Author Archives: Lisa Y. Henderson

Education, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

State Colored Normal School student.

I stumbled upon this catalog last night as I was researching for afamwilsonnc.com. As I scanned the list of students, I was stunned to see W.S. Hagans of Fremont, Wayne County. This is William S. Hagans, son of Napoleon and Appie Ward Hagans, and first cousin to my great-great-grandmother Louvicey Artis Aldridge (1865-1927.) William graduated from Howard University’s preparatory division in 1889 and went on to obtain bachelor’s and a law degree from Howard. Apparently, however, he spent at least a year of high school in Fayetteville, a little closer to home. A few months ago, I would have immediately picked up the phone to share this new information with my cousin Bill, William’s grandson. Bill is gone though, so I’ll just have to imagine his warm laugh and exclamations of surprise.

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Catalogue found here.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Paternal Kin

In memoriam: Brent Aldridge Oldham.

My cousin Brent Aldridge Oldham, an esteemed pediatrician in Seattle, Washington, passed away on 22 December 2015. Born in Washington DC in 1950, he was the son of the late M. Brent and Virginia Aldridge Oldham. His grandfather Zebedee Aldridge was my great-grandfather James T. Aldrich‘s brother.

His family has created a fine tribute to his life and memory.

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Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Born this day: 1 January.

Name — Susan Casey Lewis.

Birth — 1 January 1787, Wayne County, North Carolina.

Parents — Micajah Casey and Sarah Herring Casey.

Spouse — Urban Lewis.

Death — 10 October 1860, Wayne County, North Carolina.

Relationship to me — Paternal great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.

[Hat tip to Hollie Ann Henke, relativityitsallrelative.com.]

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Agriculture, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Emancipation Day.

Gboro Daily Argus 12 31 1905 Emancipation Day

Goldsboro Daily Argus, 31 December 1905.

For decades, on January 1, African-American communities formally celebrated the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1905, under the leadership, in part, of William S. Hagans and Mack D. Coley, the “Educational, Agricultural and Industrial mass meeting” of Wayne County’s “colored citizens” issued an eight-point pledge:

(1) to be respectable;

(2) to endorse state policy to give all children, regardless of color, an education;

(3) to urge school attendance;

(4) to encourage teachers not only to teach, but to pay home visits and preach every manner of virtue and home improvement;

(5) to disapprove of shiftlessness;

(6) to condemn crime and encourage law-abiding conduct;

(7) to suggest that farmers carry insurance and to educate them; and

(8) to become more united as a race, to organize to buy land, and to help one another retire mortgages.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Paternal Kin

In remembrance.

I was on vacation, marveling at the Alhambra and Mezquita, dawdling over tapas, when I received the email. “I wish there was a better way to share the news …,” it began. And then the incomprehensible: news that a cousin had passed suddenly in a tragic accident. He wanted no announcements, no services, no fuss. But for this tiny memorial to our collaboration and friendship, not even six years old, I am doing my best to honor his wishes.

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Uncategorized

Great-great-grandparent demographics.

Edward Cunningham Harrison and Mary Brown. Jasper Holmes and Matilda, whose maiden name is unknown. John Walker Colvert and Harriet Nicholson. Henry W. McNeely and Martha Margaret Miller. Green Taylor and Fereby Taylor. Willis Barnes and Cherry Battle. John William Aldridge and Louvicey Artis. Joseph Buckner Martin and Loudie Henderson. 

These are my 16 great-great-grandparents.

Four were born in Virginia; the remainder in North Carolina. They were born between 1817 and 1874; most in the 1840s or ’50s. All died in the state in which they were born.

Of the 13 born in the antebellum era, 11 were enslaved. One was a free man of color. Two of the enslaved were children of their owner. All of the three born after the war were born to freeborn parents.

Fourteen were of varying degrees of African descent, classified as black or mulatto. Two were white.

Hat tip to Edie Lee Harris for the exercise.

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Free People of Color, Letters, Migration, Paternal Kin, Virginia

An Artis founding story.

A cousin sent me this undated letter a few days ago, asking if I knew anything about it. She is descended from my great-great-great-grandfather Adam Artis‘ brother Richard Artis. Her Richard is not one of the Richards listed to in the document. (There were several contemporaneous Richard Artises just in the Wayne-Greene-Wilson County corner, none of whom I can link to one another.) The family history recounted in the letter smacks of the apocryphal, but it is interesting, and I will try to follow up on it.

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