Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

Jonah’s Jonah.

This caught me a bit by surprise.

Jonah Reid’s first wife was Magnolia “Maggie” Artis, daughter of Thomas Artis and Loumiza Artis Artis. Patrick Exum and J.D. Reid witnessed their marriage on 30 August 1892 in Wayne County. Patrick’s mother, Delilah Williams Exum, was Maggie’s late mother’s sister. (Judge James Daniel “J.D.” Reid was Jonah’s maternal uncle. He would later become a prominent school principal, bank promoter and hospital administrator in Wilson, North Carolina. Jonah and Maggie named their son Judge Daniel Reid in his honor.) Magnolia Artis Reid died of apoplexy on 1 June 1939 in Township No. 13 [Cokey], Edgecombe County. She was 68 years old.

Three months later, as shown above, Jonah Reid remarried. That’s a little surprising. So soon. At his age. But what’s really surprising is whom he named as his father. Jonah Williams?

Elder Jonah Williams?

Jonah Reid appears in the 1880 census of Nahunta, Wayne County, in the household of his widowed grandfather Wash Reid (spelled “Reed.”) Washington Reid was one of several related Reids, born free in the early 19th century, who built successful farms in the area of Turner Swamp. Several members of this family intermarried with Artises, including Isaac Reid, who married Adam T. Artis‘ daughter Ida in 1877; William Reid, who married Zilpha Artis Wilson‘s daughter Bettie in 1882; Henry Reid who married Adam Artis’ daughter Georgianna in 1883; John Gray Reid, who married Richard Artis‘ daughter Emma in 1907; and Milton C. Reid, grandson of William and Bettie, who married his cousin Nora M. Artis, granddaughter of Adam Artis, via son Noah, in 1916. Wash and Penninah Reid’s daughter Louisa gave birth to Jonah Reid about 1874. (She later married Perry Barnes.) That same year, Jonah Williams’ wife Pleasant had a daughter, named Vicey after his mother.

Jonah Reid’s first marriage license does not list his parents. (If in fact his father was the Jonah Williams, Reid was marrying his first cousin, which was not uncommon during the time.) In his second, he openly claimed Jonah Williams as his birth father. His marriage license is not proof of paternity, but does suggest a starting point for researchers in his line.

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

His name was Golar, and we called him “Doc.”

My grandmother: He had a brother that was a barber. His name was Golar, and we called him “Doc.” Papa had him in there. Papa had a chair, and Doc had the second chair, and Walker had the third chair.

Harvey Golar Tomlin was the only one of Harriet Nicholson Tomlin Hart‘s second set of children to see the twentieth century. Harriet and Abner Tomlin had as many as six children together, but I only know the names of three — Milas, Lena and Harvey Golar.

After Ab’s death about 1899, and perhaps Lena’s around that time, too, Harriet packed up her youngest son and took him to Charlotte, where they are found in the 1900 census living at 611 East Stonewall with Harriet’s half-brother William H. Nicholson. This photo may have been taken there:

They did not stay long. In 1902, Harriet gave birth to Bertha Mae Hart, whose father Alonzo she married in 1904. By 1910, Harvey Golar, called “Doc,” had left his mother and stepfather’s household and was living in the Wallacetown neighborhood of Statesville with his half-brother and family: Lon W. Colvert, a barber, wife Caroline, and children Mattie, Gola, Walker, Louise, and Margaret (my grandmother). He trained under Lon and went to work in his shop. In the photo below, which can be dated to 1917 by another taken at the same time and showing a calendar, Doc appears with Lon’s son Walker and a client.

On 11 Jan 1917, H.G. Tomlin sold a parcel of land to L.W. Colvert and wife Carrie Colvert for $10. In a deed filed at Iredell County Courthouse, the land was described as “Beginning at a stake at a post oak, Ramsour’s old corner, running North 88 W. 16 1/2 poles to a stake on road East of the track of the A.T. & O. R.R.; thence S. 8 W. 9 1/2 poles to a stake Pearson’s corner; thence S. 88 E. 16 1/2 poles to a stake; thence N. 8 E. 9 1/2 poles to the beginning, containing one acre more or less and being the identical lands conveyed by William Pearson and wife to Abb. Tomlin by deed, dated 19th day of June, 1891 and recorded in deed Book No. 17 at page 101 of the Records of Deeds of Iredell County.” Doc apparently had inherited the property from his deceased father, though I’ve found no estate file.

Doc was possibly liquidating his assets as he pulled up stakes in Iredell County. Five months later, he registered for the World War I draft in Middlesboro, Bell County, Kentucky. (Middlesboro, Kentucky? What was the pull? The push?) Though he was prime age and had no infirmities, I have no evidence that he ever served in the military.

In any case, Doc seems not to have stayed gone for long. On 7 September 1918, Harvey Golar Tomlin applied for a marriage license for himself, of Iredell County, age 24, colored, son of Ab Tomlin (dead) and Hattie Hart (living), and Flossie M. Stockton of Iredell County, age 24, colored, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Stockton, both dead. L.W. Colvert witnessed the application, and W.O. Carrington, minister of the A.M.E. Zion Church, married the parties on 8 September 1918 before L.W. Colvert, N.S. Allison, and Eugene Stockton. (Flossie was the sister of Dillard and Eugene Stockton, both of whom married Lon Colvert’s half-sister Ida Mae Colvert.)

The couple’s only child, Annie Lavaughn Tomlin, was born 9 August 1919 in Statesville. At least part of that year, however, Doc was in Louisville, Kentucky, as shown in the city’s 1919 directory:

The 1920 census shows the family in the north Statesville suburbs: Jessie Stockton, age 28; his sister Flossie Tomlin, age 25, a public school teacher; niece Anna L. Tomlin, 4 month; and brother-in-law Havey Tomlin, age 26, barber. Doc’s last-place listing in the household is telling. Was he really there? Or tacked on as an afterthought because, after all, he was Flossie’s husband?

There are clues. Both Flossie and Doc were enumerated twice in the 1920 census. On Garfield Street in Statesville, public schoolteacher Flossie Tomlin and her daughter Annie L. appear in the household of Flossie’s brother Eugene Stockton, his sister-in-law (technically, but in reality his common law wife) Ida M., and their four children. The enumerator recorded this household in January 6, 1920. Seven or eight days later, however, 200 miles away in Lynch, Harlan County, Kentucky, another censustaker recorded 26 year-old North Carolina-born barber Harvie Tomlin as a roomer in the household of barbershop manager Alex R. Simpson and his wife, Lina. Then on March 3, Flossie and Annie were recorded in Jesse’s house, above. I’d bet money that Doc was actually in Kentucky.

I don’t know where Doc spent the 1920s, but it was more likely that he drifted around the Appalachian Plateau than returned to Statesville. There are glimpses.

For example, in the 1925 Dayton, Ohio, city directory:

And then the 1926 Portsmouth, Ohio, city directory:

Doc did not stay long at the Play House. On 19 May 1927, the barbershop ran an ad in an announcement of the grand re-opening of the Play House building and its businesses. Harvey G. Tomlin is not among the barbers listed:

The 1930 census found barber Harvey Tomlin in Carnegie, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, living at 205 Broadway in the household of Sabry Goldsmith, a 35 year-old Florida-born barbershop proprietor. He was described as single.

Perhaps he was.

The 1932 city directory of Cincinnati, Ohio, shows Doc living in a boarding house on Wade Street:

However, on 6 July 1933, in Newport, Campbell County, Kentucky, Harvy G. Tomlin, 40, colored, divorced, born in North Carolina to Ab and Harriett Tomlin and a resident of “Cin. O.” married Lena R. Simpson, 49, colored, widowed, born in Kentucky to John and Elizabeth [no last name reported]. Thomas Hanly, J.P., performed the ceremony before Helen Peddiford and Helen Byers. The couple had applied for the license in neighboring Kenyon County, Kentucky. Lena Simpson, you may recall, was married to Doc’s employer and landlord at the time of the 1920 census.

The 1936 Cincinnati city directory shows Doc living in a house, presumably having found SROs unsuitable to married life:

In the 1940 census of Cincinnati, Hamilton township, in a rented two-family house at 943 Monastery Road, the census taker encountered Harvey G. Tomlin, 48, and Lena R. Tomlin, 58. Harvey apparently had put down his barbering tools and worked as a butler for a private family. The couple are erroneously described as white, and their birthplaces are reversed. (Harvey’s is listed as Kentucky; Lena’s, as North Carolina.)

Two years later, despite a negligible chance of being called up, Harvey Golar Tomlin registered for the World War II draft in Cincinnati.

The back of the card noted that he was 5’4″ tall and weighed 198 pounds and that he had brown eyes, black hair and dark skin.

The following year, Doc returned to Statesville to obtain a so-called delayed birth certificate. It was filed on 31 July 1943, showing that Harvey Golar Tomlin was born 12 May 1894 in Statesville, that his birth was attended by Dr. Long, and that his parents were Abb Tomlin, colored, born 1852 in Iredell County, and Harriet Nicholson, colored, born 1862 in Iredell County NC.

I lose sight of Doc for more than a decade until the Statesville Record & Landmark posted a brief article on 8 June 1955 mentioning that Bertha Hart Murdock had left half-interests in a lot to her brother “Harry” G. Tomlin and niece LaVaughn Schuyler.

Lena Tomlin died 17 July 1959 in Cincinnati. Doc did not grieve long for he was back in Statesville getting married six months later. In another small-world, keep-it-in-the-family moment, Doc’s third wife, Mary Bell Frink, was the widow of William Luther McNeely, whose sister Caroline married Doc’s brother Lon Colvert.

It was a short-lived union. On 8 May 1961, Harvey G. Tomlin, son of Abbe Tomlin and Harriet last-name-unknown, died in Statesville of coronary thrombosis. He had been living at 229 Garfield Street (Ida Colvert Stockton lived at 214 Garfield) and working as a butler.

I’ve been able to find very little about Doc’s only child. Social Security records indicate that Lavaughn Tomlin married a Scruggs in about 1943 and a Schuyler about 1953. She lived in Jamestown, New York, in the 1940s and died 30 May 1997 in Salisbury, North Carolina. An abstract of her death certificate reveals that she had worked as a registered nurse. She was my grandmother’s first cousin. Did she know her at all?

[Follow-up, 5 August 2015: I just found this snippet in which my grandmother mentions Doc being in the Midwest:

My grandmother: And he [her brother Walker Colvert] got a girl pregnant, and Papa sent him to Kentucky rather – so that he wouldn’t have to marry that girl.

Me: Really?

Grandma: Yes, he did.

Me: What did he do in Kentucky?

Grandma: He was a barber out there.

Me: Oh, okay.

Grandma: And I had, I had an uncle. Uncle – I don’t know if you’ve seen Doc or not. … Doc was out there. In Louisville. And he sent for Walker. And Papa sent him out there ….]

Education, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Other Documents

Signature Saturday, no. 4: Harriet Hart’s men.

Harriet Nicholson Tomlin Hart was not an educated woman. She did not lack for ambition, though, and made sure that both her sons received schooling.

The bold, instantly recognizable signature of Lon W. Colvert (1876-1930), on a marriage license:

The somewhat shakier signature of his half-brother Harvey Golar Tomlin (1894-1961):

Her last husband, Thomas Lonzo Hart (1866-1929), may have been trained as a lawyer, and his business acumen was recognized throughout his community. He had the practiced hand of a literate man and, in fact, taught Harriet how to read and write:

Land, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

Country roads, Nahunta.

This is a section of a 1904 topographical map of parts of Wilson and Wayne Counties, North Carolina. I am amazed at how much of the blueprint, so to speak, of Nahunta, is the same. More than one hundred years ago, kinfolk traveling from Wilson to Eureka or Fremont would have taken the same roads that I drive now. Today these roads are paved, but the paths they cut over branches and through fields across the countryside have otherwise changed little.

1. Turner Swamp Road runs from the crossroads at the center of Eureka northwest to dead-end at Davis Mill Road (9). Jonah Williams‘ church is on this road, and his brother Richard Artis’ family were among early members.

2. Reidtown Road arcs to connect Highway 222 and Turner Swamp Road. It is named for the community formed by the Reid family, free people of color who settled here as early as the 1830s and intermarried with Artises.

3. Napoleon Road, a spur off Reidtown Road, now cuts across Aycock Swamp to meet Davis Mill Road. It remains unpaved, and the only house standing on it is the one Napoleon Hagans built in the 1870s or ’80s. I believe the speck to the left of the road’s end on this map is Hagans’ house.

4. NC 111, which runs with NC 222 northeast to NC 58 at Stantonsburg in Wilson County.

5. NC 222.

6. Black Creek Road connects Fremont (via its Old Black Creek Road spur) and the town of Black Creek in Wilson County. (Black Creek was once the northernmost section of Wayne.) The road is called Frank Price Church Road in Wilson County.

7. Lindell Road runs from Faro Road (8), just south of Eureka, east into Greene County’s Bullhead district. Much of Adam Artis‘ land lay between NC 111 and Lindell Road.

8. Faro Road, the continuation of Turner Swamp Road, runs south from Eureka toward the unincorporated community of Faro, famous as the site where two hydrogen bombs dropped when a B-52 broke up in flight in 1961.

9. Davis Mill Road arcs from Fremont as the northernmost east-west artery across Nahunta.

Births Deaths Marriages, DNA, Maternal Kin, Virginia

Lineage no. 34.

Back in April, after I connected the dots between my great-grandfather John C. Allen Sr. and Edward C. Harrison, I ran all my information by respected genetic genealogist Angie Bush. She agreed that autosomal DNA testing indicated a very close relationship between my mother and A.B. and that triangulation pointed directly to Edward as their common great-grandfather, but recommended another test that would absolutely eliminate some other line of patrilineal descent. I asked if my uncle would be willing to submit a sample for a Y-DNA analysis, which would show if he, via his father and grandfather, descended from a male Harrison forebear. He agreed without hesitation.

Here’s how it works: The Y chromosome passes down virtually unchanged from father to son. Occasionally, mistakes (or “mutations”) occur in the copying process, and these mutations can be compared to estimate the time frame in which two men share a most recent common ancestor (“MRCA.”) If their test results are a perfect or nearly perfect match, they are related within a traceable timeframe. Per Family Tree DNA, “Paternal line DNA testing uses STR markers. STR markers are places where your genetic code has a variable number of repeated parts. STR marker values change slowly from one generation to the next. Testing multiple markers gives us distinctive result sets. These sets form signatures for a paternal lineage. We compare your set of results to those of other men in our database.”

My uncle sent in his kit in early May, and his results posted a few days ago. The first thing I looked for was FTDNA’s designation of my uncle’s Y-haplogroup. 23andme had assigned him R1b1b2a1a1, which had given me pause because I’d seen the James River Harrisons’ Y-haplogroup listed as R1b1a2. FTDNA’s designation is regarded as more authoritative than 23andme’s, however, so I was anxious to see if the apparent discrepancy remained. It does not. The James City Harrisons’ haplogroup has been updated to reflect the most up-to-date naming conventions and is now R-M269. As is my uncle’s.

I next checked his matches. My uncle took the Y-67 test, which examined markers at four levels, 1-12, 13-25, 26-37, 38-67. I had matches at each level. Upon Angie Bush’s advice, I sent emails to two of my top matches inquiring into their line of descent. I haven’t yet heard back from either of them, but that’s all right.

They are, as are five of the seven top matches, either named Harrison or Bassett:

When I referred to the Harrison Y-DNA Project, I saw that lineage #34 (James River & Presidential Harrisons) contained two kits. One (H-4) traced descent to William Henry Harrison, born 1773 in Charles City County, and the other (H-99) to William Henry Bassett, born 1795.

(An explanatory note below stated: “According to family lore, William Henry Bassett b. 1795 was raised by Elizabeth Harrison Rickman, daughter of Benjamin Harrison IV, “The Signer,” and Elizabeth Bassett. William Bassett’s Y-DNA does not match any of the other known Bassett family’s; however, his descendant has a 63/67 match to the James River Harrison line DNA … indicating that in addition to being raised by the Harrison family, William Bassett was likely the son of one of the James River Harrisons.”)

The row of numbers along the top are the STR markers described above. Men whose markers match at 62/67 (or better) share a common ancestor and are grouped into a lineage. The image above only shows 24 markers, but there are actually 67. With H-4, the Presidential line, my uncle matches 63/67. With H-99, the Bassett line, he matches 65/67! John C. Allen Sr. and his patrilineal progeny, then, are members of Lineage 34. Specifically, they descend, in reverse order, from Edward Cunningham Harrison (1847-1908), William Mortimer Harrison (1817-1865), Thomas Randolph Harrison (1791-1833), Peyton Randolph Harrison (1759-1839), Carter Henry Harrison (1729-1796) [the younger brother of Benjamin Harrison V, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and uncle of President William Henry Harrison], and Benjamin Harrison IV (1696-1744).

Half-brothers John C. Allen Sr. (1876-1953) and Hugh T. Harrison Sr. (1886-1970), sons of Edward C. Harrison.

Many thanks to all who helped solve this 138 year-old mystery — my mother, my uncle, A.B. and her sister M.H., T.N., and the expert analysis and advice of Angie Bush.

My second cousin once removed A.B. and me, May 2015.

Education, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Other Documents

Football squad.

From the 1949 yearbook of Johnson C. Smith University, the Bull:

At the end of the sixth row, my grandmother’s first cousin Army-veteran-turned-scholar Eugene Stockton Jr., son of Eugene and Ida Mae Colvert Stockton.

From the university’s 1956 yearbook, another gridiron star:

On the top row, my mother’s first cousin, No. 20, Hayden Bently “Benny” Renwick, son of Lewis C. and Louise Colvert Renwick.

Paternal Kin, Photographs

Reconnections.

Today I reconnected with two of my uncle Jesse‘s children. The youngest I have not seen since 1987. The older, probably not since the mid-1970s. The tenth anniversary of his death is two weeks and two days away. A fortuitous restoration of ties.

My uncle, Jesse A. Henderson Sr., at my grandmother’s house in Philadelphia, mid-1980s.

Free People of Color, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Greene County Artises.

By the early antebellum period, dozens of Artis families had drifted down from southern Virginia to form a large node in Wayne County. The 1840 census lists more than 40 Artis heads of household in that county. By contrast, there were never more than a handful of Artises recorded in neighboring Greene County in the antebellum era, and none at all before 1850. (This, of course, does not mean they were not there. Only that they did not qualify as heads of household.) Were the Greene County Artises an off-shoot of one of the many Wayne County Artis lines? Are they a single extended family? Were they all free prior to the Civil War? Or were some of them freedmen who adopted the surname of their free-born kin?

I’ve begun to pull together all sources of information about antebellum Artises in Greene County to try to find answers.

CENSUS RECORDS

In 1850, clustered:

at #428, Adam, 18, Jane, 17, and Charity Artess, 13, in the household of white farmer Silas Bryant. Adam, Jane and Charity were the children of Vicey Artis and her enslaved husband, Solomon Williams. They were likely apprenticed to Silas Bryant.

at #429, Vicy Artess, 40, and her children Zilpha, 22, Louis, 8, Jonah, 7, Jethro, 5, and Richard, 1. Vicey Artis with her oldest daughter and youngest children.

at #431, Sylvany Artess, 36, and children Daniel, 7, Mitchel, 5, Meriah, 4, Gui, 2, and Penny, 3 months. As detailed here, I believe Vicey and Sylvania Artis were sisters. White farmer John Lane, who likely apprenticed Sylvania’s children and enslaved their father Guy, was listed at #430.

In 1860, in Bull Head district:

at #25, James, 16, and Jetherroe Artis, 14, farmhands, with Silas Bryant. These boys appear to be Vicey’s sons Jonah and Jethro and have followed their siblings into service as Bryant’s. Vicey herself is listed a few miles over the line in Wayne County with daughter Charity and Charity’s children, an unnamed one year-old “infant” and 8 year-old son Jethro.

at #26, Dannel, 17, Mike, 13, Penney, 12, Dyner, 9, Juley, 7, and Washington Artis, 5, with John Lane. These children, of course, are Sylvania’s younger children. Sylvania (“Silvano”) herself is living next door to her sister Vicey in Wayne County with a one year-old boy named Hiram Artis.

at #27, Dannel Artis, 40. It is likely that Daniel Artis was the brother of Sylvania and Vicey Artis. His wife and children were enslaved and thus do not appear in the census. Where was he in 1850?

at #36, Mary Artis, 27, servant in the household of Richard Baker. Who is Mary Artis, and where was she in 1850?

And in Tyson’s Marsh district:

Nancy, 17, Aron, 13, Richard, 11, Calvin, 9, and Rebecker Artes, 5, in the household of G.S. Peacock. Where had the oldest children been in 1850? In 1870, Calvin Artis, 20, is a farmhand in the household of Sarah Wooten, Snow Hill township, Green County. In 1880 Snow Hill township: Richard Artis, 29, Charlotte, 24, Hattie, 3, and Jessee Artis, 1. On 9 March 1876, Calvin Artis applied for a marriage license for Richard Artis, 24, son of Isom Heath and Matilda Artis, and Charlotte Ellis, 21. Matilda was said to be living at that time. Where was she in 1850 and 1860 then?

at #161, servant Percy Artes, 25, and her children Henry C., 1, and Thomas, 5, in the household of Murrhyer Best. In 1850, Persey Artice and Rufus Artice, both 17, were listed in the household of Martin Sauls in North Side of the Neuse, Wayne County. In 1870, Snow Hill, Greene County, Prissy Artice, 35, and son Thomas, 14.

DEATH RECORDS

Margaret Artis. Died 4 March 1920, Carrs township, Greene County, North Carolina. Age 70. Widow of Ed Artis. Born Greene County to Penny Speight. Buried Carr’s Farm. Informant, Tom Speight. Not found in census or other records.

Thomas Artis. Died 30 July 1941, Bullhead township, Greene County, North Carolina. Widower of Mary Artis. Born 21 December 1853 in Wayne County to John and Leathy Artis. Buried family cemetery, by C.E. Artis. Informant, F[illegible] Exum. In the 1860 census of Davis district, Wayne County: John Artis, 39, wife Lethy, 40, and children Sarah J., 13, Zachary, 11, Millie, 9, Wm. T., 7, and Betsey Artis, 4. He was the grandson of Celia Artis.

Fillis Artis. Died 28 October 1916, Ormondsville township, Greene County, North Carolina. Married. Born 1853 in Greene County to Charity Edwards. Informant, W.H. Phillips. Phyllis Artis was not free-born, but married a man whose parents were. Phyllis Lee, age 35, daughter of Jerry Edwards and Charity Coward, married Rom Artis, 27, son of Jordan Artis and Arley [Olive] Artis, in Greene County on 11 January 1897. (Romilus was born about 1868, perhaps in Lenoir County. Census records show that his father lived in Wayne.) In the 1900 census of Contentnea township, Pitt County: Rom Artis (born 1868); wife Filliss (born 1860); four sons-in-law [stepsons?] John (1885), Allen (1886), Milton (1889) and Charley Leary (1891); son-in-law(?) William Artis (1893); daughter-in-law(?) Mande Artis (1895); and mother Ollie Artis (1840.)

Henry Artis. Died 10 January 1935 in Paris, Edgar County, Illinois. Barber. Resided 437 East Court. Born 21 March 1835, Snow Hill [Greene County], North Carolina to Louis Artis and Elizabeth Bass. Widower of Gabreil Artis. In the 1870 census of Otter Creek, Vigo County, Indiana: Lewis Artis, 39, Elizabeth, 38, Lucy A., 33, Elie, 20, Peggy, 14, Thomas, 8, John, 5, and William Artis, 4 months; the first three born in North Carolina. In the 1880 census of Charleston, Coles County, Indiana: North Carolina-born Henry Artis, 41, Ohio-born Ellen Artis, 43, and others.

CEMETERY RECORDS

Olive Artis. 1832-22 May 1904, Artis cemetery, Artis Cemetery Road, Greene County.

Phillis Artis. Wife of Rom Artis. 12 March 1861-28 October 1916, Artis cemetery, Artis Cemetery Road, Greene County. See Fillis Artis, above.

——

Agriculture, North Carolina, Other Documents

Where we worked: tobacco manufacturing.

I am maybe 12 or 13. It’s late summer, eastern North Carolina broiling summer, and I am whining to be allowed to hop on a truck at dawn and spend my days “cropping” tobacco. Some of my friends are going to do it, and it sounds like fun? My father laughs this away. No. My friends lasted a day, two days, then toppled from sun or nicotine poisoning or monstrous tobacco worms. I am still thanking him.

——

East to west, the tobacco industry dominated North Carolina’s economic life for much of the 20th century. Though I honor their memory, there is no way to list everyone in my family who raised tobacco or labored in its fields. They number in the thousands. However, here are some who worked to prepare the Golden Weed for market or manufacture, mostly in the cavernous brick warehouses and factory buildings that stretched for blocks across southeast Wilson:

Eugene Stockton, Statesville NC – husband of Ida Colvert Stockton Stockton; tobacco roller at tobacco factory, circa 1910.

Mary Barnes Jones, Wilson NC – stemmer, tobacco factory, 1910s.

Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver, Wilson NC – occasional tobacco factory worker, 1910s-1920s.

William I. Barnes, Wilson NC – husband of Madie Taylor Barnes; laborer, Export Leaf Tobacco Company, circa 1918.

Watt Kilpatrick, Winston-Salem NC – husband of Lizzie McNeely Kilpatrick Long; shape puller, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, circa 1918.

Sylvester Watson, Wilson NC – tobacco worker, circa 1920.

Elnora Artis, Norfolk VA – stemmer, tobacco factory, circa 1920.

Hattie Artis Johnson, Norfolk VA – stemmer, tobacco factory, circa 1920.

Sylvester Barnes, Wilson NC – tobacco factory worker, circa 1936.

Eliza Taylor Taylor, Wilson NC – tobacco factory worker.

Jordan T. Taylor, Wilson NC – husband of Eliza T. Taylor; tobacco warehouse worker.

James Beasley, Greensboro NC — husband of Doris Holt Beasley; P.J. Lorillard employee, 1950s-1980s.

James W. Cooper, Wilson NC – husband of A. Alberta Artis Cooper; fireman, Jas.I. Miller tobacco company, 1960s.

——

From the 1913 Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of Wilson, North Carolina.

Agriculture, Land, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Swamps and sandy loams.

This is what dirt looks like where I’m from. It is not the plush black alluvial loam of the Mississippi Delta or the thin, rock-bedeviled soil of New England. It looks, mostly, like sand. Like in this graveyard, just south of Stantonsburg, Wilson County, where some of my Hall collateral kin lie. The landscape of my childhood was level. Pine trees and flatness. Devoid, I thought, of any markers of geographical history. No boulder-strewn outcroppings, no foreboding hills, no deep-cut canyons. However, to the contrary, the most obvious relic of deep time was right under my feet.

I grew up on the western edge of North Carolina’s Coastal Plain, which was once the ocean floor. What looked like sand thrown up into the heels of my sneakers in fact was. The story wasn’t quite that simple though. I recall that patches of dirt in some places — like my parents’ back yard — are a pale gray, while others are the soft yellow of the Hall graveyard or, in veins here and there, the rusty-red of clay.

A few days ago, I found a soil survey map of Wayne County, North Carolina, dated 1916. Wayne, where my father’s mother’s people have lived since beyond memory, is just south of my home county. Seldom do I visit my parents that I don’t hop in the car for a quick dip down there. It’s a mere ten miles to the northern corner where my Artises and Haganses and Seaberrys lived, and just another 30 to get down to Dudley, where my Hendersons and Aldridges took root. What could this map, with its colorful camouflagey swirls of color, tell me about their land? The soil from which they pulled sweet potatoes and collards and the cotton and tobacco that put money in their pockets?

Here’s Nahunta, with Fremont at far left and Eureka at right. The road crossing from edge to edge is now known as Highway 222, and I have cousins that still live on it. That brownish sickle under N A H is marked S, which the key tells us is “Swamp.” Specifically, this is Aycock Swamp, upon whose banks Napoleon Hagans built his house. Another bit of S juts between U and N — that’s the tail end of Turner Swamp. And reaching in from Greene County is the swamp that envelops Watery Branch. Just below Eureka is a blob of Nv, “Norfolk very fine sandy loam.” The greenish Nf that dominates the frame is “Norfolk fine sandy loam.” This is Adam Artis territory. The pale lavender-gray that washes across the middle is plain “Norfolk sandy loam,” Nl. The only color left in the areas in which my family lived is the sliver of peach that hugs the south side of Aycock Swamp — Ps or “Portsmouth sandy loam.” What is all this?

From a very helpful PDF linked to the pittcountync.gov website: “The Norfolk series consists of well-drained, nearly level and gently sloping soils on uplands. These soils formed in Coastal Plain sediment. A seasonal high water table is below a depth of 5 feet. In a typical profile, the surface layer is dark grayish-brown and light yellowish-brown sandy loam about 10 inches thick. The subsoil is olive yellow and brownish yellow to a depth of about 84 inches. In the upper part, the subsoil is friable sandy clay loam mottled with red. In the lower part, it is friable sandy loam mottled with red and gray. Natural fertility and the content of organic matter are low, and available water capacity is medium. Permeability is moderate, and shrink-swell potential is low. In areas that have not received lime, reaction is strongly acid or very strongly acid. The Norfolk soils of Pitt County are important for farming. Slope is the major limitation to their use. Most of the acreage is cultivated or in pasture. The rest is chiefly in forest and in housing developments or other nonfarm uses. Where crops are grown, response is good to recommended applications of fertilizer and lime.” (Pitt County is on the other side of Greene from Wayne County.)

From the same source: “The Portsmouth series consists of very poorly drained, nearly level soils on stream terraces. These soils formed in alluvial sediment. A seasonal high water table is at or near the surface. In a typical profile, the surface layer is very dark gray and very dark grayish-brown loam about 15 inches thick. The subsoil is about 24 inches thick. The upper part is grayish-brown, friable sandy loam mottled with grayish brown. The lower part is grayish-brown, friable, sandy clay loam mottled with yellowish brown. Below the subsoil and extending to a depth of about 68 inches is grayish-brown and light brownish-gray sand and coarse sand. Natural fertility is low, and the content of organic matter and available water capacity are medium. Permeability is moderate, and shrink-swell potential is low. In areas that have not received lime, reaction is strongly acid or very strongly acid. The Portsmouth soils in Pitt County are of only minor importance for farming. Major limitations to their use are the seasonal high water table and frequent flooding for brief periods. Most of the acreage is in forest, and the rest is chiefly in cultivated crops or pasture. Where crops are grown they respond well to recommended applications of fertilizer and lime.”

These flat acres of mostly Norfolk series soil, then, with liberal amendment, were much better quality farmland than I would have supposed.

The same was true in Brogden township, at the other end of the county. Today’s major roads, two-lane 117 Alternate and four-lane 117, which roughly parallel the railroad to the west, did not exist in 1916. (In fact, what is now Highway 117 was cut through well into my adulthood.) The railroad is still there, though, as is the road (now called O’Berry/Sleepy Creek Road) that crossed the tracks at Dudley’s little heart. Some of the little black specks you can barely see marked my people’s houses. I know, for example, that Aldridges lived along the railroad among the little dots marked opposite COAST. And the Congregational Church cemetery was just below Yellow Swamp, the shallow branch in which my people were baptized.

The Hendersons and Aldridges and their related families, Simmonses, Wynns, Manuels, and Jacobses among them, lived within a few miles’ radius of Dudley. The soils they wrestled with included Norfolk sand (N), Norfolk sandy loam (Nl), Portsmouth sandy loam (Ps), and Ruston sandy loam (Rs). The same basic dirt as in the north of the county, with the addition of the Ruston, defined here: “The Ruston series consists of very deep, well drained, moderately permeable soils that formed in loamy marine or stream deposits. These soils are low in fertility and within the root zone have moderately high levels of exchangeable aluminum that are potentially toxic to some agricultural crops but are ideal for the production of loblolly, slash, and longleaf pine. The soils have slight limitations for woodland use and management.”

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Monthly Archives: July 2015