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

And just like that….

… the elusive Aunt Ella.

Back before I completely fell off the 52 Ancestors Challenge, I wrote a piece about my great-great-grandmother Loudie Henderson‘s sister Louella. The gist of it was that, other than the 1880 census and my grandmother’s recollections, there were no sure sightings of this woman. But Ancestry’s new North Carolina Marriages collection is paying off for me in a big way, and the first cha-ching was Aunt Ella’s license for her marriage to William James Laws in 1931. The collection is indexed by parents, as well as bride and groom, and a search for James Henderson picked the record up. I’m elated, but thrown. The last husband my grandmother remembered was Wilson, but he clearly was not the end of the line for Ella. (And 40? Please. By 1931, she was pushing 55.) The witnesses: is that “Mary” Smith? Or “Nany” Smith, i.e. Nancy “Nannie” Henderson Smith Diggs, Ella’s sister. Nancy’s second marriage, to Patrick Diggs, was short-lived, and in the 1930 census, she had reverted to Smith. And which A.M.E. Zion church?

Just when I thought I’d gotten tangled up in enough questions, I found this:

Rastus Best?!?! Aunt Ella was married yet another time? And where are the licenses for the husbands — King and Wilson — I thought I knew? And Disciple Church?

So. Louella Henderson King Wilson Best Laws moves to the top of my “get to the bottom of this” list. A quick search for a Laws death certificate turned up nothing, but I’m hot on her trail.

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

North Carolina Marriage Records.

Ancestry.com recently launched North Carolina County Marriage Records, a date collection that includes images of marriage bonds, licenses, certificates and registers from 87 counties. (Including all of mine!) I’ve already stumbled across two previously unseen records for distant cousins, aunts or uncles, and I anticipate filling in gaps with many more that I managed to overlook over the years.

As a sample of the value of these records, here’s a single page from one Wayne County marriage register:

1. James Aldridge, 70, married Eliza Thompson. Just about every “colored” Aldridge in 19th century Wayne County is a member of my extended family, but this one doesn’t seem to be one of mine. I can’t place a James born circa 1832. Perhaps this man came into the county from Lenoir or Duplin, which had slave-holding Aldridge families.

2. Adam T. Artis, 68, to Katie Pettiway, 20. This was my great-great-great-grandfather’s last marriage. He was actually 71, rather than 68, so Katie was more than 50 years his junior. (And her maiden name was actually Pettiford.) I’ve written about their family here. (By the way, more about their officiant, Rev. Clarence Dillard (5) here.

3. Robert Artis, 20, to Christiana Simmons, 18. Robert Artis was a son of Adam and Amanda Aldridge Artis. His witnesses may have been his cousin Jesse Anthony Artis, son of Jesse Artis, and uncle William Artis.

4. Robert Aldridge, 37, to Rancy Pearsall, 31. My great-great-grandfather John W. Aldridge‘s second youngest brother Robert finally married in 1903. He and Rancy (or Rannie) adopted a son, Bennie, born in 1908, and she died before 1916, when Robert remarried.

——

They’re not exactly brick walls, but this one data collection has revealed this and this and this and this…

Agriculture, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

Gravy.

Sometimes you’ll run across a little extra information in an unexpected place. I’m not related to Robert E. Simmons. But I’m connected to him a couple of ways. As the son of George R. and Mary McCullin Simmons, he was (1) the nephew of my great-great-uncle Lucian Henderson‘s wife Susie McCullin Henderson and (2) the nephew of my great-great-aunt Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons‘ husband Hillary B. Simmons. While researching for Robert’s great-niece, I found his World War I draft registration card and in it a little glimpse at my great-great-grandmother Vicey Artis Aldridge‘s life after her husband John’s death in 1910. Per the correction on the back of the card (at right), Robert Simmons was a tenant farmer on Vicey’s land. Under this arrangement, Robert would worked in exchange for rent in the form of cash or a fixed portion of the crop he raised. The arrangement may also have included housing for Robert and his family and a small wage if he had additional responsibilities. Typically, though, a tenant farmer provided his own equipment and animals. (Farm laborers, on the other hand, were hired hands working for wages.)

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Oral History, Paternal Kin

Collateral kin: McCullin.

In October 1998, I received an email from P.M., who was seeking information about her Simmons forebears. During the antebellum era, the Simmonses were a large free family of color in Duplin and Wayne Counties. Though I am not one, I’ve researched them both in my free people of color work and because several Simmonses have intermarried into my lines. I quickly identified P.M.’s great-grandfather, George Robert Simmons, as the son of George W. and Axey (or Flaxy) Jane Manuel Simmons and, accordingly, brother of Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons‘ husband Hillary B. Simmons. I was also able to provide information about her Artis line, but came up blank when she mentioned her great-grandmother, Mary McCullin Simmons. Then: “Mary’s sister Susie married a Lucien Henderson,” P.M. wrote. “I think they lived in Dudley. My mother remembers visiting her when she was a little girl. Does his name ring a bell?”

It did indeed. James Lucian Henderson, whom I’ve written about several times, including here and here, was my grandmother’s beloved great-uncle. In the hours I recorded her talking about her people, my grandmother mentioned Aunt Susie several times:

And A’nt Susie was real light, and her hair was all white, and she’d plait it in little plaits, and then tuck ’em up. It didn’t grow that much, ’cause it wasn’t long. And she had a rag on her head all the time. Only time she’d comb it was — when she’d be combing her head, you’d see it. And it was just about like this. [Indicates the length of two finger joints.] Shorter than this. I don’t know whether she cut it off or not. But it didn’t grow, and it was white, and she’d put that rag back around her head. After she’d comb her hair. And it was doing like that all the time. Shaking. Her head was shaking, and I asked Mama, “What’s wrong with her?” How come her head was shaking all the time? And she said, “Well, it’s a sickness.” She said, “I don’t remember what they call it.” So I didn’t say nothing else about that. I used to go down there. She couldn’t cook. Like over the stove, like cook dinner, after twelve o’clock. Had to cook it before twelve o’clock before it got too hot. Because she couldn’t be over the stove, she’d fall out, if she was over the stove. So Uncle Lucian always got up and cooked breakfast.

So we come up there and stay, and Aunt Susie, she’d be out there in the yard to the pump or something. I never did see her with her hair. She’d always have a pocket handkerchief, look like, tied to the corner and out it up on her head and tuck it up under her hair. And it was white like cotton. And so, I don’t think she ever left the house. See Uncle Lucian always went to church right up there from the house. I don’t know what the name of Uncle Lucian’s church was. It had a funny name, but I don’t know whether it was Methodist or Baptist, but she didn’t go to church. She never left the house that I know of. I told Mama, “She’s gon shake her head off.” She said, “It was a palsy, that’s how come.” I said to Mama, I said, “That thing’s gon shake her head off.” And I said, ‘Hmm, why she have a rag on her head all the time and her head just shaking like that?’ It be a white rag up there. I wanted to ask her so bad. But I didn’t. Didn’t never ask her.

I recently heard from P.M. again and pulled out our old correspondence. Here’s what I now know about the McCullins:

Rose (or Rosa) McCullin was an enslaved woman born perhaps 1825. She is believed to have been enslaved by Calvin J. McCullin or his brother Benjamin F. “Frank” McCullin in Buck Swamp township, Wayne County, and to have been the mother of at least four daughters – Jane, Mary, Susan and Virginia – by Frank McCullin. Rose McCullin appears in no census records and seems to have died before 1870. The only known references to her are on the marriage and death records of her children, as detailed below.

Jane McCullin

was born about 1850.
In the 1860 slave schedule of Buck Swamp township,Wayne County, B.F. McCullum is listed with five slaves, all female, aged 35, 12, 8, 7, and 4. The woman is described as black; the girls as mulatto. Are these Rose and her children? [Benjamin McCullin’s mother, Amy Ann “McCullum,” wife of C.J. McCullin, is listed with 12 slaves. C.J. McCullin is not listed.]
Jane McCullin married Irvin Manly on 20 January 1870 in Wayne County.
In the 1870 census of Brogden, Wayne County: Irvin Manly, 26, Jane, 20, Rachel, 54, and Hosea Manley, 6. The family lived within a cluster of households headed by white farmer Allen Manly, 60, Henry Manly, 32, and William Manly, 28.
In the 1880 census of Brogden, Wayne County: Irvin Manley, 40, Jane, 30, Fannie, 8, Joe, 7, Mary, 5, Nancy, 3, and Jesse Manley, 10 months, and sister-in-law Susan McCullen, 22.
In the 1900 census of Grantham Wayne County: Irvin Manly, 57, Jane, 58, and children Mary, 24, Jesse, 20, Nathan, 17, and Arthur, 16. Jane reported 5 of 7 children living.
In the 1910 census of Grantham, Wayne County: Irvin Manley, 65, and wife Jane, 64, with daughter Mary Flowers, 30, and her son Marshal C. Flowers.
In the 1920 census of Grantham, Wayne County, 75 year-old Jane Manley appears to have lived alone, but next to her son Arthur Manley and family. On the other side of Arthur was Irvin Manley, 75.
In the 1930 census of Grantham, Wayne County: Irvan Manley, 85, and Jane Manley, 88, were listed as in-laws in the household of Marshall and Mary Flowers on Grantham and Faison Road.
Jane Manley died 19 July 1931 in Brogden township, Wayne County. Her death certificate reports that she was colored and married to Irvin Manley and that she was born 14 July 1839 to an unknown father and Rose McCullen. She was buried the next day at an unnamed location in Wayne County.

Mary Ann McCullin

was born about 1853.
In a 1863 tax assessment of property and slaves in Wayne County, C.J. McCullen reported owning Hardy, 62; Dinah, 54; Fereby, 40; Toney, 26; Phillis, 20; Jimmy, 17; Henrietta, 15; Grace, 14; Ballard, 17; Liza, 38; Creasy, 2; Susy, 4; T[illegible], 12; Ollin, 14; Henry, 9; Isabell, 8; Mary, 6; Clarisy, 3; Rose, 3; Isaac, 50; and Fountin, 10. [The sex and age of several men and women correlate roughly with those listed with Amy Ann McCullin in the 1860 slave schedule. Does this list show Mary McCullin? Susan McCullin? If so, where are Rose, Jane and Virginia? Also, there is no entry for B.F. McCullen, though he reported five slaves in the 1860 census.]
In the 1870 census of Grantham, Wayne County: B.F. McCullin, 51, Penny, 28, Theophilus A., 9, Martha A., 6, Susan C, 5, Ordelia J., 3, Sarah B., 5/12, Mary, 17, and Susan, 15. Mary and Susan were described as black; the rest as white.
On 28 December 1871, Geo. R. Simmons and Mary A. McCullin were married by John Scott, M.G. Her mother was listed as Rosa McCullin; her father, unknown.
In the 1880 census of Brogden, Wayne county: Robt. Simmons, 33, Mary, 24, and children Nettie, 8, Stephen A., 6, and E. Robt. [Robert Elder], 2. [Mary’s last child, Bertha, was born in 1883.]
Mary McCullin Simmons seems to have died before 1900.

Susan McCullin

was born about 1855.
Per above, “Susy, age 4” is listed among C.J. McCullin’s slaves in an 1863 tax assessment.
In 1870, she and her sister Mary were listed in B.F. McCullin’s household in Grantham, Wayne County.
In the 1880 census of Brogden, Wayne County, she was listed in the household of Irvin and Jane Manley, her sister and brother-in-law.
On 4 April 1883, in Wayne County, Susan McCullin, 20, married Lucias [sic] Henderson, 24, son of Lewis and Margaret Henderson. She is listed as the daughter of F. McCullin and R. McCullin.
Susie and Lucian’s daughter Cora Q. Henderson was born 2 February 1887.
In the 1900 census of Dudley, Brogden, Wayne County: Lucious Henderson, wife Susan, and daughter Cora.
Susan’s daughter Cora died 20 March 1907. She is buried in the cemetery of First Congregational Church, Dudley, Wayne County.
In the 1910 census of Brogden, Wayne County, farmer Lucious Henderson, 52, and wife Susie, 50. Susie reported having had one child, but none living.
In the 1920 census of Brogden, Wayne County, farmer Luchon Henderson, 62, wife Susan, 61, with Mary Budd, 56, her son James, 28, and grandson Vernell, 11 mos.
In the 1930 census of Brogden, Wayne County, Luchion Henderson, 70, farmer, and wife Susie, 70.
Susan’s husband Lucian Henderson died 22 June 1934. His death certificate lists her as Susie Manly Henderson. The informant, Johnnie Carter, was the beneficiary of Lucian’s estate: “to John Wesley Carter, … my home place, 8 acres, provided that John W. Carter care for me and my wife Susan Henderson …”
An entry in my grandmother Hattie Henderson Ricks’ Bible states that Susie Henderson died 15 March, 1940. She lived briefly with my grandmother in Wilson before her death, but I assume that she died in Wayne County, but have not found her death certificate.

Marriage license of Lucian Henderson and Susan McCullin, Wayne County Register of Deeds.

Virginia McCullin

Virginia was born about 1857.
On 3 January 1877, Virginia McCullen, 20, married Isaac Raynor, 21, in Wayne County.
In the 1900 census of Mount Olive, Wayne County: Isaac Rayner, 48, Virgina, 36, and children Mary, 20, Zekiel, 19, Florence, 16, and Grainger Rayner, 14; boarder Fountain Futrell, 20; and Sweena Rayner, 70, Isaac’s mother. The couple reported being married 21 years, and Virginia reported 4 of 4 children living.
In the 1910 census of Fork, Wayne County: washwoman Virginia Raynor, 43, widow, with daughters Mary, 28, and Florence, 24, and grandchildren Lillie M., 5, and William D., 4.
Virginia Bradley died 3 December 1914 in Fork township, Wayne County. Her death certificate lists her parents as Frank McCullen and Rosa (last name unknown.) [When did Virginia marry a Bradley?]
Ezekiel Raynor died 8 February 1940 in Mount Olive, Wayne County. He was born 1884 to Isaac Raynor of Duplin County and Virginia McCullin of Wayne County.
Daughter Florence Moore died 21 June 1945 in Goldsboro, Wayne County, aged 56. She was a widow and was born 30 March 1889 to Isaac Raynor and Virginia McCullens.
Daughter Mary Lane died 23 April 1960 in Goldsboro, Wayne County, aged 76. She was a widow and was born 9 September 1883 to Isaac Raynor and Virginia (last name unknown.)
Son Granger Raynor died 18 November 1964 in Goldsboro, Wayne County. He was born in August 1886 to Isaac Raynor and Virginia Manley.

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

A home for his lifetime.

The seventh in an occasional series excerpting testimony from the transcript of the trial in J.F. Coley v. Tom Artis, Wayne County Superior Court, November 1908.

Defendant introduces JESSE ARTIS who being duly sworn, testified:

I had a conversation with Tom Artis and Hagans about this land. I was working there for Hagans (Plaintiff objects) as carpenter. Tom Artis was working with me. The Old man Hagans was talking to Tom about claim which Mrs. Exum had on his land, and was telling him that he had some money at that time, and was would take it up if he wanted to, and give him a home for his lifetime. He left us, and Tom talked to me. I told him he did not know whether he would have a home all his life or not. I advised Tom to let Hagans take up the papers, and Tom did so. Hagans told me next day that if Tom should pay him 800 lb. of cotton he should stay there his life time. When he paid him his money back, the place was his. I don’t know that Tom and I are any kin. Just by marriage. We are not a member of the same Church.

CROSS EXAMINED.

When I was a carpenter ‘Pole told me all about this on his place. He took me into his confidence. I don’t know whether he told me all. He told me a good deal.

——

Jesse Artis (circa 1847-circa 1910) was a brother of my great-great-great-grandfather Adam Artis and his brother Jonah Williams, the latter of whom also testified in this trial.

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

Investigation of death.

A coroner’s inquest is an official inquiry into the manner and cause of an individual’s death. Conducted by a county coroner when a cause of death is unknown, violent or otherwise suspicious, this legal inquiry is performed in public and often before a jury. The coroner does not establish why a death occurred, but rather determines who the deceased was and how, when and where death occurred. Here’s a link to a post about coroner’s reports in the North Carolina State Archives, where I obtained the documents below.

I searched Iredell County’s reports looking, in particular, for the inquest into the death of my great-grandmother’s sister, Elizabeth McNeely Kilpatrick Long, who burned to death in a suspicious fire. I was disappointed not to find one. However, I did find these for two men who died unexpected, but ultimately natural, deaths:

My grandmother’s half-brother, John Walker Colvert II. (One would expect an inquest to get the spelling of a surname right. Or at least consistently wrong.) Here’s his obituary in the 16 April 1937 edition of the Statesville Record & Landmark.

(“Schoolmate”??? Simonton Sanitary Shop? This obituary sets forth some interesting facts that I intend to explore elsewhere.)

And then there was the notorious William “Bill Bailey” Murdock, husband of my grandmother’s aunt Bertha Hart Murdock. He died just over a year after her conviction for shooting a white man in the leg in their restaurant.

North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Slow death.

One of these days, I’m going to go home, and it’s not going to be there. I’m going to drive to Elba Street, and there will be nothing at 303 but weeds, broken brick and shards of glass. This time was not the time, but it ain’t long coming.

Education, Land, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

The question of a half-acre in Fremont.

North Carolina, Wayne County } In the Superior Court Before A.T. Grady C.S.C.

A.A. Williams & R.J. Barnes }

vs } Complaint

John W. Moore & Isaiah Barnes }

The plaintiffs allege

1. That the plaintiffs and the defendants are tenants in common of a lot of land situate in the town of Fremont in said State and County adjoining the lands of W.R. Ballance & others bounded as follows:

Beginning at a stake in the centre of Sycamore Street below J.P. Hopewell’s lot and running the centre of said street 47 yards; then at right angles with said street nearly East to R.E. Cox and W.R. Ballance line; then nearly North with said line 47 yards to a stake thence nearly west to the beginning containing one half acre.

2. That the plaintiffs and the defendants are seized and possessed in fee simple of said lands as tenants in common in the following proportions to wit 1. A.A. Williams to one third part thereof 2. R.J. Barnes to one third part thereof 3. Isaiah Barnes to one sixth part thereof 4. John W. Moore to one sixth part thereof

3. That the defendants Isaiah Barnes and John W. Moore refuse to [illegible] with the plaintiffs in a petition for the sale of said lands for division.

4. That the plaintiffs desire to have partition of said land made amongst the plaintiffs and the defendants according to their respective rights and interests therein so that each party may hold his interest in severalty, but the number of the parties interested it is impossible that actual partition thereof can be made without serious injury to the parties interested

Wherefore the plaintiffs demand judgment

1. That the plaintiffs and the defendants be declared tenants in common in said lands

2. That an order issue for the sale of said lands on such terms as this Court shall deem reasonable and that the proceeds of such sale may be divided among the plaintiffs and the defendants according to their respective shares and interests in the said lands.

W.S.O’B.Robinson, Atty for plaintiffs

——

North Carolina, Wayne County } Superior Court Before the Clerk

A.A. Williams & R.J. Barnes

Jno. W. Moore et als

The defendants Jno. W. Moore, Isaiah Barnes and R.J. Barnes, answering the petition herein say:

I. That paragraph I thereof is not true.

II. That paragraph II thereof is not true.

III. That paragraph III thereof is not true.

IV. That paragraph IV thereof is not true.

For a further defense defendants allege:

I. That on the [blank] day of 1888, the plaintiffs and defendants, together with Geo. Aldridge and Wm. Durden for the purpose of obtaining a school site for a free school in District No. 6 Colored, in Wayne County, which district had been in July 1888 created at the request of the said persons above-named, paid for the lot of land described in the petition and procured a conveyance thereof from R.E. Cox to themselves, it being the intent and purpose of all the parties thereto that the parties in said deed should hold the lot therein conveyed as trustees for the said district for use as a free school in the same, and that the said deed should be executed to them as said trustees.

2. That by the eventual mistake of the parties to said deed the same was executed by the said R.E. Cox to the parties individually and not as trustees.

Wherefore defendants pray that they be hence dismissed and that they receive their costs of plaintiff A.A. Williams and for such other and further relief is they may be entitled to.

Aycock & Daniels, Attys for Deft.

——

These undated pleadings do not exactly speak for themselves, but I hesitate to read into them something that’s not there. I don’t know how the suit turned out, but if the answer is credited, something like this happened: my great-great-grandfather John Aldridge‘s brother George and five others purchased a half-acre from R.E. Cox to be used for the erection of a school for Fremont’s African-American children. (That’s how it worked then — communities had to donate the land for schools to be built upon.) Through mistake and oversight, Cox made out the deed to the six men individually, rather than as trustees. Subsequently, Williams and R.J. Barnes, seeking to take advantage of the tenancy in common, sought to force a sale of the land — which was too small to divide — so that each owner could cash out his share.

Who were these folks?

A.A. Williams was a teacher and principal of the Colored Graded School in Goldsboro.
John W. Moore appears in the 1880 census of Nahunta, Wayne County, as a 57 year-old farmer. He is named in Goldsboro newspaper as active in colored school affairs.
Isaiah Barnes appears in the 1880 census of Fremont, Wayne County, as a 30 year-old farm laborer. By 1894, he is named in Goldsboro newspapers as a poll holder for Fremont voting district.
R.J. Barnes cannot be identified.
William E. Durden is most likely the “William Darden” who appears in the 1880 census of Nahunta, Wayne County, as a 29 year-old farmer.
R.E. Cox was a physician and Fremont town commissioner. Goldsboro newspaper show that he also owned a drugstore and was active in other business ventures. He was white; the other men were African-American.

Document found in School Records, Miscellaneous Records, Wayne County Records, North Carolina State Archives.

North Carolina, Oral History, Paternal Kin, Photographs

A Kerchief of Sense.

Timed to coincide with the anniversaries of his father’s birth in 1923 and his mother’s death in 1963, Effenus Henderson‘s recent memoir, A Kerchief of Sense, is available at Amazon.com. It is a simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-warming story of family and faith.

So much of what Effenus has written of occurred during the period that our branches of both the Henderson and Aldridge families had lost contact. I found my way back to them through my grandmother and father, who often mentioned that we had a cousin called Snook — Horace Henderson — still down in Dudley. My grandmother only knew bits and pieces of the story told here, but her recollections led to our reconnection with his children and our larger family. Tribulation was no stranger to either of our lines, but we survived and now thrive. Thank you, Effenus, for capturing this aspect of our common legacy.

Horace Henderson Sr. and his twelve children, 1963.

North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Reunions.

Thanksgiving break of my senior year in college. My first visit to Dudley on my own. I’d cold-called my cousin L., just based on my father telling me every time we passed down Highway 117 — “we have a cousin Snook that lives there.” My grandmother had talked about Snook, too. And his brothers Dink and Jabbo. So I called, and I introduced myself, and got a warm and immediate invitation to visit. I took my first cousin T. down the next spring,

T.L., L.H. and me in Dudley, Spring 1986.

and the following summer, at a serendipitous family reunion, my grandmother was reunited with Hendersons and Aldridges that she hadn’t seen in decades. Aaron “Jabbo” Henderson had long ago gone on, and Horace “Snook” Henderson Sr. had passed just a few years before, but there were Johnnie “Dink” Henderson and brother K.H. and sisters O.H.D., F.H.T. and M.H.S., my grandmother’s first cousins in one direction and second in another.

My grandmother and me with cousins O.D. and F.T., Henderson Family Reunion, early 1990s.

As L. recently wrote about the first photo above, “I remember that day so vividly. I believe this was the day we were introduced as cousins. Such a beautiful and blessed moment which has caused for many good times and good memories. Praise God for bringing us and our families together. Long lost cousins!”

It’s been a blessing indeed. Over the intervening years, I’ve become closer to many of these cousins than to some I’ve known all my life. The links we’ve forged have been a testament to the meaning of family and the insolubility of its bonds. Today I got a call from one of Snook’s grandsons, inviting me to help create a video project about our family’s history. For real? “Of course!,” I nearly shouted. The blessings keep flowing.

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Category Archives: North Carolina