundress Susan Allen, 50, and sons Alexander, 20, and Graham Allen, 17, appear in #14, the household of Anthony Shackleford, 26, farmer; wife Fannie, 24; and son Willie, 1. Also living in the house was Mary Hill, 23. I don’t know if the Allens, Shacklefords and Hill were related, or if they were related to two households of Allens listed nearby: #16, Harry Allen, 47, wife Abba, 43, Richard, 19, Augustin, 17, Assia, 13, Robert, 9, and Mary, 6; and #20, Joseph Allen, 42, wife Lucy, 37, and children Mildred, 8, Joseph, 6, and Willie, 1. However, an intriguing Freedmen’s Bureau document links those Allens and the Shacklefords:

record-image-22 copy

record-image-23 copy

“I have the honor to request transportation for the following named persons to their former homes, and to find employment,” wrote Samuel C. Armstrong, Superintendent of the Freedmen’s Bureau 1st District (and founder of Hampton Institute, which educated a dozen Allens between 1927 and the present.) Among those to be transported, Harry and Abbie Allen and their children and Anthony and Fanny Shackleford. City Point, in Prince George County, had been headquarters of the Union Army during the siege of Petersburg in the Civil War. The Allens and Shacklefords likely were refugees, so-called “contraband,” who fled their owners during the war to join a large camp near Fort Monroe. (For recent news of archaeological digs at the former Grand Contraband Camp in Hampton, see here.) Though none has surfaced to date, I will continue to look for links between these families and Edmund or Susan Allen.

Other than Graham and Mary’s marriage license, I have no other record of the family in the 1870s. (An Alexander Allen married Mary Wallace on 15 February 1872 in Charles City County. This Alexander was 30 years old and the son of James and Sophia Allen. Thus, he is not Graham’s brother.)

In the 1880 census of Harrison, Charles City County, 26 year-old farm laborer Gram Allen’s household includes wife Mary and children Nannie, 5, John, 3, and Emma, 1. I suspect that Nannie was Mary’s child by a previous relationship, but I don’t know. In the next few years, Mary gave birth to a son Willie, who died of burns in October 1885. (Graham Allen, who provided information, is listed on the boy’s death certificate as father, but the mother’s name is given as Sarah. A misunderstanding? A mistranscription? And “outside” child?) A month later, Mary gave birth to Alexander Allen.  Two years later, in December 1887, Graham Allen reported the death of Mary Allen, age 30. Graham’s relationship to the deceased was not stated, but this was not his wife. In 1892,  Mary Brown Allen gave birth to her last child, son Edward Noble Allen.  In 1896 and 1899, daughter Emma Allen gave birth to sons Milton and Junius Allen in Charles City County. I do not know their fathers.

On 18 Aug 1898, at Charles City County Courthouse, Graham Allen filed a deed for the purchase of two parcels on Hyde Road, one 12 acres and the other 2 3/4 acres, from A.H. Drewry et ux.  A plat filed with the deed shows a roughly trapezoidal lot 2 1/2 miles from Rolands Mill, surrounded by the land of Sarah Jones, Edward Jones, Frank Martin, and Peter Jefferson.

In the 1900 census of Harrison, Charles City County, Graham Allen is listed with wife Mary, sons Alexander and Edward, and grandsons Milton and Junius.  (I believe they were Emma Allen’s sons.) Mary was illiterate, but Graham could read and write.  Mary reported 4 of 8 children living. (John, Emma, Alex and Ed, living; Nannie, Willie and who, dead?) As detailed here, John had moved to the city by the late 1890s and married Mary Agnes Holmes in 1899.

On 3 Apr 1901, Emma Allen, 22, married widowed laborer Stephen Whorley [Whirley], 32, son of Stephen and Patsy Whorley.  W.E. Carter performed the ceremony at Graham Allen’s residence.

On 11 March 1902, at Charles City County Courthouse, Graham Allen filed a deed (book 17, page 437) for the purchase for $16 of 2 3/4 acres in the Grafton tract from Mary Harrison Drewry. The sale was made 27 Feb 1902, and the tract was located 4 miles northwest of Drewry’s Mill. Two years later, he filed a deed or the purchase of 4 1/2 acres in Turkey Trot from M.E. and W.E. Stagg and in 1909 filed another (book 20, page 165) for the purchase for $12 of 2 1/4 acres in the Bishops tract, west of Old Hyde Road in Turkey Trot, bordered on the east by Graham ‘s own land and True Reformers and on west by Peter, James B. and Elvina Jefferson and M.E. Stagg.

In the 1910 census of Harrison, Charles City County, on River Road, farmer Graham Allen is listed with wife Mary and son Edward. (Where were Milton and Junius?)  Mary reported 4 of 9 children living. (Eight children, or nine?) Also on River Road, farmer Steaven Whirley, wife Emma, and children Royal, John, Samuel, and Graham.  Royal and John were Stephen’s children by a previous wife, and the family lived next to Samuel and Mary E. Whirley, Stephen’s brother and sister-in-law. (River Road is now State Route 5, or John Tyler Memorial Highway.)

Mary Brown Allen died 1 Apr 1916, aged 67 in Harrison township, Charles City County.  Her death certificate reports that she was born in Amelia County, Virginia, to James Brown and Catherine Booker, both born in Virginia. She was buried 2 Apr 1916, and Junius Allen of Roxbury was informant for the certificate.

On 22 Nov 1917, in Roxbury, the widower Graham Allen, 58, widow, born Prince George County, resident of Charles City County, son of Edmund and Susan Allen, married Lenner Charles, 32, born Charles City County to William and Lucy Charles. The couple appear in the 1920 census of Harrison, Charles City County on Kemmiges Road with a five year-old daughter named Sallie. (Was she Graham’s child?)

John, Edward, Milton and Junius Allen registered for the World War I draft:

  • JOHN CHRISTFUL ALLEN.  Born 25 Dec 1876.  Resided 2107 Marshall Avenue, Newport News VA.  Laborer, Hampton Roads Stev. Co.  Nearest relative, Mary Holmes Allen (wife).  Medium height, stout build.  Brown eyes, grey hair.  (Signed “John Christful Allen” in the same hand as rest of the card.  A duplicate card shows the signature in a different hand, presumably John’s, as “John Christopher Allen.”)
  • EDWARD NOBLE ALLEN.  Born 17 May 1888, Charles City County VA.  Resided 6724 1/2 – 24th Street, Newport News VA.  Laborer, C&O Railway, Newport News.  Supports father.  Medium height and weight.  Brown eyes, black hair.  “Three fingers missing on right hand.”
  • MILTON ALLEN. Born 22 Nov 1895, Roxboro, Charles City County VA. Resides 318 N. 18th Street, Richmond VA. Laborer for Clarence Cosby, Richmond VA. Single. Signed Milton Allen. Registered 5 June 1917. Also,
  • MILTON ALLEN.  Born 20 Aug 1896, Richmond VA.  Resides 1011 N. Lafountaine, Kokomo, Ind.  Employed by Willis White, Kokomo, Ind., USA.  Nearest relative, Ed Allen, address “don’t know.”  Tall and stout.  Black eyes and hair.  Signed with an X.  Registered 5 June 1918. (Is this the same man who registered in Richmond the year before? If not, which is the right Milton?)
  • JUNIUS ALLEN.  Born 22 Feb 1899.  Resides 1752 Ivy Ave., Newport News, Warwick VA.  Carpenter, Boyle-Robertson Co., Newport News VA.  Nearest relative, wife Margaret Allen.  Medium height and weight.  Black eyes and hair.  (He was barely literate and signed his name something like ‘Juily Allen.’)

I have not found a card for Alexander and assume he died before the war. Edward actually served; I don’t know about Milton and Junius.

In the 1920 census of Harrison, Charles City County, on Kemmiges Road, Stephen Whirley, farmer, is listed with wife Emma and children Samuel, Graham, Matilda and Susie. John and his family remained in Newport News, as did “Junnus” Allen and his wife Margaret, with brother-in-law Samuel Johnson, at 1752 Ivy Avenue. Junius worked as a transfer drayman; Samuel as a bricklayer at the shipyard. Edward may have been living and working in Washington County, New York. Milton was definitely gone. In the 1920 census of Kokomo, Howard County, Indiana, at 1011 North LaFontaine Street, there is a listing for Virginia-born Milton Allen, single, age 21, living as a roomer in a household headed by Myrtle Harston.  Milton worked as a laborer in a stove factory.

On 10 January 1928, Graham Allen died of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of about 74.  According to informant William Webb, Graham was born in Charles City County to unknown parents and left a widow, Lena Charles. He was buried at New Vine Church on 14 January 1928.

In the 1930 census of Harrison, Charles City County: Emma Whirley and daughter Susie were listed “cook-private family” in household of Eugene A. Dietrich, a German-American grocery merchant. I have not found Edward, though I believe he was living in Charles City County. Nor can I locate Milton and Junius. (There is a Junius Allen listed in Newport News city directories in the 1940s, but I am not certain they are the same man. There is also a Junius Allen listed in the 1902 directory, which definitely is not Emma’s son, so I am cautious.) At least one of Emma’s children had gone North by this time and is found with her daughter in the 1930 census of Baltimore, Maryland, living with her half-brother.  At 1314 Mulberry Street, rented for $40, are listed John W. Whirley, 31, wife Susie, 28, sister Matilda, 20, boarder Sam Bradley, 30, and niece Dorothy Whirley, 1.  John worked as a laborer in a car shop; Matilda as a laundress in a laundry; and Sam as a hospital waiter.  All were born in Virginia except Susie, who was born in South Carolina. On 24 Dec 1930, in Charles City County, Graham Whirley, 22, laborer, son of Stephen Whirley and Emma Allen, residing Roxbury, married Arnether A. Harris, 20, daughter of John A. Harris and Mary Jefferson, residing in Providence Forge. I have not found Samuel Whirley in 1930.

Edward N. Allen died 25 Jan 1933 at the Marine Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, of aortic aneurism and valvular heart disease.  Based on information he provided as a patient, Edward’s death certificate reported that he was born 17 May 1890 to Graham Allen and Mary Brown of Virginia and resided at RFD#2, Box 66, Roxbury, Virginia.  Edward was buried 30 Jan 1933 at Hampton National Cemetery, in section Fii, Site 6459-A.

In 1935, Samuel Whirley made a splash in Fredericksburg, Virginia, newspapers after being on the lam for a year on larceny and false pretense charges. It’s not clear whether this one-armed man was Emma Allen Whirley’s son, but an article noted that he had spent time in Baltimore while on the run.

In the 1940 census of Hopewell, Virginia, at 601 Maplewood Avenue, Graham Whirley, 25, a chemical plant laborer, is listed as a lodger with Andrew and Lena Joyner. There is no sign of his wife. On 21 January of that year, in Charles City County, his past behind him, Samuel Whirley, 37, born in Charles City County to Stephen Whirley and Emma Allen, residing Petersburg, married Alice Howard, 23, born Charles City County to Laura Howard. The rest of the Whirleys — Emma, Susan, Matilda — are nowhere to be found, though I know they were living. Similarly, of the Allens, I can only place John and his children.

I lose the thread of my great-grandfather’s extended family after 1940. I’ve written of my brief and unsatisfactory telephone conversation with Dorothy Whirley in 1996. She had no children, nor did Edward Allen, but it’s hard to believe that none of Graham’s sons, save John, or his grandchildren by his daughter Emma, have contemporary descendants.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Free People of Color, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Nothing could swerve him.

I felt sure that Napoleon Hagans‘ death had merited more than the brief mention I’d seen in the Goldsboro Headlight, and last night I found it:

Goldsboro_Daily_Argus__9_1_1896_N_Hagans_Obit

Goldsboro Daily Argus, 1 September 1896.

This shining eulogy was penned by Ezekiel Ezra “E.E.” Smith (1852-1933), college president, recent United States Ambassador to Liberia, and arguably the most accomplished of Wayne County’s 19th-century African American citizens. (Smith was born free in Duplin County, just to the south, but moved to Goldsboro as a young man, married a cousin of Napoleon’s daughter-in-law Lizzie Burnett Hagans, and was principal for a time of Goldsboro’s colored school.)  Side-stepping the indelicate issue of Napoleon’s parentage, E.E. painted a glowing portrait of his friend’s virtues — his hard work, his astuteness, his self-built wealth, his determination to give his children what he lacked. Napoleon’s business acumen and successes won relationships across color lines and among North Carolina’s colored elite, and E.E. listed those who took part in the funeral or had taken the time to reach out to pay respects:

  • Rev. Jonah Williams, Eureka. Jonah Williams was the elder of a Baptist church a few miles from Napoleon’s home (and a central figure in the establishment of Primitive Baptist congregations in the area) and had, like Napoleon, been involved in Republican politics. Jonah’s brother, Adam T. Artis, married Napoleon’s half-sister, Frances Seaberry.
  • Rev. Clarence Dillard, Goldsboro. Clarence Dillard, Howard University Theology ’83, came to Goldsboro as a Presbyterian minister and was principal of the colored graded school at Napoleon’s death. (It is said that he traded a teaching position at Agricultural & Mechanical College for the Colored Race [now North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University] to Napoleon’s son Henry E. Hagans for this job.) Dillard was active in Republican politics and was co-editor of a short-lived African-American newspaper in Goldsboro, The Voice.
  • J.L. Nixon, Goldsboro. John Louis Nixon (1855-1919) was co-editor and manager of The Voice and, later, secretary of the Goldsboro-based United Church Benevolent Society and a mail clerk for the United States Postal Service. He was a native of Wilmington.
  • C.D. Crooms, Goldsboro. Charles D. Crooms was a teacher and merchant.
  • Henry Williams.
  • William Chapman, Goldsboro. William Chapman (or Chatman) married Susan Burnett, mother-in-law of Napoleon’s son William S. Hagans.
  • B.H. Hogans, Goldsboro. Benjamin Harrison Hogans (1865-1926) was a teacher, a trustee of Saint James AME Zion Church and, later, a mail carrier. He was born in Orange County and came to Goldsboro as a child with his parents Haywood and Zilpha Latta Hogans.
  • E.E. Smith.
  • Mrs. W.J. Exum, Fremont. Mary Burt Alston Exum, white, was the widow of William J. Exum (1825-1885), a prominent farmer and former slaveowner in northern Wayne County. Napoleon bought land from William (and Mary, after William’s death).
  • Mr. and Mrs. J.J. Bardin, Fremont. John J. Bardin, white, was a druggist in Fremont.
  • Miss Clarisa Williams, Wilson. Clarissa Williams, Jonah Williams’ daughter, was a teacher in Wilson.
  • Mrs. E.E. Smith, Goldsboro. Willie Ann Burnett Smith, daughter of Dolly Burnett, was a cousin of Napoleon’s son William’s wife Lizzie E. Burnett. William Chapman was Willie Burnett Smith’s step-father.
  • W.H. Borden, Goldsboro. William H. Borden (1841-1905), white, was president of Goldsboro Furniture Company.
  • A.W. Curtis, Raleigh. Rev. A.W. Curtis, white, lead the Congregational Church mission in Raleigh.
  • C.D. Sauls, Snow Hill. Cain D. Sauls (1864-1938) of Greene County wore many hats — farmer, merchant, newspaper columnist, banker, justice of the peace, and all-around businessman. He was the grandson of Daniel Artis, who was a first cousin of Adam T. Artis.
  • W.H. McNeil, Greensboro. William H. McNeill was president of Suburban Investment Company of Greensboro and Piedmont Mutual Life Insurance Company. (The 18 July 1903 edition of Washington DC’s The Colored American reported that Mrs. W.H. McNeill had visited Mrs. F. Douglass at 1720 Fourteenth Street, NW.)
  • Mrs. F.A. Garrett, Greensboro.
  • J.E. Dellinger, Greensboro. J. Elmer Dellinger (1862-1920) was active in Republican politics and the development of Baptist Sunday Schools, was a physician, and taught chemistry at Agricultural & Mechanical College in Greensboro. He was also a manager of Suburban Investment Company. He was born in Lincoln County, North Carolina.
  • H.H. Faulkner, Greensboro. Henry H. Faulkner was a school principal in Greensboro.
  • Charles H. Moore, Greensboro. Moore was principal of the first graded school for African-American children in Greensboro.
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