My father’s second older brother Jesse A. Henderson passed away 11 years ago.
Category Archives: Births Deaths Marriages
Funeral Program Friday: Hattie Mae Holt Crawford.
Remembering my father’s first cousin, Hattie Mae.
Funeral Program Friday: Catherine Aldridge Davis.
Catherine Aldridge Davis, the last surviving of John and Louvicey Artis Aldridge‘s children, died at age 108.
Celebus Thompson killed.
Celebus Thompson, was killed by gunshot in December 1913, leaving his widow, the former Lillie Beatrice Artis, and two small children.
Goldsboro Daily Argus, 15 December 1913.
The Wilmington paper’s coverage of the incident reversed the actors in its headline.
Wilmington Morning Star, 17 December 1913.
——
Celebus Thompson, 21, son of Wheeler and Ora Thompson, married Lillie B. Artis, 18, daughter of Adam and Amanda Artis, on 18 November 1908 at Adam Artis’ house in Wayne County.
In the 1910 census of Saulston, Wayne County: on Goldsboro and Snow Hill Road, Celepus Thompson, 23, wife Lillie, 20, and daughter Jenettie, 5 months. (Next door, Lillie’s half-brother Napoleon Artis and family.]
Cousin Dollie.
Said my grandmother:
The house where Dollie, Cousin Min’s sister, lived, well, they had gone to Goldsboro to live. I think. First they were living in Mount Olive, then Dudley. She married Yancey Musgrave. He was a brown-skinned man. And Dollie used to visit, too. She had asthma real bad. And she used to come home and have to sit up. You had to take a quilt and fold it up and put it up in the bed for her to sit up on. ‘Cause she couldn’t lay down. She couldn’t breathe. I don’t know what become of Dollie. Her and Cousin Min’s mama was Ann Elizabeth. Mama Sarah’s sister. They had a brother named Daniel. Yeah. Daniel. Daniel, he lived, he come to Wilson and stayed with us a while, and then went back to Goldsboro. Got married anyway and had a whole bunch of children. And come up to … I believe he come up to Baltimore. And he had a whole lot of children.
I’ve written of Daniel Simmons and Minnie Simmons Budd here. With Annie C. “Dollie” Simmons Musgrave, they were the only children of Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons to live to adulthood. My grandmother’s “Mama” was their aunt Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver. Her mother Bessie was their first cousin.
Annie C. “Dollie” Simmons Musgrave, perhaps in Norfolk.
Dollie Simmons Musgrave died in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1946 after a battle with cervical cancer. (She apparently had remarried to a Green — she and Yancey divorced? — but I do not know who, where or when. Her death certificate erroneously lists her mother as Annie Green, rather than Henderson.)
Virginia, Death Records, 1912-2014 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.
The Hawaiian princess.
Toward the end of his college days at Howard University, Aldridge descendant Charles Cromwell Coley married Harriet Purdy, a native Hawaiian athlete and performer and a descendant of King Kamehameha I.
Their only child, daughter, Laulupe Kaleilani Coley, was born in 1932 in Washington, D.C.
A post in the D.C. neighborhood blog Popville notes: “In March 1934, the Hi-Hat, a ‘smart new continental Cocktail Lounge and Cafe, styled in the modern manner,’ opened on the top floor of the Ambassador. The Post raved about its decorations: ‘The silvery iridescence of kapiz shell gives the mellow effect of moonlight on the water, and the imported blue and white mirrors trimmed in stainless steel surrounding the columns introduces a new note in modern interior decoration.’ The Hi-Hat Lounge quickly became a popular nightspot, offering top names in the nightclub circuit. Its opening act was Princess Harriet Purdy, a Hawaiian who strummed a ukulele while crooning languorous songs in her native tongue.”
Harriet and C.C. Coley divorced in the late 1930s. Their daughter was educated on the mainland, but married and settled in Hawai’i.
Yearbook of Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, New York, 1950.
Harriet also returned to Hawai’i where she continued to preserve the island’s traditional arts and culture. In this video posted to Youtube, Harriet Purdy dances hula as Sonny Chillingworth, Myrna English and Billy Hew Len perform “Kaula Ili”:
Harriet Keonaonalaulani Purdy Kauaihilo, 96, of Kapolei, a professional hula dancer, died Aug. 26 in Kapolei. She was born in Waimea. She is survived by son Bill, daughters Laulupe K. Dempster and Harriet Clark, hanai sister Olive S. Purdy, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grand-children. Private graveside services. — Honolulu Bulletin, 11 September 2002.
HARRIET KEONAONALAULANI PURDY KAUAIHILO, 96, of Kapolei, died Aug. 26, 2002. Born in Waimea, Hawai’i. A high diver and swimmer, known as the Hawaiian Human Cannonball at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier in the early 1930s; and professional Island hula dancer. Survived by daughters, Laulupe Dempster and Harriet Clark; son, Bill; grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren; hanai sister, Olive Purdy. Private graveside services. Arrangements by Ultimate Cremation Services of Hawai’i.— Honolulu Advertiser, 11 September 2002.
Napoleon Artis, known as Doc.
Napoleon Octavius “Doc” Artis was the oldest son of Adam T. Artis and Frances Seaberry Artis.
In the 1870 census of Holden, Wayne County: Adam Artices, black farmer, wife Francis and children Kerney, Noah, Mary J., Idar, Octavia, Elizer, Vicey, George A., and Adam. Adam reported owning $200 personal property and $300 real property. In Nahunta township, there was a duplicate listing: farmer Adam Artis, wife Francis, and children Kenney, Noah, Mary J., Jaden, Tavious, Elizar, Vicy, George A., and Adam. In Nahunta, the family appears next door to Adam’s brother-in-law and sister John and Zilpha Artis Wilson.
In the 1880 census of Nahunta township, Wayne County: farmer Adam Artis, 48, and children Eliza, 15, Dock, 17, George Anna, 13, Adam, 12, Haywood, 10, Emma, 8, Walter, 6, William, 4, and Jesse, 2, and grandson Frank, 4 months. (Frances died shortly after Jesse’s death.)
On 10 January 1887, Napoleon Artis married Sallie Taylor in Wayne County.
In the 1900 census of Saulston, Wayne County: farmer Napolion Artis, 37, wife Salie, 29, and children Humphrey, 12, Lesley, 8, and Odel, 6, plus his grandfather Aaron Sebery, 85 [father of Frances Seaberry Artis, often called Frances Hagans], and his brother Jesse, 23.
Tragedy struck soon after. As reported in the Goldsboro Headlight on 3 January 1903:
On Christmas day, Humphrey Artist, the 18 year-old son of Dock Artis, colored, was shot and killed by William Smith, also colored, in Saulston township. The latter claims the shooting accidental but the coroner’s jury pronounces it criminal neglect. Smith was promptly arrested and brought here to be jailed.
In the 1910 census of Saulston, Wayne County: on Goldsboro & Snow Hill Road, Napoleon Artist, 46, with wife Sallie J., 35, and children Leslie, 18, and Odel, 15. Next door: Celepus Thompson, 23, wife Lillie, 20, and daughter Jenettie, 5 months. [Lillie was Napoleon’s half-sister. Two doors away: six year-old Lula Shadding, see below.]
On 21 January 1914, Lesly Artis, 22, son of Napoleon and Sallie Artis, married Minnie Diggs, 19, in Nahunta, Wayne County. Odell Artis of Saulston was a witness to the ceremony.
On 5 June 1917, both of Napoleon’s surviving sons registered for the World War I draft registration: Odell Artis, born 14 August 1893 in Wayne County; resided at RFD 1, Saulston, Wayne County; worked in farming; nearest relative, Napeon [sic] Artis, Saulston; single; medium height and weight; brown eyes, black hair. Leslie Artis, born 5 Feb 1892 in Wayne County; resided in Goldsboro; had a wife and two children; tall and slender; black hair, black eyes.
In the 1920 census of Saulston, Wayne County: Napoleon Artis, 57, wife Sallie, 45, and son Odell, 24. Napoleon reported owning his farm. Also in Saulston: Leslie Artis, 28, wife Minnie, 25, and daughters Gertie, 5, Alberta, 4, and Malave, 2.
On 4 December 1920, Lula Shadding, 19, of Saulston married Ed Fowler, 20, of Saulston at a Freewill Baptist church in Pikeville. Their license names Dock Artis and Minnie Shadding as Lula’s parents.
On 20 January 1921, Odell Artis, son of Napoleon and Sally Artis, married Olivia Diggs, daughter of Suler Diggs, in Wilson. Edgar Diggs applied for the license and served as one of the witnesses. (The marriage record mistakenly lists Napoleon as the groom.) By 1929, the couple had moved to Washington, D.C., and appear in city directories thereafter. Odell worked as a Pullman porter. [Lizzie Olivia Diggs Artis was a first cousin to Minnie Diggs Artis.]
Napoleon seems to have been skipped in the 1930 census. In Saulston township, Wayne County: farmer Lesley Artis, 37, wife Minnie, 35, and children Gurtie, 15, Alberta, 14, Mallie V., 13, Katheleen, 8, Sallie, 6, Russel, 4, and Marvin Artis, 2.
In the 1940 census of Saulston township, Wayne County: on Saulston and Snow Hill Road, Leslie Artis, 48, wife Minnie, 48, and children Mallie V., 21, Sally May, 15, Russell, 13, and Marvin, 12, and father Napoleon, 77.
On 16 April 1942, Napoleon Artis died in Saulston township. His death certificate reports that he was the widowed spouse of Sallie Artis, that he was born 28 Feb 1863 to Adam Artis and Frances Hagans of Wayne County, and that he was buried 18 April 1942 in Shadden Cemetery, Wayne County. Son Leslie Artis was the informant.
Napoleon’s will entered probate in September 1942. Written 17 years earlier, its terms bequeathed one 22-acre parcel in Wayne County [adjacent to Wheeler Thompson, father-in-law of his sister Lillie Beatrice Artis Thompson Whitley Pridgen] to son Odell and his remaining property in Wayne and Greene Counties to son Leslie. The explanation: Odell “has not lived with me, and has not assisted me in the payment of my indebtedness.”
Leslie Artis died 10 March 1974 at Wayne Memorial Hospital in Goldsboro. His death certificate notes that he was a retired farmer born 5 February 1892 to Napoleon Artis and Sallie Taylor. He was buried 13 March 1974 in Diggs cemetery, Wayne County. Informant was his daughter Gertie M. Best.
[The Francis Diggs Cemetery is located at 168 Watery Branch Road, Stantonsburg (but in Wayne County.) This was originally the family cemetery of Leslie’s wife Minnie Diggs Artis, who was descended from Celia Artis. Leslie’s family members buried there include wife Minnie D. Artis (1894-1970), daughter Alberta Artis Suggs (1916-2000), daughter Mallie V. Artis Hobbs (1918-2014), son-in-law Alonzo Shackleford (1921-1996), son Russell Lee Artis (1926-1963), and son Marvin “Doc” Artis (1927-1998).]
Leslie Artis
Minnie Diggs Artis
North Carolina Wills and Estates, 1665-1998 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com; photos courtesy of user James Diggs at http://www. ancestry.com.
Family cemeteries, no. 19: Mount Hope cemetery, Logansport, Indiana.
Logansport Pharos-Tribune, 3 November 1951.
Logansport Press, 11 November 1951.
Fifty years after they married, Dock Simmons buried his beloved wife Fannie at Mount Hope cemetery at the northern edge of Logansport. The week after her death, her sisters joined him in publishing thanks to all who had expressed condolences for their loss. The notice is my last glimpse of Dock.
My first thought when I found the headstone above was: “How sad. There was no one left — no siblings, no children — to etch in Dock’s death date.” My second: “Wait. Is Dock even buried here?”
Curiously, I have not been able to find Dock’s death certificate. He does not appear to have died in Indiana, whose death certificates are available online through 2011. Where, then? Did he spend his last years with one of Fannie’s sisters? (The Simmonses had sheltered Fannie’s mother and brother.) Perhaps with her nieces or nephews? (He had only one, Harold.)
I sent an inquiry to Mount Hope and received an immediate response from its sexton: “I am sorry to say that there is no indication that Doc Simmons is here.”
The devoted son.
Edward, the youngest of Montraville and Anna Henderson Simmons‘ children, died 11 April 1936, another victim of tuberculosis.
Kokomo Tribune, 13 April 1936.
A few observations:
- Edward Simmons was born about 1883. His obituary states that he had “lived in Kokomo since seven years of age.” This was not literally true. He was listed in the 191o census of Eel township, Cass County, as a 20 year-old living with his father Montraville, 63. I take this actually to mean then that he and his family arrived in Kokomo (or Howard County) from Canada when he was 7, i.e. about 1890.
- Second Baptist Church is a successor to Free Union Baptist Church in the Bassett settlement. From Second Baptist’s website: “In the year of 1887 the Freewill Baptist Church, meeting in the Bassett Settlement, under the leadership of Rev. Richard Bassett disbanded. Its members met with Rev. W. A. Stewart and members of the First Baptist Church of Kokomo. They organized the Second Missionary Baptist Church as we know it today. Services were held in the third ward school on the corner of North Lafountain and Richmond Streets. By the end of November of that year the Second Baptist Church, known as a Missionary Church, had been constitutionally established. The First Missionary Baptist Church made contributions to foreign missions on behalf of Second Baptist. Rev. Richard Bassett served as pastor of Second Baptist Church a short time and he was known throughout the state as an organizer of churches. He was elected to the State Legislature in 1892, being only the third black to be elected to his position.”
- Edward’s body lay for viewing in his home for almost a day before his burial at Crown Point cemetery. I assume that his headstone and plot were pre-purchased as his plot is nearly beside previous wife Belle’s grave and their stones are of identical make and engraving style.
- Speaking of wives, this: “Mr. Simmons was devoted to his mother and father, and remained unmarried until both of them died.” … And then he married and married and married some more.
- First wife: On 25 February 1915, Edward Simmons married Mary E. Jones in Kokomo. On 21 January 1919, Mary Simmons died of influenza in Kokomo. Her death certificate reports that she was born 2 August 1875 in North Carolina to George Taylor and an unknown mother and was married to Edward Simmons.
- Second wife: On 28 July 1919, Edward Simmons married Cora White in Kokomo. In the 1920 census of Kokomo, Howard County, at 721 Waugh Street, Edward Simmons, 38, laborer at Globe Range Company; wife Cora, 40; and lodger Roger Jones, 17. On 18 February 1923, Martha Cora Simmons died of myocarditis in Kokomo. Her death certificate reports that she was born 26 April 1878 in Kentucky to Jacob Bushaw and Martha Heardin and buried in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
- Third wife: In the 1930 census of Kokomo, at 800 E. Dixon Drive (owned and valued at $1150) were Edward Simmons, 42, janitor at Y.M.C.A., and wife Belle, 45. [Not to be mistaken in records for bank president Edward Simmons (1859-1945) and wife, Belle George Simmons, who were white.] Bell Simmons died 17 July 1933 at Sipe Theatre in Kokomo of chronic myocarditis. Her death certificate reports that she lived at the Y.M.C.A. at 200 E. Walnut and was born in Ohio to unknown parents. She was buried at Crown Point.
Kokomo Tribune, 18 July 1933.
- Fourth wife: I don’t know exactly when Edward married Cecilia Gilbreath, but it happened during the narrow window between Belle’s and Edward’s deaths in 1933 and 1936. She and Edward had no children. Per Celie’s son Joe L. Gilbreath’s death certificate, filed in Kokomo in 1979, her maiden name was Silvers. Joe was born in Texas, but I know nothing of his mother’s early years..
Kokomo Tribune, 10 April 1937.
- “Tenie” was the nickname of Susan Simmons Bassett.
- How many ways was the other sister’s name spelled? Monsie, Moncy, Muncie, Muncey?
Family cemeteries, no. 18: Bassett cemetery, near Kokomo, Indiana.
BASSETT CEMETERY sometimes known as “Bassett Colored Baptist” or “Lower* Settlement Cemetery” is at south edge of SECTION 9 of T. 24-2-E and is in north central ERVIN TOWNSHIP of northwestern HOWARD COUNTY of northcentral Indiana. About midway between hamlets of Poplar Grove and Kappa, it is on north side of road formerly popularly known as “Nigger Pike” and in a farming-area formerly inhabited by numerous Negro families and then able to boast of having a colored Baptist Church and a school for colored children, as well as a blacksmith shop, store, etc. Like the Rush, or Upper Settlement farther east, this settlement is understood to have formed here before the Civil War, and under the sympathetic encouragement of the many Quakers who had settled nearby.
*The term [Lower] alludes to west-flowing Deer Creek’s south fork, which passes more than a mile to the north of cemetery.
This record of genealogically and historically important tombstone-information and a supplement thereto, were prepared for INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY and the STATE LIBRARY by the Pioneer Cemetery Committee of the L’Anguille Valley Historical & Memorial Association, Logansport, Indiana, which is in the adjoining county of Cass, of which committee Mrs. Audna M. Johnson of Logansport is chairman, Fieldwork (18 miles from that city) was done MARCH 29, 1948, the day after Easter Sunday, by committee-members Robert B. Whitsett, 500 Front St., Logansport, and Wm. R. Coder, also of Logansport. Work was done in honor and memory of these early settlers of African descent (who lie buried here in marked graves) and of their many contemporaries who likewise lie buried here but in unmarked graves, and to their numerous descendants and citizens of Logansport, Kokomo, and other communities. Information in Supplement was largely derived from Mr. Ernest Griggs (colored), aged 71, of 1208 West Wabash Avenue, Logansport, but partly from Mrs. Dock Simmons (col.) and Mr. George A. Harness (white) and Mrs. Harriet Shideler (white) and sister, all of Logansport.
…
SUPPLEMENT: Miscellaneous bits of hearsay information:
“Among person buried in the doubtless dozens of unmarked graves in the Bassett cemetery are Ernest W. Griggs [of Logansport’s] late nonagenarian father [the settlement’s widely known blacksmith] Reuben Griggs, from Tennessee, a former slave, who died about 1917, and who had maintained that he was 94 years of age; and Reuben’s wife Sarah Griggs (Ernest’s mother) who was a daughter of Thomas Artis and who died in about 1887 when Ernest [now — 1948 — 71] was about 10 or 11 years of age, and when she was only about 29; and Dock Simmons [of Logansport]’s late parents: Montraville Simmons, a Negro farmer from North Carolina; and wife Anna [or Annie] Simmons and one son of theirs [Dock’s brother] Montraville Simmons Jr.” … “Daniel Bassett married Dock Simmon’s sister Muncie Simmons.” …
——
The original founders of the Bassett settlement were free families of color from eastern North Carolina by way of Parke County, Indiana. The family who gave its name to the community was headed by Britton Bassett, who was born about 1784, probably in Greene County, North Carolina. (He appears there in the 1830 census.) The plat map below, drawn in 1877, shows the locations of Bassett community school and church and parcels owned by the African-American Bassett, Artis, Ellis, Griggs and Jones families.
Montraville and Anna Simmons and their children immigrated to Howard County from Canada in the late 1880s. (I don’t know why, of all likely locations, they chose this one.) The Bassett community church had just closed, but they likely joined its successor, Second Baptist, led by Rev. Richard Bassett in Kokomo. Two of their daughters married Bassett brothers.
In 1900, Montraville, Anna and their unmarried children moved twenty or so miles north to Cass County. When Anna died near Logansport in 1906, Kroeger & Strain (still in business as Kroeger Funeral Home) handled her burial. The top half of Kroeger’s “particulars” sheet contains much of the same personal misinformation as Anna’s death certificate and is filled out in the same hand. It’s the rest that’s interesting. Anna was buried at 11:00 on a Tuesday morning at Free Union Baptist Church cemetery. (That name is largely forgotten, but it was the Bassett community congregation.) Her body was transported to Howard County by a team of horses, and the family reserved a carriage. According to the super-helpful lady at Kroeger, “blk. cl. oct. casket” indicated a black octagonal casket. (The “cl.” is a mystery.) The family provided Anna’s clothing, but purchased slippers for her feet. All in all, it seems no expense was spared.
Bassett cemetery today contains less than two dozen marked graves. Small swales between stones, however, reveal many more. The Mrs. Dock Simmons who contributed to the L’Anguille Valley Historical & Memorial Association’s cemetery survey, above, was Fannie Gibson Simmons, who’d been married just five years when her mother-in-law Anna died. Ernest Griggs was the stepfather of Anna’s grandson Harold Simmons, son of Montraville Simmons Jr.
Bassett cemetery today.
[Sidenote: Indiana county plat books, updated every year, are a genealogist’s dream. Land ownership can be identified at a glance, and every parcel is a nice subset of a square. Here’s the 2015 map of Ervin township, Howard County, showing roughly the same section as above, including the location of Bassett cemetery.]
[Another sidenote, on “Nigger Pike”: There were two 19th-century African-American settlements in Kokomo. The road now known as West 400 North would take you to both of them. The Bassett Cemetery report, written in 1948, refers to the formerly popular name of the pike, indicating that general usage had died out by then. (But not otherwise commenting.) The United States has a long history of offensive or derogatory place names.]
Copies of L’Anguille Valley Historical & Memorial Association’s Bassett Cemetery report, Bassett-Ellis plat map, and 2015 plat map courtesy of the well-stocked and -staffed Genealogy & Local History Department, Kokomo-Howard County Public Library; copy of funeral receipt courtesy of Kroeger Funeral Home, Logansport; photograph of Bassett cemetery by Lisa Y. Henderson, August 2016.
Scuffalong: Genealogy. 