Other Documents, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Basketball victors.

Many thanks to Dena Banks for pointing out this post in Vieilles Annonces’ Flickr feed. It’s from the March 1912 issue of the NAACP’s The Crisis. (The first 25 years of which I have on CD; I need to study this thing more carefully.) Fred Randall was the 17 year-old son of George and Fannie Aldridge Randall, who migrated from Wayne County to Washington DC in the late 1890s. (Fannie Aldridge Randall, formerly known as Frances Aldridge Locust, was the sister of my great-great-grandfather John W. Aldridge.) Randall’s interest in athletics did not end in high school. As just posted here, he went on to become director of the city’s Cardozo Playground.

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

Reverend Silver’s circle.

42091_343645-00519

This is the license for my great-great-great-uncle Joseph Aldridge‘s second marriage. I’ve written about Martha Carrie Hawkins Henderson Aldridge Silver here. What startled me was to see who performed the ceremony — Reverend Joseph Silver, whom Martha would marry almost 20 years later!
I still don’t know why the wedding was in Wilson, unless that’s where Martha lived. Reverend Silver lived near Enfield, so he was pretty far off his beaten path.
And how did Columbus “C.E.” Artis, brother of my great-great-grandmother Louvicey Artis Aldridge, get involved? Joseph was Vicey’s brother-in-law, but that hardly seems a reason for C.E. to apply for his and Martha’s license.

Reverend Joseph Silver, Sarah Henderson Jacobs‘ second husband, was prominent in North Carolina’s Holiness Church movement. Until recently, I’d been unable to find their marriage license, though I knew when and where they were married. When I tracked it down I realized that its illegibility probably has resulted in its being misindexed.
That’s Joseph Sliver at the top.
Barely legible, Sarah Jacobs and her parents Louis [sic] Henderson and Margaret Henderson.
I haven’t been able to find anything about Reverend J.H. Scott. I assume he was head of a Holiness congregation in Wilson. Sarah herself was very active in the domination as an evangelist.
I knew they’d married on Elba Street. My grandmother told me this: “When Mama got married there on Elba Street, there at the house. Yeah. He come up there …” It’s so funny to imagine my four and not-quite seven year-old uncles with my grandmother, squeezed in a corner of that tiny front room, fidgeting as Mama Sarah took her vows.

Five years after Mama Sarah died, Reverend Silver married Martha Aldridge. Astonishingly, he lived almost a decade and a half longer.
A Justice of the Peace performed the ceremony? That’s odd for such a prominent Holiness preacher.

Business, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

That is the promise I made my father.

The tenth 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.

W.S. HAGANS recalled by Referee.

I testified that I told Tom that I wouldn’t sell this land to anybody who wouldn’t make the same agreement on which he had been living on the land, that is the promise I made to my father in his presence. I requested Mr. Coley to carry out this agreement. Mr. Coley said he would let the Defendant stay as long as the Defendant could let him. I considered it the same promise I made my father. I told him what rent the old man was paying. He didn’t agree to let him stay for the same rent. Said he would raise it. Said he would let him stay as long as he would protect him, and give him good crops.

CROSS EXAMINED.

The conversation was before the delivery of the deed to Coley. I remember the occasion when Henry Reid and I were together, we talked with Tom about the land. Reid was on my buggy one day, and we met the Defendant. The Defendant wanted me to sell him this 30 acres of land, and I told him that I would prefer selling it all together. He wanted to purchase the property from me in the presence of H.S. Reid. That tract that Coley gave mortgage on was additional security, was worth 4 or $5000. That was the 60 acre tract. (Coley mortgaged.) He gave me notes due for January of next year, and the January following. I have traded those notes. (Plaintiff objects.) Artis stated to me when he came to my house that it would be to my advantage to sell to Mr. Coley, in preference to Mr. Cook, on account of Mr. Coley would not only take the two pieces, the 30 and the 24 acre lot, but would also take the 9 3/4 acre lot, and that he wanted me to let him have it, on the grounds stated yesterday, Mr. Cook being disagreeable etc.

CROSS EXAMINED.

I think I told all these reasons yesterday; I am repeating this because my lawyer asked me. I just didn’t think about the Henry Reid statement. I told my lawyer. I said I would not let anyone have the property, until they had made me the same promise I made my father in presence of Defendant. Mr. Coley also agreed to it. I didn’t say it because I wasn’t asked. I told Mr. Cook that he must let the old man stay there. Mr. Cook said that he had no desire whatever of removing the Defendant. I told Mr. Cook that I heard that he wanted to move his son-in-law up there, and I feared that on that account he would interfere with the Defendant. Mr. Cook said his son-in-law was very well situated on another place, belonging to him, Cook.

What did it take to call a white man “disagreeable” in open court in 1909?

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

United in matrimony: Barnes.

Willis and Cherry Barnes had seven children (or six, if oldest daughter Rachel was actually Wesley’s stepchild.) What do their marriage licenses reveal?

I’ve long had a copy of this license. Jesse Barnes, born about 1868, was the second of Willis and Cherry’s sons. His elder brother Wesley married his sister-in-law, Ella Mercer.
Jesse and Mary Mag married in a Missionary Baptist church. (The spelling here is an accurate reflection of local pronunciation.)
The official witnesses were Jesse’s brothers Wesley and Ned Barnes.

Early in life, Edward Barnes went by his formal first name, but by 1900 he is inevitably referred to as “Ned.” He passed this name on to his son, who in turn begat three more generations of Ned Barneses, the youngest of whom is still living.
Louisa Gay was the daughter of Samuel and Alice Bryant Gay. Her brother Albert Gay married Jesse A. Jacobs Jr.’s daughter Annie Bell.
Samuel H. Vick was a heavy hitter in black Wilson.
Was Spencer Barnes a relative? He does not appear near these Barneses in early census records, and those records and his marriage license seem to indicate that he was orphaned.

Mary Barnes was Willis and Cherry’s younger daughter. Assuming it’s accurate, her marriage license helps narrow the range of Cherry Barnes’ death from 1880-1897 (the latter is the year Willis remarried) to 1893-1897.
Whoa!!! Is this verification of Hugh B. Johnston’s hunch that Willis Barnes belonged to General Joshua Barnes? Did Willis’ family remain on the general’s former plantation, perhaps as tenant farmers, more than 30 years after Emancipation? If not, why marry there?
Small world moment: Duplin County-born barber and brickmason George Gaston, who lived north of Wilson in Elm City, was the great-grandfather of M.R.L., one of my childhood friends.

This marriage was reported in the Wilson Daily Times. Prior to finding the article, I had not known of Willis and Cherry’s youngest child.
A slight clarification for Cherry’s possible death date — 1893-1899.

I do not at all understand why I haven’t seen this license before. William “Willie” Barnes was the youngest of Willis and Cherry’s sons.
Hattie Best’s family had roots in Greene County, but were well-known in Wilson.
This wedding took place at Orren Best’s home, but was conducted by the pastor of the A.M.E. Zion church at which Cintha Barnes married.
Witness Charles B. Gay was the brother-in-law of Willie’s brother Ned Barnes.

At last, a mystery solved. In the 1880 census of Wilson township, Wilson County, Willis Barnes’ household includes wife Cherry, step-daughter Rachel Battle, children Wesley, Jesse, Ned, Eddie, Mary and Willey, and niece Ellen Battle (whom I have not been able to identify further.) That Ned and Eddie had always confused me, as I knew that Ned’s real name was Edward. Was this a recording error? Well, no. Eddie was Edgar Barnes, whom I have never identified as a child of Willis and Cherry. (Also, note below how closely Willis Barnes and family lived to Joshua Barnes.)

Edgar and Mary Hill Barnes were also married at Saint John A.M.E. Zion.
The couple is recorded in the household of Mary’s parents in the 1910 census of the town of Wilson, Wilson County.
They were not married long. In 1917, Edgar registered for the World War I draft in Greenville, North Carolina. He described himself as single.
In 1921, he married Delia Hawkins in Greenville. They appear as a childless couple in the 1930 census of Greenville, North Carolina. Edgar reported working as a plasterer and Delia as a presser at Carolina Pressing Club.In 1940, they are in the same house at 1311 West 4th Street, owned and valued at $2000. I have not found North Carolina death certificates for them.

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

Aldridge marriages.

The first in a series* of posts mining the data found in North Carolina marriage licenses:

Reka Aldridge‘s father George W. Aldridge was the brother of my great-great-great-grandfather John W. Aldridge.
Wayne County clerks sometimes listed mothers by maiden name, but more often didn’t. Dora was a Greene.
I don’t know what black Methodist churches were in Fremont in 1912, but R.R. Grant possibly served Salisbury AME Zion Church. The church is still active, but recently suffered a devastating fire. (Five minutes later: Or not. R.R. Grant appears regularly in the Journal of the North Carolina Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the 1912 city directory for Fremont lists him as Methodist minister. In other words, he and his church were white. Were the Aldridges members? Did they sit in a designated pew? How did that work?)
Witness Eva Aldridge was the bride’s sister. William J. Boswell appears in the 1910 census of Nahunta township, Wayne County, as a married, 30 year-old house carpenter. Ezekiel B. Bailey, 23, white, appeared in his mother’s household in the same township.

Robert and Mary Eliza Balkcum Aldridge‘s youngest sons, Robert Jr. and Joseph, married relatively late. Joseph Aldridge was 16 years older than his first wife, Lou Berta Manley.
Holiness Church.
Witness Johnnie Aldridge was Joseph’s nephew, son of John W. and Louvicey Artis Aldridge. W.M. Manley was Lou Berta’s father. “Robert Hob” was possibly Robert Hobbs, who appears in the 1910 census of Grantham township, Wayne County, as a 24 year-old farmer.

William Aldridge was the son of J. Matthew and Catherine Boseman (or Simmons?) Aldridge. His father died in 1868.
The ceremony took place at Edward Simmons, whose identity is not clear to me.
Richard Boseman was the son of James and Tempsey Locus Boseman. James Boseman appeared in the household of J. Matthew and Catherine Aldridge in the 1860 census of Buck Swamp, Wayne County. (James may have been Catherine’s brother.) Richard married Lillie Mae Aldridge, Matthew and Catherine’s daughter. Eddie Budd was the son of Haywood and Phereby Simmons Budd. There were several Bryant Simmonses, but this was likely the son (1831-1890) of James and Winnie Medlin Simmons.

Of course, George Aldridge knew full well who his mother and father were, and both were living when he married Dora Greene in 1884. I see this omission a lot. Laziness or “who cares?” by the Register of Deeds?
Benjamin F. Aycock was later elected as Republican state senator.
It’s difficult to read the names of the witnesses, but neither appears to be a known relative of George.

This is Robert Aldridge Jr.‘s second marriage. His first, to Ransy Pearsall, was in 1903.
Frank “F.B.” Daniels appears in the 1910 census of Goldsboro, Wayne County, as a 20 year-old white lawyer. George F. Vann appears in the 1910 census of Stony Creek township, Wayne County, as a white, 20 year-old farmer.

*Actually, this languished in the Draft queue for a few weeks, so it’s not first anymore.

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

Small world.

In midwinter of 1911, Primitive Baptist minister Jonah Williams made his way to the home of Stanford Holmes to preside over the marriage of Peter Barnes and Sinthia Pate. Jonah was the brother of my great-great-great-grandfather, Adam T. Artis. Thirty-three year-old Peter was the son of Calvin and Celia Barnes. Thirteen years previously, Peter’s brother Redmond Barnes had married Jennette Best in Wilson County. Redmond and Jennette Barnes‘ daughter Edith Bell married Theodore Roosevelt Ellis in 1933, and their first son was Theodore Jr., who married my father’s sister in 1960.

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

Widow? Or daughter?

Who is this Eliza Henderson?

Sixty years old, living in Brogden township (i.e. Dudley) in 1900?

Joseph Artis I readily find. He was born circa 1830 to Absalom and Clarky Artis in northwest Wayne County. He married Mary Ann (last name unknown), and they and their children appear together in the 1860, 1870 censuses of Buck Swamp, then Brogden, townships. I don’t find him at all in 1900.

Nor Eliza Henderson. My great-great-great-great-grandfather James Henderson‘s second wife was Eliza (or Louisa) Armwood Henderson. He died sometime between 1880 and 1900. Was this his widow remarrying? Only if the age given for this bride is off by five or ten years.

There’s another possibility, though it seems remote. James Henderson had four children with his first wife (or partner) in Onslow County. When he migrated to Sampson County in the 1850s, sons Lewis and James Henry came with him. Daughters Mary and Eliza seem not to have. Eliza was born about 1842. Is this her?

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

Doctor slain.

March 1968. I was not quite four. I had a baby sister who’d just come through a terrible bout with meningitis. My world was 1400 and 1401 Carolina Street and kindergarten and, at the outer edges, my grandmothers’ houses in Newport News and Philadelphia. In six months, I’d be gazing adoringly at “beautiful singer-actress” Diahann Carroll on a black and white small-screen. Right then, though, if you’d said, “Your great-grandfather died,” I would have looked at you blankly. If you’d said, “Mother Dear’s daddy died,” I might have creased my forehead, sad for her. But I didn’t know my great-grandfather. Didn’t know I had one. And had I picked up this Jet, which was delivered to our house, and been able to read — which I couldn’t just then — this would not have resonated either:

James Thomas Aldrich (born Aldridge) was killed 10 February 1968. After a funeral service in Saint Louis, his body was returned to North Carolina for a second service and burial in Dudley in the family cemetery he established.

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

Nuptials discovered. (And a little Misinformation Monday, no. 11.)

My grandmother’s birthday was Saturday, June 6. It would have been her 105th. My cousin D.D., her sister’s great-granddaughter, sent me a photo of a photo via text message — Mother Dear and her husband, Jonah Ricks, my step-grandfather. I’d never seen this particular image, but I recognized it as having been taken in Greensboro, North Carolina, at her niece L.’s wedding in 1963.

… Or was it?

I found their marriage license today. So, first, I had to pick my jaw up. I knew they’d wed in August 1958, but had never been able to find a record in Wilson. Because they married in Guilford County. In Greensboro. I immediately thought about this little snapshot. This wasn’t taken in 1963! Mother Dear and Granddaddy Ricks had traveled to her sister’s for the ceremony, and this photo was taken on their wedding day. Why hadn’t I registered the boutonniere, the corsage, the beringed left hand held high?

Then I got around to looking at the rest of the license.

First, there’s the matter of my grandmother’s name. In that era, legal names were somewhat fluid, and changing them did not necessarily involve legal drama. Bessie Henderson bore my grandmother before North Carolina required birth certificates. Bessie named the baby Hattie Mae and gave her her last name. Bessie died less than a year later, and little Hattie went to live with her great-aunt and Uncle, Sarah and Jesse Jacobs. She called them Mama and Papa and became known as Hattie Jacobs. Only after Sarah’s death in 1938 did my grandmother learn that she had never been formally adopted. (And as a consequence, she was forced out of the house on Elba Street by Jesse Jacobs’ children.) She immediately changed her name to Hattie Mae Henderson. I was surprised then to see her name listed as “Hattie Jacobs Henderson” some 20 years after she dropped the appellation.

Mother Dear also listed Jesse and Sarah Jacobs as her parents on the license. Here is an example of the way documents may reflect social and familial realities, rather than legal or genetic ones. Curiously, though, there is a hint to Mother Dear’s paternity in the license, though inexplicably placed. Mama Sarah was born Sarah Daisy Henderson. Her first husband was Jesse Jacobs and her second Joseph Silver. She was not an Aldridge. But my grandmother’s birth father was. Why did my grandmother report Sarah’s name this way? Maybe Mr. Ricks gave the information and got his facts twisted?

Last, the witnesses. I recognize James Beasley — he married my cousin Doris Holt — but who were the others? Friends of my great-aunt Mamie Henderson Holt, perhaps?

Births Deaths Marriages, Migration, Other Documents, Paternal Kin, Virginia

Never too late.

As I’ve written about here, visits to Norfolk, Virginia, to spend time with cousin Tilithia at her cafe were highlights of my grandmother’s childhood. They later lost contact, however, and it was not until I connected with B.J., a descendant of Tilithia’s sister Mattie Brewington Braswell, that I learned that Tilithia lived until 1965. I wish Mother Dear had known that.

In my earlier post, I mentioned that Tilithia was married to railroad fireman Walter Godbold during the years after World War I that my grandmother visited. “Her marriage to Godbold did not last,” I noted, “and the 1930 census found him back in Rocky Mount NC (described as divorced) and her still in Norfolk, holding herself out to be a widow while maintaining the little restaurant at 426 Brambleton Avenue.”

Ancestry.com’s Virginia Divorce Records database shed some light on this fractured set-up:

Yes. Apparently, Tilithia and Walter — married in 1921 and separated in early 1926 — stayed married for nearly 40 more years. Only in 1963 did Tilithia receive the divorce she finally filed for (and Walter contested.) Grounds: desertion. Walter was not new to that game, though he turned the tables in his go-round with Tilithia. Here’s the divorce record noting the dissolution of a previous marriage to a woman from his hometown, granted seven months before he married Tilithia:

And what could have led an 84 year-old woman to seek a divorce from a man she probably had not seen in decades? A third shot at love. Less than a month after her marriage to Godbold was dissolved, Tilithia married John Carter Dabney, a retiree nearly twenty years her junior.

This union, if happy, did not last long. A year and-a-half later, on 21 November 1965, Tilithia Brewington King Godbold Dabney passed away. Her heart failed, but presumably did not break.

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Category Archives: Other Documents

Basketball victors.

Reverend Silver’s circle.

That is the promise I made my father.

United in matrimony: Barnes.

Aldridge marriages.

Small world.

Widow? Or daughter?

Doctor slain.

Nuptials discovered. (And a little Misinformation Monday, no. 11.)

Never too late.