Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina

Witnesses to a homicide.

Harriet Nicholson, then about 16, married Abner Tomlin on November 20, 1877, in Iredell County. Their marriage license lists “L. Nicholson” as Harriet’s mother and leaves blank the space for a father’s name. Harriet’s son Lon Colvert was two years old and remained with his father’s grandparents.

The couple settled in Olin township, likely near Abner’s family. Harriet may have been pregnant when she married; their son Milas (named after Ab’s father) was born about 1877. In subsequent census records, Harriet reported having given birth to as many as nine children by Abner, but my grandmother knew only one, Harvey Golar Tomlin, born about 1891. However, at least one other child, Lena, lived to young adulthood, as the newspaper article below attests:

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HOMICIDE FRIDAY NIGHT. Jess Shaw, Colored, Shot and Killed in Wallacetown — Bob Owens Charged With Murder — Conflicting Testimony

Jess Shaw, a colored man probably about 19 years old, was shot and killed between 10 and 11 o’clock Friday night in Wallacetown, a colored suburb on the A., T. & O. Railroad, just south of the Statesville depot. Bob Owens, a young colored man is charged with the killing and was held by the coroner’s jury.

The shooting took place near the house of Emma Rhinehardt. According to the testimony Shaw had borrowed a guitar from Grace Belk, colored. She told him he could pick it but not carry it away. He did carry it away and when the woman saw him, shortly before the killing, she cursed him about the guitar and advanced on him with a knife. Jess stooped down to pick up a rock, or did pick up one, and just then he was shot. Three shots were fired, but only one took effect. It is known that Bob Owens, Grace Belk, Maggie Morrison, Dovey Gray and Emma Rhinehardt were present when the shooting occurred. Jess ran up the railroad when shot, a distance of 100 or 150 yards, and calling to Ab. Tomlin’s wife told her he had been shot and that Bob Owens had shot him. Tomlin and his daughter Lena went to him and carried him to their house. He died in about 15 minutes but before dying told them again that Bob Owens had shot him.

… Dr. Long, who made the post mortem examination, assisted by Dr. Carlton, found that one ball had entered the abdominal wall of Shaw’s body, passed through a large intestine in two places, completely severed a large artery and buried itself in the muscular tissue of the pelvis, from which it was removed by the surgeons. Death was due to internal hemorrhage produced by the shot.

The testimony as to the shooting is conflicting. Ab Tomlin and his daughter testified to Shaw’s telling them that Owens shot him. …

Owens is a small black negro and bears a fair reputation among white people, but his reputation is said to be bad among those of his own race.

The locality where the shooting occurred is a colored settlement that is noted for rowdyism.

— Statesville Semi-Weekly Landmark, 4 October 1898.

——

Ab Tomlin apparently died soon after this incident, as his wife Harriet is listed as a widow in the 1900 census. Of their son Harvey Golar, known as “Doc,” more later.

Births Deaths Marriages, Enslaved People, Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Virginia

The death of Walker Colvert.

Born in Culpeper County, Virginia; bundled up with chairs and kegs and sundry and shipped to North Carolina after his first master died; reared with his future master, the William I. Colvert noted; husband to his beloved Rebecca; father of three, or maybe four (or more likely more); a middle-aged man when freedom came; a farmer who got a toehold and kept it long enough to pass it on. In the February 5, 1905, edition of the Statesville Landmark, a brief acknowledgement of the death of Walker Colvert, “a true and faithful old negro.” I feel some kind of way about the description, but I didn’t have to live in 19th century North Carolina, and I will not judge. (Him, anyway.)

Enslaved People, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Other Documents

How we came to be McNeelys.

Rowan County, North Carolina, 1819. Widow Elizabeth Kilpatrick is close to death. Her daughter Mary is to receive “one feather bed and all my beds clothing of every kind, all my dresser furniture, my chest, one pot, one dutch oven, one pot rack” and “my negro girl named Lucinda.”

Don’t forget Lucinda. She’s my great-great-great-grandmother, and you’ll see her again. And Juda? In paragraph 5? Probably Lucinda’s mother. “All her children (not disposed of)” suggests that Dave, who went to Robert Kilpatrick, and Lucinda, were Juda’s disposed-of children. Who were the others?

Rowan County, North Carolina, 1834. Mary Kilpatrick files a deed for the sale of “one negro woman named Lucinda aged about twenty years one negro child named Alice aged three years and one negro child named John aged between one and two years,” plus a few other sundries to Samuel and John W. McNeely, who are father and son. This is the Lucinda that Mary Kilpatrick inherited from her mother in 1819. Remember John Wilson McNeely. You’ll see him again, too.

Rowan County, North Carolina, 1843. Samuel McNeely‘s will. To his beloved son John W. McNeely, he leaves “a negro woman named Lucinda and all her offspring.” Lucinda, then, may have been the only slave Samuel ever bought, and she returned his investment handsomely.

One of Lucinda’s offspring was Henry W. McNeely, whose father was the very John W. McNeely who owned him. Henry, my grandmother Margaret Colvert Allen‘s maternal grandfather, was born in 1841 in western Rowan County and died in Statesville, North Carolina, in 1906.

Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Oral History

Aunt Bert shot a white man.

Damage Suit Asks $25,000

Suit for $25,000 personal damages has been filed by James L. Warren against Odessa Waddell Williams, executrix of the estate of the late Bertha Mae Murdock, in Iredell Superior Court.

Warren contends in his company that he suffered the damages when Bertha Mae Murdock allegedly shot him in a restaurant near here March 28, 1944, prior to her death.

According to Warren’s complaint, she allegedly shot him while he was visiting at Bill Bailey’s Barbecue Stand four miles west of here. He claims she was a co-partner in that firm at the time.

Warren says that, as result of the alleged shooting, his leg had to be amputated.

Statesville Record & Landmark, 16 December 1955.

—–

I’ve been looking for an article like this for years, and I don’t know how I missed this one. Still, I’m hoping to find something from 1944, the year Bertha Mae Hart Murdock, daughter of Harriet Nicholson Hart, shot James Warren.

Here’s the version of events my family tells: Aunt Bert married a scandalous man who ran a roadhouse out in the country catering to white folks looking for a little liquor with their barbecue. A patron said something to her one day, and maybe got fresh, and she pulled a pistol and shot him. (There was no “allegedly” about it.) She was convicted and sent to the state women’s prison in Raleigh, where she served as cook for the governor before her release.

Photo of Bertha M. Murdock in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Other Documents

She is now with child.

During a recent trip to the North Carolina State Archives, I discovered documents related to an Iredell County bastardy action — State v. John Colvert, colored. Harriet Nicholson had been examined by county officials and found to be pregnant. She named John Colvert as the child’s father and, on 26 January 1874, a warrant was issued to force him into court. In May, John Colvert, with Alfred Dalton and Peter Allison giving bond, agreed to “maintain” the child, i.e. pay child support.

I was aware that Harriet and John were not married when their son Lon was born. Indeed, they never married. In an unusual turn for the era, the child was given his father’s last name and was reared by John’s father and stepmother, Walker and Rebecca Colvert. However, the date of the bastardy action struck me. First, in January 1874, Harriet was only 13 years old. (John was 23.) Second, Lon always gave his birth year as 1875. (June 10, to be exact. Belated shout-out.) Was he in fact born a year earlier in 1874? Could Harriet’s condition have been detected early enough for her to been hauled into court in January? Or was Lon Harriet’s second pregnancy, the first having resulted in a stillbirth or infant death?

My grandmother never mentioned an older child. Perhaps she never knew of one. Harriet married Abner Tomlin a couple of years after Lon’s birth and of their several children only one, Harvey Golar Tomlin, lived long enough for my grandmother to know. Her last child, Bertha Mae Hart, was born in 1904 of her second marriage.

Maternal Kin, Photographs, Virginia

John C. Allen Jr.

If he were living, he would be 107. I never knew him. My mother barely did; he died when she was 10; he is a mythological figure. His children speak of him reverentially, wistfully, with smiles. His widow sometimes spoke of him with a tinge of anger, a sense of abandonment that simmered low. He is a wraith made more so by her timeless solidity at our family’s core. Her light had only just begun to dim when she left us in 2010; she was 101. He was 41– younger than the youngest of his grandchilden. Frozen in 1948 — a slight, brown-skinned man with swayback legs and a small smile. My little ears are his. The tiny flaps at the inner corners of my eyes. The flare-ups of inner darkness. Who was he? Why?

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Oral History, Photographs

It was our aunt, screaming and crying.

Hattie Hart Dead.

Hattie Hart, colored, wife of Alonzo Hart, died Thursday night at 9:30 o’clock at her home, death occurring at the age of 63 and resulting from a stroke of apoplexy. The funeral took place at the Center Methodist Church at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. — The Landmark, Statesville NC, 2 Jun 1924.

—–

This is how my grandmother recalled the death noted above:

“She was subject to high blood pressure, and she had this attack on this day, and we all had to go out there. It was me — Louise was in Jersey — and it was Launie Mae, Mama and Papa. And I think Golar went, too. Anyway, I know we all went out there, and she was sick for a few days and then she died. But the day that she died, we had gone to the store. Some old country store, and we had to go a long ways, but we could see down the road, you know. So we went on down the road and when we came back, there were some people who lived across the pasture in some houses that belonged to Mr. Hart. (That was the step-grandfather — stepfather of Papa.) He owned all these houses, and we saw these people running across the street, and Launie Mae said, “Lord, there’s something happening!” and I said, “There sure is.” And the closer we got, the more we kept hearing this noise, you know? And it was our aunt, screaming and crying, you know, ‘cause Grandma had passed.”

——

Photo of Harriet Nicholson Tomlin Hart in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

DNA, Enslaved People, Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Virginia

Walker’s people.

Amelia. Anthony. Caroline. Charles. Daniel. Eliza. Frank & his wife Charlotte & their children Townsend, Jere, Little Frank, Lewis & Ellen. George. Harry. Jane. Mary. Little Mary. Patty. Rachel. Robert & his wife Milly & their children Easter, Jack, Reuben, Edmund & Rachel. Sarah. Siller. Winny.

These are the men and women and children with whom my great-great-great-grandfather Walker Colvert lived in 1823, the year their master Samuel Colvert died and his Culpeper County, Virginia, estate was divided. Walker and Amelia were sent 300 miles south to Samuel’s son John Alpheus Colvert in North Carolina. Was Amelia Walker’s mother? His sister? No kin at all? Was he an orphan, or did he leave his parents behind? Who among these 30-odd slaves claimed Walker as their own?

Until I learned recently that I share DNA with descendants of Leonard Calvert, the first governor of colonial Maryland, it had never occurred to me that Walker might be blood-kin to his master, also a Calvert descendant. The news set me wondering. Not so much about which Colvert was Walker’s father, or maybe grandfather, but about Walker’s family in general. I’ve long known that four years after his arrival in North Carolina, John Colvert died, and Walker was hired out until John’s son William was old enough to control him. I know that Walker was married at least twice, and had at least four children, but age and circumstances suggest that he fathered even more. Who were they? Where did they go?

Genealogical DNA testing may yield answers to some of these questions. I have learned already that I am distantly related to those Calvert descendants through my father’s family, not my mother’s, and thus Walker was probably not related to his owners at all. I’m still looking for Walker’s children.

Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, Virginia

Cousin John gets off lightly.

Baltimorean Attends Services for Father.

CHARLES CITY COUNTY, VA. – Memorial services for the late Stephen Whirley, who served as deacon at the New Vine Baptist Church for 47 years, prior to his death seven years ago, were held Memorial Day at the church.

Among the out-of-towners attending was a son, John Whirley, proprietor of Club Ubangi café and nightclub in Baltimore. — Baltimore Afro-American, 4 Jun 1949.

I happened upon this snippet unexpectedly while updating some old genealogy files. Stephen Whirley was the husband of Emma Allen Whirley, my great-grandfather John C. Allen Sr.’s sister. John Whirley was Emma’s step-son. John and Emma lost contact — intentionally? negligently? — when my grandfather was young, and no one in my family knows much about the Whirleys. However, thanks to the Baltimore Afro-American, now searchable via Google, my irrepressible almost-cousin John comes to life:

AFRO Goes Out On “Check Day”

Friday, Sept. 10, was Welfare Check Day in Baltimore.

That’s “Mother’s Day” when the money flows (“one great big bash”) and crime soars (“reaches its peak”), all according to Jerry Cartledge, author of the News American’s “Welfare Wastelands” series.

So absorbed was Cartledge with his “Mother’s Day” expose that he challenged one and all:

“Stroll down Dream Street (Pennsylvania Ave.) or Gay St. next Mother’s Day – if you don’t value your life – and see for yourself.”

Seven AFRO staffers decided if American reporters can risk their lives in such places as Vietnam, they could venture out on “Mother’s Day” in Baltimore.

They found the day and night like any other Friday or Saturday and concluded that much of the Mother’s Day piece was pure fantasy which appears questionable in so far as personnel [sic] observation and interview can determine – and that those charges that can checked by police or court records definitely are false.

The busy and dangerous places cited in the article include Pennsylvania, Fulton and Fremont Aves., Gay, Orleans and Madison Sts.; the Wagon Wheel, the Ubangi Club, the Sportsmen, “Della’s” and the Charleston.

The AFRO team hit them all – and some others – and still could not find justify charges that “Mother’s Day” is the worst every month.

…

Owners like Jack Roosevelt of the Sportsman, Bill Kramer of the Maryland Bar, and all the owners and operators contacted, laughed at claims they put in extra stocks for “Mother’s Day.”

John Whirley of the Ubangi Club said, “I never saw or talked to Cartledge. Nobody has been in here seeing the things in the article. Two or so welfare people might come in here. The receipts (on Mother’s Day) are the same as any other day without the checks.

“I know he’s lying. I wish he’d come around. Look around here. These are working people. That’s the kind of people I get, working people.”

… — Baltimore Afro-American, 14 Sep 1965.

and

Numbers Personalities Pay Fines of $8,500.

BALTIMORE. Appearing in Criminal Court this week were nearly two dozen numbers personalities who in 1968 were known to literally thousands of lottery players in all sections of the city.

In the group were nine defendants who paid a total of $8,750 in fines alone.

Two persons received jail sentences.

One defendant swallowed a numbers slip. Another drove his car in reverse up the street to avoid police and a veteran Avenue bar owner and a longtime South Baltimore real estate dealer pleaded guilty.

…

JOHN WHIRLEY.

Getting off lighter was another familiar Avenue figure, John Whirley, 70, owner of the 2200 block Pennsylvania Ave. Ubangi Bar.

Judge Sodaro suspended a prison sentence of three months and imposed a $250 fine and costs on the elderly man who pleaded guilty to lottery violations.

According to testimony before the court, Whirley was arrested in a Vice-Squad raid on his bar at 11:20 a.m., Nov. 25, 1968. An arresting officer said he found one slip indicating $2.50 in play wrapped in a roll of $55 cash in Whirley’s pocket. In the basement, according to testimony, there were two slips containing 15 numbers and $11.50 in play. — Baltimore Afro-American, 2 Aug 1969.

Maternal Kin, Photographs, Virginia, Vocation

Look at that.

I rode through Aberdeen Gardens two or three times while I was in Newport News. “By Negroes, for Negroes” reads the historical marker near the school. Boxy, red-brick houses counterposed in neat lines along streets named for community heroes. My grandfather John C. Allen Jr. was a drywall supervisor during their construction in the late 1930s. Though he disdained the building standards, he briefly moved his family into one of the duplexes when my mother was three weeks old. Semi-furnished. A chicken coop out back. A vegetable garden. By 1940, the family was gone, into the two-story house on 35th Street that my grandmother called home until she died. There’s a rose alongside the porch that still blooms where my grandfather planted it, and he passed in 1948. This house is the most constant edifice of the whole of my life. My Gibraltar. Upstairs, my grandmother slept in the double bed that they brought with them from Aberdeen, along with a squat chest and a nightstand. Solid oak in a simple Shaker style. “Not a drawer sags to this day,” she told me, marveling. She pulled one precariously far out. “Look at that.” I gently tested its solidity. I laughed.

Above, John C. Allen (third from right) and his drywall crew at Aberdeen Gardens, circa 1937, and floor plan of Aberdeen Gardens home.

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Category Archives: Maternal Kin