Category Archives: Maternal Kin

Maternal Kin, Paternal Kin, Vocation

Where we worked: drivers and chauffeurs.

Haywood Artis, Norfolk VA – coachman, 1898.

Ned Barnes, Wilson NC – coachman, circa 1900.

Harry Artis, Washington DC – chauffeur, circa 1920.

Lon W. Colvert, Statesville NC  – owned and operated jitney service, 1920s.

John W. Colvert II, Statesville NC – drove for jitney service, 1920s-1930s.

Earle M. Hagans, Norfolk VA — chauffeur for automobile dealer, circa 1920.

Andrew Ashford, Fremont NC – husband of Reka Aldridge Ashford; chauffeur; circa 1917.

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The seventh in an occasional series exploring the ways in which my kinfolk made their livings in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Photographs, Religion

Church home, no. 7: Center Street African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Statesville NC.

My grandmother:  She was a great Methodist. And she would come down occasionally to go to church, you know.  Have on all them taffeta skirts, and they were shirtwaisted skirts, you know.  And she was pretty, honey.  Have you ever seen any of her pictures?

And another time:

Where did they have that funeral?  They must have brought her down and had her in, at the Methodist Church in Statesville.  She belonged there.  She would come Saturday, get up Sunday morning, honey, and put on those taffeta skirts with those pretty blouses and lace all down the front and ‘round there. 

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I had not planned to go to Sunday School. I was on my way home for Christmas and stopped in Statesville just to look for Harriet Nicholson Hart‘s church. I suspected that Center Street AME Zion Church was the same as Mount Pleasant AMEZ, which still meets, but my internet search was inconclusive.

The morning was dreary and chilly when I pulled into a space across from the church. I had snapped a couple of shots with my phone when I saw a woman step from an SUV in the parking lot. “Excuse me,” I called. “I’m looking for Center Street AMEZ.” She tilted her head toward the church behind me. “This is it,” she said. “It’s called Mount Pleasant now.” I explained that my family had been members of the church a hundred years before and my great-great-grandmother had been funeralized there in 1924. We chatted for a couple of minutes, and after asking if I might peek inside, I followed her through a side door — straight into Sunday School.

A junior pastor was addressing a small gathering of adults, and I — acutely conscious of my jeans and hoodie — took a seat just inside the door. As he spoke on the necessity to reach out to youth, I discreetly glanced around. In the nave, dully gleaming brass organ pipes stretched nearly wall-to-wall. At the back of the sanctuary, a large arched tripartite stained glass window brightened the pews. At an opportune time, I introduced myself and expressed my joy at joining in a service at a church that had been so important to my family at one time. “What were their names?” “Nicholson and Colvert and Hart,” I said, “and other family lived in the neighborhood. My great-aunt was Louise Colvert Renwick.” There were nods of familiarity and expressions of welcome.

I slipped out before too long and paused again as I reached my car to gaze back at the building. A woman hurried around the side of the church, calling out for me to wait. She was the pastor’s wife and she had a small gift — a card and a CD of hymns. “Thank you for visiting,” she said. “We’re so glad you found us.”

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IMG_4579Mount Pleasant AMEZ Church today, corner of South Center and Garfield Streets.

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Center Street AMEZ Church, Sanborn map of Statesville, 1918.

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Interviews of Margaret C. Allen by Lisa Y. Henderson; all rights reserved.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, Virginia

Remembering John C. Allen Sr. on the 60th anniversary of his death.

They sat rather stiffly side by side, each with hands clasped in lap. The occasion was their 50th anniversary, and granddaughter Marion captured the moment in the only photograph I have seen of them together.

50th Anniversary

Three years later, family gathered again on the day after Christmas to pay respects to John and Mary Agnes Holmes Allen.  Papa Allen retired to bed after dinner and never woke again.

ALLEN -- JC Allen Obit Cropped

Norfolk Journal and Guide, 2 January 1954.

He was buried in Pleasant Shade cemetery in Hampton, Virginia, near the graves of his son John Jr. and daughter Marion. IMG_1275

Top photo taken by Marion Allen Christian, 1953, copy in possession of Lisa Y. Henderson; bottom photo taken by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2011.

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Maternal Kin, Paternal Kin, Vocation

Where we worked: “All the live-long day.”

Henry Solice, near Mount Olive NC – railroad section hand, circa 1910.

Walter Holt, Greensboro NC – husband of Mollie Henderson Holt; fireman, Southern Railway Company, 1910s-20s.

Edward N. Allen, Newport News VA – railroad laborer, circa 1918.

Eli McNeely, Salisbury NC – worked in “scrap can” at Southern Railroad shop, circa 1920.

Atwood Artice, Portsmouth VA – machinist helper, railroad shop, circa 1920.

Freddie Artis, Portsmouth VA – railroad freighthandler, circa 1920.

Walter Godbold, Rocky Mount NC — husband of Tilithia Aldridge King Godbold Dabney; worked at roundhouse, 1920s.

Quincy McNeely, Asheville NC — mail porter, railway express, circa 1940.

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The sixth in an occasional series exploring the ways in which my kinfolk made their livings in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Photographs

Family cemeteries, no. 3: Boyden Quarters.

I doubled back through Iredell County on I-77 and exited on US-70. I crossed into Rowan County on backroads, cresting rolling hills on my search for the lands on which my McNeelys and Millers lived and worked. I came out just east of Mount Ulla, the hamlet that gave its name to the entire district. Finding nothing much to see, I headed toward Bear Poplar and Salisbury on NC-801, also known as Sherrills Ford Road. From the corner of my eye, I spied a cluster of church signs pointing up a side road. “Thyatira Presbyterian” I recognized from histories of early Scots-Irish in Rowan County. And “Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Boyden Quarters” — Boyden Quarters!!! That’s the area that many of my Miller-McConnaughey kin lived in in the early 20th century.  I’d thought they were AME Zions, but decided to have a look anyway. And there they were:

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Mary Emma McNeely Leazer, daughter of Joseph Archy McNeely and Ella Alexander McNeely. This stone faces into, and has been overgrown by, a cedar.

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Right next to it is a double stone for Mary McNeely Leazer and her husband George H. Leazer.

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Addie Brown Sifford was the daughter of William C. and Mary Caroline Miller Brown. Her grandmother was Grace Adeline Miller Miller.

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Sarah Ellis Sifford was the daughter of Callie McNeely Ellis and granddaughter of Joseph Archy McNeely.

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James W. McConnaughey was the son of James R. McConnaughey and Mary Leazer McConnaughey (sister of George H. Leazer, above) and grandson of John B. McConnaughey.

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Enslaved People, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Other Documents

Allie’s children.

Two of Lucinda McNeely‘s sons are accounted for, but what of her older children, John and Alice?

7 slaves

The record for Alice is frustratingly scant. I have found her exactly twice. Once, in the deed filed by Mary Kilpatrick when she sold Alice, Lucinda and John to Samuel and John McNeely in 1834. The McNeely’s slaves seem to have comprised a single extended family — Lucinda, her children, and grandchildren, and the grandchildren probably were all Alice’s.  The four listed in the 1863 Rowan County tax assessment above are Archy, Mary, Stanhope and Sandy.  Alice is not listed and is presumably dead.  (Though, possibly, of course, sold away.)

Alice’s son Joseph Archy McNeely was born about 1849. In the 1870 census of Atwell township, Rowan County, 22 year-old farm laborer Joseph A. McNeely is listed in a household with Lucinda McNeely, 54 year-old domestic servant, Henry McNeely, 29, schoolteacher, and Elizabeth McNeely, 13. Three years later, Joseph Archy McNeely applied for a license to marry Ella Alexander and listed his parents as Henry Courtney and Aley McNeely.  (This is the second known reference to Alice.)  Over the next 22 years, the couple had at least eight children: Octavia J. (1874), Lucinda (1876), Ann J. (1879), Callie B. (1885), Julius L.A. (1891), Mary E. (1893) and Joseph Oliver (1896).

I have not been able to locate Alice’s daughter Mary after 1863, but in the 1870 census, her sons Sandy and Stanhope appear in their uncle Julius McNeely‘s household as Alexr. and John S. This is the last record I have of either.

Some years ago I decided that Lucinda’s son John was John Rufus McNeely, generally called Rufus, who died 1870-1880 in Rowan County. He married Emeline Atwell about 1855 and was father of five children: Mary, Betty, Charley, Henry and Rufus Alexander McNeely. John’s absence from the 1863 list mystifies me, though, and I’m not sure how I came to this conclusion. For now, I’m withholding sanction.

UPDATE, 26 January 2014: John Rufus McNeely’s 1866 cohabitation registration noted that he was the former slave of John W. McNeely. As the rest of J.W.’s slaves comprised a single family, I renew my conclusion that John Rufus was Lucinda McNeely’s son.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Virginia

Mary, Mary?

Mary Brown, born about 1849 in Amelia County, Virginia, married Graham Allen in Charles City County in 1876. She and Graham and their children appear together in the 1880, 1900 and 1910 censuses. Mary Allen, born in Amelia County to James Brown and Catherine Booker, died 1 April 1916 in Charles City County. Who, then, was the 30 year-old Mary Allen whose death Graham Allen reported on 8 December 1887 in Charles City County?

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