I found this photo on the Newport News Public Library’s website. Posted in material related to the Virginiana Collection, the picture is captioned: “Junior Class of 1923 stands before the renovated Huntington High School on 18th Street.”
I am fairly certain that the woman I encircled is my great-aunt Julia Allen Maclin, who was born 109 years ago today. I know that this terribly grainy side shot is her:
Happy birthday, Aunt Julia.
Honoring the memory of my grandfather, John Christopher Allen Jr., on his 108th birthday.
The earliest known photograph of John C. Allen Jr., taken circa 1920.
Pittsburgh Courier, 20 June 1936.
Socialite Clara B. Braswell‘s mother, Mattie Amelia Brewington Braswell, was a daughter of Joshua L. and Amelia Aldridge Brewington. Just after 1900, Mattie migrated to Norfolk, Virginia, where she married her husband, who was also a Wayne County native. Several of her siblings also made the move, including Tilithia Brewington King Godbold Dabney, much-beloved by my grandmother. Among the out-of-town guests noted at Clara’s nuptials were Mattie Braswell’s first cousin and his wife, Zebedee and Jennie Ridley Aldridge, with three of their children. The son of John W. and Louvicey Artis Aldridge, Zebedee had also migrated from Dudley, Wayne County, to rural Brunswick County, Virginia, in the first decade of the 20th century. Zebedee and Jenny traveled a hundred miles from their farm to attend his cousin’s gala wedding, touching evidence of enduring ties among Robert and Mary Eliza Balkcum Aldridge‘s descendants.
Zebedee and Jennie Aldridge, probably 1940s.
Photo courtesy of L.D. Hutchinson. Hat tip to B. Jones for the article.
I’ve written of Joseph R. Holmes’ death. What of his life? The details are sketchy and poorly documented. Nonetheless, here is what I know.
Birth, death, marriage and court records at Charlotte County Courthouse, Charlotte Court House, Virginia; other records as noted. Thanks, as always, for the incalculably valuable assistance of Kathy Liston.
My mother tells a story: the War was on, and her father had been sent overseas to serve. His older brother had come to Newport News for a visit, and the family gathered at her grandparents’ house. “We were in Grandma’s kitchen. I must have been about 5,” she says. “I remember it like yesterday. Of course, I knew he was a dentist, but to me he was just Uncle Mac. And I was telling everybody that I had a loose tooth, and he said, ‘Oh, let me see it.’ He put his hand by my mouth, and when he pulled it away, he opened his palm, and the tooth was in it! And I cried and I cried,” she says, laughing. “It didn’t hurt. I didn’t even feel it. But I guess I was so surprised!”
——
Jasper Maxwell Allen, the oldest son and second child of John C. and Mary Agnes Holmes Allen, was born in 1904 in Newport News, Virginia. Though he was named “Jasper” after his maternal grandfather, he was always known as “Maxwell” or “Mac.”
The 1910 census of Newport News shows the Allens at 748 21st Street. John Allen, a painter at the shipyard, headed a household consisting of wife Mary and six children — Marion, Maxwell, Julia, John jr., Edith and Willie Allen — as well as an adopted son Jesse Jefferson (who was Agnes’ deceased sister Emma’s son.)
By the 1920 census, the family was living at 2107 Marshall Avenue in Newport News: John C. Allen, longshoreman on piers, with wife Mary, and children Marian, Maxwell, Julia, John, Willie, Edith and Nita.
Maxwell attended local elementary schools and graduated either John Marshall or Huntington High School in Newport News. He attended college at Virginia Theological Seminary and College.
In 1929, The Southern Workman, a journal published by Hampton Institute for more than 50 years, announced that on August 29 Lena P. Jeffress, who received a diploma in Education in ’28, married Mr. Maxwell Jasper Allen [sic]. Lena Poole Jeffress was the daughter of J. Murray and Lena Poole Jeffress of Charlotte Courthouse, Virginia. Presumably, Lena and Maxwell met during one of his visits home from school in Lynchburg.
A year later, the 1930 censustaker found the couple living in Washington, DC, at 3027 Sherman Avenue NW, where they boarded in the household of David Spencer. Maxwell worked as a waiter in a restaurant and Lena as a clerk in an insurance office. It is likely that Maxwell had recently begun his studies at Howard University Dental College; he graduated in the Class of 1932.
On 2 June 1932, the Pittsburgh Courier‘s society page mentioned that a Danville couple had entertained members of a drama troupe from Virginia Theological Seminary and College. One of the performers in the play “A Servant in the House” was Maxwell Allen. [Is this the same Maxwell? I thought he was in dental school by then.]
On 16 June 1934, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that the Virginia State Board of Dental Examiners had announced that 34 candidates, including J. Maxwell Allen, had passed the examinations to practice dentistry in the state.
A 1934 issue of Howard’s The Dentoscope journal announced:
Allen’s arrival was heralded in the local newspaper : “Colored Dentist’s Office at Charlotte Courthouse.”
On 1 August 1937, the Richmond Times-Dispatch covered the 67th anniversary celebration of Morrison Grove Baptist Church, “The oldest church for Negroes in Charlotte County.” After a brief history of the church, the article noted that “[t]he Central Sunday School convention with convene at Morrison Grove Wednesday and Thursday. Member schools will have charge of the program Wednesday. Dr. J. Maxwell Allen will lead a discussion on “Training the Youths for Christian Services” and Rev. W.C. Currin will preach Wednesday night.”
On 22 August 1939, the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a short article concerning the alleged disappearance of Maxwell Allen, “Negro dentist,” following a visit to his wife at Virginia Union University. He had been carrying a significant amount of money, and the family feared foul play. Apparently, Maxwell resurfaced without incident, and the brouhaha died down. (My mother has never heard anything about this.)
The 1940 census of Charlotte Court House lists doctor of dentistry Maxwell J. Allen, 35; wife Lena P., a public school teacher, 35; and sons Maxwell J., Jr., 8, and Cameron L., 2; as well as Margarette Brown, 8, niece. Apparently, however, Maxwell tried out a practice in Lynchburg for a few years during this stretch. In Stickley and Amowitz’ The Lynchburg Dental Society Presents One Hundred Forty-Three Years of Dentistry: 1820-1963, published in 1964: “Dr. J. Maxwell Allen was a graduate of Howard University School of Dentristry. He practiced in Lynchburg at 912 Fifth Street in 1940 and 1941, moving from here to Charlotte Court House, Virginia.”
Uncle Maxwell and younger son, Cameron, circa 1939.
On 23 February 1950, in a column in the Charlotte Gazette called “News of Interest of Colored Readers”: In observance of Negro History Week, the Rev. F.L. Patterson, pastor of Morrison Grove Church, arranged a very interesting meeting. Miss Betty Smith presided. Mrs. Charles G. Blackwell spoke on “The Negro in Education.” Other speakers were Mr. G. H. Binford, on the subject “The Negro in Politics and Economics”; Rev. F.L. Patterson, on “The Negro in Religion”; Dr. J. Maxwell Allen, on “The Negro in Fraternals and Dentistry.”
On 18 Aug 1959, Newport News’ Daily Press reported: “Dr. J. Maxwell Allen Sr., Negro, a former resident of Newport News, died early Sunday in a Lynchburg hospital following a short illness. He is the son of Mrs. Mary H. Allen and the late J.C. Allen Sr., of Newport News. Surviving, in addition to his mother, are his wife, Lena P. Allen of Charlotte Court House; two sons, Maxwell Allen Jr. and Cameron Allen of New York City; a brother, William J. Allen, Newport News; three sisters, Mrs. Julia A. Maclin, Newport News, Mrs. Edith A. Anderson, Jetersville, and Mrs. Nita A. Wilkerson, Washington; a foster brother, Jesse H. Jefferson of Baltimore; and several nieces and nephews. Funeral arrangements are incomplete.”
Per his death certificate, Uncle Maxwell died of cancer after a twelve-day stay in a Lynchburg hospital. He would have turned 56 the day after his death. He was buried in Charlotte Court House in Union Cemetery, just down the road from his house and office. His wife Lena joined him there in 1998.
75 years ago today, this brief article appeared on the front page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Richmond Times-Dispatch, 22 August 1939.
What the –?
My great-uncle J. Maxwell Allen survived this incident, but what in the world happened? (If anything.) I can’t find any foolw-up in newspaper archives, and no one in my family has ever mentioned the disappearance of Uncle Mac.
The second oldest of Napoleon Hagans‘ sons, Henry Edward Hagans was born in 1868 near Fremont, Wayne County. (Napoleon was the half-brother of my great-great-great-grandmother, Frances Seaberry Artis.) His mother was Apsilla “Appie” Ward Hagans. He and his brother William S. Hagans (then called “Snowbee”) appear with their parents in the 1870 and 1880 censuses. Little is known about their childhood, but it would have been one of relative and increasing comfort as their father’s landholdings expanded. Henry and William attended local elementary schools, then left home to enter the preparatory division of Howard University in Washington, DC. Henry returned to North Carolina to attend college at Shaw University in Raleigh, graduating in 1890.
Henry in his teens, probably as a young collegian at Shaw.
Most of what we know about Henry’s life is gleaned from numerous mentions in newspaper articles resulting from his social, professional, civic and political career. To call him an active man is an understatement. While still in college, he hit the ground running and slowed only in the last few years of his life, when ill health may have dampened his passions. What follows is a narrative built largely from his public life. The portrait is incomplete, but reveals a remarkable man nonetheless.
On 11 November 1885, the Raleigh News & Observer carried a glowing review of the “Colored Fair,” an annual exhibition convened by the North Carolina Industrial Association. The fair opened with a procession of the Association’s marshals, followed by their assistants, including H.E. Hagans of Fremont, who was only about 17 years old. NCIA, founded in 1879, was an organization of African-American civic leaders, founded “to encourage and promote the development of the industrial and educational resources of the colored people of North Carolina.” Governor Starks “spoke of his great surprise at the extent and merit of this the first colored fair he ever attended. He was really amazed to see what progress the colored people had made in twenty years. In that time he said they had really become a race ….”
On 6 November 1888, the New Bern Daily Journal announced that stockholders of the Eastern North Carolina Stock and Industrial Association had elected officers, including H.E. Hagans — then 20 — as chief marshal.
On 10 May 1890, the Washington Bee, an African-American newspaper in the nation’s capitol, noted in a “Personals” column that “Mr. H.E. Hagans of Tremont [sic], N.C. is in the city on a visit.” (The two entries preceding Henry’s notice detailed the travels of former U.S. senator Blanche Kelso Bruce and Congressman John Mercer Langston.)
In about 1892, Henry married Julia B. Morton, daughter of Andrew and Mary Morton of Danville, Virginia. Andrew Morton was a prosperous barber and entrepreneur. The nomination form for historic place registration for Danville’s Mechanicsville district notes: “Another freedman, Andrew Morton, built 543 Monroe Street ca. 1882. Morton became a successful barber and prominent member of the black community, helping to establish Calvary Baptist Church in 1892.” Images of America: Danville Revisited, a photographic history of this southwest Virginia city, includes photographs and brief bios of Andrew and Mary Morton. Henry and Julia may have met through connections at Howard — she graduated from the school’s Normal Department in 1888. Henry’s listing as a teacher in North Danville in the Virginia State Superintendent’s Report for School Years 1891-2 and 1892-3 reveals that the couple lived briefly in Danville before settling permanently in Fremont, then Goldsboro.
Julia B. Morton Hagans.
On 15 September 1892, the Goldsboro Weekly Argus trumpeted big news: “The State Colored Normal School opened in this city yesterday, of which Prof. H.E. Hagans, son of Napoleon Hagans, one of the most respected and prosperous colored men in the State, from the Fremont section, has recently been elected principal. The ARGUS is glad to note his election. He merited the preferment, and we wish the school all success under his administration.” According to an article in the Colored American, see below, Henry left this position to become Chair of English at A&M College in Greensboro (now North Carolina A&T State University).
On 31 July 1893, Julia Hagans gave birth to Henry’s only child, son Earle Morton Hagans, in Danville.
Henry’s mother Appie died in 1895, and his father almost exactly one year later. Under the terms of Napoleon Hagans’ will, Henry and his brother William divided the estate equally.
On 26 June 1897, the Raleigh Gazette noted that “Prof. H.E. Hagans of Fremont” was an attendee at the North Carolina State Teachers Association’s 16th annual session at Shaw University.
On 23 October 1897, the Raleigh Gazette reported on the closing exercises of the city school of Eureka, whose “able corps of teachers” included Prof. George W. Reid, Mrs. H.E. Hagans and Miss Elnora S. Ferrell. After devotional exercises, students were examined — revealing “an amount of familiarity with the subjects taught very seldom witnessed in the average school of this kind” — then a “sumptuous repast” was served. (In fact, “the best dinner ever given in Eureka.”)
On 20 November 1897, the short-lived Wilson (NC) Blade noted in “Fremont Items,” that “Professor Henry E. Hagans made a flying trip to Goldsboro last Saturday and returned last Sunday. While here he visited the Sunday school and delivered an elegant address.” After closing exercises were over, several distinguished persons spoke, including “Prof. H.E. Hagans, formerly an instructor in the A.&M. College, Greensboro.”
On 30 May 1898, the Goldsboro Daily Argus announced:
This was surely 501 East Elm Street, a corner address just across the street and slightly northeast of Willow Dale, the cemetery for Goldsboro’s white residents. (The “big ditch” is still there.) There is a house on the lot today, but it dates from no earlier than the mid-20th century. Sanborn maps from the era show a large two-story dwelling.
On 25 June 1898, the Colored American, a Washington, DC, newspaper, noted that: “Mr. H.E. Hagans of Goldsboro, N.C., and a brother of Mr. W.S. Hagans, secretary to Hon. George H. White, was in the city for a few days last week. He is a splendid specimen of the superior young men of the race in North Carolina.” Henry previously had been White’s secretary.
On 27 June 1898, Henry and his wife “J.B.” were official witnesses at the marriage of his 27 year-old brother William Hagans and Lizzie E. Burnett, 23. The ceremony, conducted by Rev. Clarence Dillard, took place in the Nahunta district of Wayne County, probably at William’s home. Neighbor J.D. Reid was an additional witness.
By his late 20s, Henry was thick in the middle of local Republican politics. Coverage of African-American politicians in Goldsboro newspapers was snarky at best and crudely racist the rest of the time. A 20 September 1898 Weekly Argus article was typical, snidely mocking the elocution of black speakers and jabbing at their decorum. The point of the coverage — an agreement between black and white factions of the party concerning the nomination of a county ticket — arrives late in the piece, and there we learn that Professor Henry E. Hagans gained the chairmanship of Wayne County’s Republican executive committee.
On 9 Nov 1898, Daniel Vick and wife Fannie of Wilson NC executed to Henry E. Hagans of Goldsboro a promissory note for $400 with interest after maturity at 6% and payable 9 Feb 1899. If Vick defaulted, Hagans would sell at public auction two lots on Church Street and Barefoot Road in Wilson. The deed was registered and filed in Wilson County on 16 Apr 1903 in deed book 66, page 236. A handwritten note on the entry: “The within papers transferred to S.H. Vick this the 6th day of May AD 1899 /s/ H.E. Hagans” Another note: “This mortgage is satisfied in full by taking taking a new mortgage and is hereby cancelled 4 Dec 1903 /s/ S.H. Vick” Samuel H. Vick, Daniel’s son, was turn-of-the-nineteenth-century black Wilson’s most prominent citizen and was active with George H. White and Henry Hagans in Republican politics.
On 21 March 1899, the nearly 476 acres comprising the bulk of Napoleon Hagans’ estate was divided between his sons. Parcels included two tracts in Nahunta township containing 173 and 48 acres; a tract containing 3 acres; two tracts containing 75 ¾ and 6 acres; three tracts containing 39 ¼, 30 and 8 1/3 acres; a tract containing 4 1/8 acres; a tract containing 25 acres; a tract containing 9 ¼ acres; a tract containing 24 acres; and a tract containing 30 acres.
On 21 July 1899, the Fayetteville Observer reported that “[t]he Summer School of Methods, which opened in this city on the 10th inst., for the benefit of colored teachers, closed its labors last night with an interesting programme.” The article noted that 183 teachers from 17 counties attended the school, and faculty included “Prof. E.E. Smith, the efficient conductor, Prof. Edward Evans, Prof. Emma J. Council, Profs. J.W. Byrd and G.W. Herring, Dr. R.S. Rives, Rev. W.M. Jackson, Supt. J.I. Foust, and Profs. H.E. Hagans and J.W. Woody.”
The following month, the Goldsboro Headlight reported that Henry Hagans had been selected for jury duty at the September term of court.
The Raleigh Morning Post carried pleasant coverage of commencement exercises at Goldsboro’s Colored State Normal School and credited Henry Hagans and his assistants, Ed. Williams and C.A. Whitehead, for an “excellent system of training.”
On 5 April 1900, the Goldsboro Weekly Argus cheerfully chronicled the “sorry plight” of the county’s Republican party, a mostly white faction of which was in open revolt against chairman Hagans. The white Republicans were “sick and sore” of Hagans and refused to attend a committee meeting he called. In their absence, delegates to the state and Congressional conventions were selected, with African-Americans gained the primo latter. Dark hints were thrown that “Czar Hagans” must have taken money for his brazen actions as, whatever the law, “public sentiment was opposed to negroes filling offices over white people.” The problem, railed a white Republican, was “educated negroes,” who wanted only to teach school, preach or engage in politics.
The same day, the Raleigh Morning Post published a letter from H.E. Hagans, coldly furious in his defense of his actions and honor:
Exactly one month later, the Colored American‘s “Political Horoscope” column ignored the kerfuffle to record Henry’s rise in party leadership: “At the convention of the second district of North Carolina held at Tarboro April 26, Congressman George H. White and H.E. Hagans were chosen to the Philadelphia convention.”
In the 1900 census of Goldsboro, Wayne County, in Ward 2, Henry E. Hagans, born September 1867, is listed with wife Julia A., born July 1869, and son Earl, born September 1892. Henry owned his home; no occupation listed. Earl is also listed 135 miles away in Danville, living with his Morton grandparents. This is, perhaps, the first clue that the boy was not following in his father’s footsteps.
Henry’s own steps were a little shaky in 1900. At the September term of Superior Court, judge W.S. Robinson entered a judgment against him in the matter of The Bank of Wayne vs. H.E Hagans: “It appearing to the County that the Summons herein was duly served on the defendant the 10 days before the beginning of this term, and that a verified complaint was duly filed herein on the 4th day of Sept 1900 and that the defendant has failed to appear and answer or demur to the complaints; It is thereupon on motion of Aycock & Daniels, attorneys for plaintiff considered and adjudged by the court, that the plaintiff, The Bank of Wayne, recover of the defendant H.E. Hagans, the sum of Three Hundred and Eighteen and 45/100 ($318.45) dollars of which Three Hundred ($300) dollars is principal and Eighteen and 45/100 ($18.45) dollars is interest, together with the costs of this action to be taxed by the clerk.”
On 19 March 1901, the Wilmington Messenger ran a story about an 18 year-old Goldsboro mulatto man arrested for stealing mail. Andrew C. Alexander, “an attache of the postoffice,” turned to Henry Hagans to stand surety for Alexander’s $200 bond.
On 19 April 1901, per the Raleigh News & Observer, Henry addressed the annual meeting of the alumni association during commencement week at Shaw University.
In 1902, H.E. Hagans, age 34, registered to vote in Wayne County under the state’s grandfather clause. He named Napoleon Hagans as his qualifying ancestor. (His brother William named their maternal grandfather, a white physician named David G.W. Ward.)
On 3 April 1902, the Charlotte Observer printed the following letter:
The News & Observer covered the “negro mass meeting,” attended by about 150 men from 18 counties, on 16 April. The purpose of the gathering, headed by elected president Henry Hagans was “to discuss the status of the negro as an officeholder in the Republican party and to devise plans to make his power felt by the white Republicans his votes had elevated to power.” Senator J.C. Pritchard came in for especially harsh criticism. An appointed committee, which included Henry’s brother William, devised an address to the colored people of North Carolina that encouraged sober respectability, self-respect, home ownership, support of “race enterprises,” payment of poll taxes, country living, loyalty and thrift, while pointedly remarking upon pressing issues such as jury discrimination, Jim Crow laws, and the need for accountability from elected officials.
On 31 January 1903, the Colored American shone a spotlight on Goldsboro, “a progressive little town of 8000 inhabitants. It is historic,” it claimed, “for the peaceful relations existing between the races. The chief occupation of its people is trucking. Yet we have negroes who are rapidly forging their way to the front along all industrial lines. Our people own thousands of acres of forming land, as well as excellent city property…. Prof. H.E. Hagans, the principal of our State Normal School and also a farmer, is worth $20,000. Mr. W.S. Hagans, who is one of the most successful agriculturalists, is worth $20,000. …”
On 9 May 1903, the Colored American, “Mr. H.E. Hagans, formerly an attaché of the office of the Recorder of Deeds, and later private secretary to Congressman George H. White, is now principal of the Colored State Normal School of Goldsboro NC. This office is in receipt of a unique invitation to attend the Commencement Exercises of this school Friday, the eighth, instant.” This is the only mention I have found of Henry’s service under Tarboro’s John C. Dancy, see below.
On 19 September 1903, the Colored American, “Prof. H.E. Hagans, of Goldsboro NC, who is principal of the public schools of that city and an extensive farmer and real estate owner, spent a few hours in the city last week, the guest of Hon. John C. Dancey [sic], recorder of deeds. Mr. Hagans is a prominent Pythian and attended the conclave held in Baltimore last week. He is one of the coming men of his State.”
On 24 September 1904, as Henry’s political career perhaps reached its crest, the Colored American paid him homage with a full front-page feature:
“Educator, orator and scholar.”
On 10 July 1907, the Charlotte Observer‘s coverage of recent state legislative activity noted that the body approved a charter for the Southern Fidelity Life Insurance Company “to do also a health industrial and sick benefit business” and named J.E. Shepard, John C. Dancy and H.E. Hagans among the shareholders. Three days later, Greensboro’s Daily Industrial News announced the close of the Negro State Inter-Denominational Sunday School Convention. Henry E. Hagans had been elected secretary of the organization.
Henry played no direct role in the Wayne County Superior Court proceedings in J.F. Coley v. Tom Artis (1908), a dispute over 30 acres of land. Thomas “Tom Pig” Artis began renting the property in 1881 from W.J. Exum. In 1892, Exum’s widow Mary sold it to Napoleon Hagans. In 1896, after his death, the land passed to Napoleon’s sons Henry and William. William S. Hagans gained the 30 acres in partition and, in 1908, sold it to J.F. Coley. Coley filed suit when Tom Artis laid claim to it, arguing that Napoleon had sold it to him. At trial, William testified that his father was in feeble health in 1896 when he called him and his brother Henry together under the cart shelter to tell them he would not live long and did not know to whom the land would fall. William testified that Pole asked them to let Pig stay on as long as he paid rent, and they promised to do so.
In the fall of 1908, the Haganses attempted a new tack with Earle, sending him to Indianapolis to live with his uncle/cousin Dr. Joseph H. Ward. The Indianapolis Freeman informed all that Earl was to attend school in the city and that he was “the son of Prof. H.E. Hagans of Goldsboro, N.C., who is the head of one of the oldest and most substantial families in North Carolina. The Hagans [sic] are relatives of Dr. J.H. Ward …” [Italics added; mythmaking at work….]
The 1910 census of Goldsboro lists Henry L. Higgins [sic], 38, public school teacher, wife Julie, 34, and son Earl, 14. (The ages of everyone in the household were off by about 4 years.) Henry and Julia had been married 18 years, and she reported one of two children living. Earl left home within a few years of this census. When he registered for the World War I draft in June 1917, he was living in Norfolk, Virginia, working as a hotel waiter and had a wife and child. He was described as a chauffeur in the 1920 census and was dead by 1930. His wife Sarah and son Earle Jr. survived him.
On 21 July 1910, the Greensboro Daily News reported that the negro Knights of Pythias had met in Wilmington and among “those prominent in public affairs attending the grand lodge” was Professor H.E. Hagans of Goldsboro.
The 1911-1912 Goldsboro City Directory lists “Hagans Henry E tchr h 501 Elm e” and “Hagans Julia B mgr Beneficial Millinery Co h 501 Elm e.” I have not been able to find any additional information on the millinery company.
On 18 July 1913, the New Berne Weekly Journal reported on the annual session of the North Carolina Grand Lodge of Colored Knights of Pythians at which H.E. Hagans was elected Grand Lecturer.
On 21 May 1915, the Williamston (NC) Enterprise reported on commencement exercises at the Higgs Roanoke Institute at Parmele. The several-day event included a speech by Henry E. Hagans to the Invincible Literary Society.
In July and August 1916, large advertisements ran in the Washington Bee recruiting members to the Royal Knights of King David, Old North State Fraternal Insurance Organization, touting its “unblemished record of 33 years” and warning that “the usual life of a negro organization is 20 years, and usually it is 20 years of internal strife and mismanagement — then the inevitable failure.” Not so with R.K.K.D., whose financial policy was “safe, sound and sane.” A week or so before the ads, a small article announced the arrival of H.E. Hagans and R.E. Owens, staying at the home of the “well-known” Mr. and Mrs. John Doster of 1205 Tea Street northwest. As for Hagans and Owens, “these two well known representatives of North Carolina are not only well known to the editor of The Bee, but they are known to every North Carolinian as being men of the highest business integrity.”
Henry was not the only one to move about. The 15 June 1918 New York Age reported that Mrs. Henry E. Hagans had stopped in D.C. a few days after visiting her sister, Mrs. M.A. Galloway, and niece, Mrs. William Solomon, in New York City and her youngest sister, Mrs. Charles Reid, in Danville.
It’s not clear whether Earle Hagans served in the war. However, on 6 July 1918, the Washington Bee trumpeted the establishment by the Colored Auxiliary of the War Community Service Commission of the District of a “finely equipped recreation center” for colored soldiers, “filling a long-felt want.” “Temporarily the club room is in the charge of Mr. Henry E. Hagans.” The 13 July edition of the New York Age provided additional details about the center’s “dedicatory services.”
In the 1920 census of Goldsboro, still living in the Elm Street house: H.E. Hagans and wife J.B., both teachers.
On 2 August 1920, Henry contributed to the Bee a long feature article entitled “James E. Shepard, President of National Training School, A Great Benefactor/ Manual Training Center / My Visit to the Summer School of the National Training School, Durham, N.C., and Some of My Observations.” In the typically ornate language of the day, Henry penned a paean to “that indomitable leader Dr. Jas. E. Shepard.” “To tell the story of the rapid growth of this institution would be too long; it is full of romance, and its development has, indeed, been so wonderful that it is almost beyond mental conception.” Nonetheless, despite this challenge, Henry managed to wring out several dozen column inches of praise for this institution and its founder, “the most constructive genius of the Negro race today.” The National Training School is today North Carolina Central University.
——
This is the only photograph I have seen of Henry in late maturity. He is probably not many years away from death here, but the boy that was is still visible in his thick eyebrows and the abundance of curly black hair swept back from his brow. Henry wears his prosperity in the fullness of his smooth-shaved face and his pinstriped suit; my best guess is that the picture was taken in Goldsboro.
Henry Edward Hagans died 17 Mar 1926 in Goldsboro of myocarditis and an enlarged liver. He was 58 years old. He was buried 19 March 1926 at Elmwood cemetery. Before she returned to Danville to live out her years, his wife erected this headstone in his memory:
Family photos courtesy of W.E. Hagans and W.M. Moseley; photo of grave marker by Lisa Y. Henderson, 2013.
Sources: Federal census records; deeds, birth, marriage and death records, Wayne County Register of Deeds office; deeds, Wilson County Register of Deeds office; North Carolina State Archives; others as cited.
My cousin is the fourth man in this family to bear his name, and those four generations of Johns are the exact measure of my Allen lineage. When Graham Allen married Mary Brown in Charles City County, Virginia, on 22 June 1876, she was six months pregnant with a white man’s child. We know nothing of the circumstances of conception, and nothing of the man’s identity beyond the Y-haplotype — R1b1b2a1a1 — that my uncles and cousins carry. [Update: I have identified John C. Allen‘s father.] Graham adopted Mary’s baby boy at birth, gave him his name, and reared him, as far as we know, with no distinction from their later children. So. We are Allens.
Graham Allen was born about 1852 in Prince George County, Virginia. His first marriage records lists his parents as Mansfield and Susan Allen. His second, as Edmund and Susan Allen. I have found no other trace of Edmund/Mansfield. However, in the 1870 census of Brandon, Prince George County, laundress Susan Allen, 50, and sons Alexander, 20, and Graham Allen, 17, appear in #14, the household of Anthony Shackleford, 26, farmer; wife Fannie, 24; and son Willie, 1. Also living in the house was Mary Hill, 23. I don’t know if the Allens, Shacklefords and Hill were related, or if they were related to two households of Allens listed nearby: #16, Harry Allen, 47, wife Abba, 43, Richard, 19, Augustin, 17, Assia, 13, Robert, 9, and Mary, 6; and #20, Joseph Allen, 42, wife Lucy, 37, and children Mildred, 8, Joseph, 6, and Willie, 1. However, an intriguing Freedmen’s Bureau document links those Allens and the Shacklefords:
“I have the honor to request transportation for the following named persons to their former homes, and to find employment,” wrote Samuel C. Armstrong, Superintendent of the Freedmen’s Bureau 1st District (and founder of Hampton Institute, which educated a dozen Allens between 1927 and the present.) Among those to be transported, Harry and Abbie Allen and their children and Anthony and Fanny Shackleford. City Point, in Prince George County, had been headquarters of the Union Army during the siege of Petersburg in the Civil War. The Allens and Shacklefords likely were refugees, so-called “contraband,” who fled their owners during the war to join a large camp near Fort Monroe. (For recent news of archaeological digs at the former Grand Contraband Camp in Hampton, see here.) Though none has surfaced to date, I will continue to look for links between these families and Edmund or Susan Allen.
Other than Graham and Mary’s marriage license, I have no other record of the family in the 1870s. (An Alexander Allen married Mary Wallace on 15 February 1872 in Charles City County. This Alexander was 30 years old and the son of James and Sophia Allen. Thus, he is not Graham’s brother.)
In the 1880 census of Harrison, Charles City County, 26 year-old farm laborer Gram Allen’s household includes wife Mary and children Nannie, 5, John, 3, and Emma, 1. I suspect that Nannie was Mary’s child by a previous relationship, but I don’t know. In the next few years, Mary gave birth to a son Willie, who died of burns in October 1885. (Graham Allen, who provided information, is listed on the boy’s death certificate as father, but the mother’s name is given as Sarah. A misunderstanding? A mistranscription? And “outside” child?) A month later, Mary gave birth to Alexander Allen. Two years later, in December 1887, Graham Allen reported the death of Mary Allen, age 30. Graham’s relationship to the deceased was not stated, but this was not his wife. In 1892, Mary Brown Allen gave birth to her last child, son Edward Noble Allen. In 1896 and 1899, daughter Emma Allen gave birth to sons Milton and Junius Allen in Charles City County. I do not know their fathers.
On 18 Aug 1898, at Charles City County Courthouse, Graham Allen filed a deed for the purchase of two parcels on Hyde Road, one 12 acres and the other 2 3/4 acres, from A.H. Drewry et ux. A plat filed with the deed shows a roughly trapezoidal lot 2 1/2 miles from Rolands Mill, surrounded by the land of Sarah Jones, Edward Jones, Frank Martin, and Peter Jefferson.
In the 1900 census of Harrison, Charles City County, Graham Allen is listed with wife Mary, sons Alexander and Edward, and grandsons Milton and Junius. (I believe they were Emma Allen’s sons.) Mary was illiterate, but Graham could read and write. Mary reported 4 of 8 children living. (John, Emma, Alex and Ed, living; Nannie, Willie and who, dead?) As detailed here, John had moved to the city by the late 1890s and married Mary Agnes Holmes in 1899.
On 3 Apr 1901, Emma Allen, 22, married widowed laborer Stephen Whorley [Whirley], 32, son of Stephen and Patsy Whorley. W.E. Carter performed the ceremony at Graham Allen’s residence.
On 11 March 1902, at Charles City County Courthouse, Graham Allen filed a deed (book 17, page 437) for the purchase for $16 of 2 3/4 acres in the Grafton tract from Mary Harrison Drewry. The sale was made 27 Feb 1902, and the tract was located 4 miles northwest of Drewry’s Mill. Two years later, he filed a deed or the purchase of 4 1/2 acres in Turkey Trot from M.E. and W.E. Stagg and in 1909 filed another (book 20, page 165) for the purchase for $12 of 2 1/4 acres in the Bishops tract, west of Old Hyde Road in Turkey Trot, bordered on the east by Graham ‘s own land and True Reformers and on west by Peter, James B. and Elvina Jefferson and M.E. Stagg.
In the 1910 census of Harrison, Charles City County, on River Road, farmer Graham Allen is listed with wife Mary and son Edward. (Where were Milton and Junius?) Mary reported 4 of 9 children living. (Eight children, or nine?) Also on River Road, farmer Steaven Whirley, wife Emma, and children Royal, John, Samuel, and Graham. Royal and John were Stephen’s children by a previous wife, and the family lived next to Samuel and Mary E. Whirley, Stephen’s brother and sister-in-law. (River Road is now State Route 5, or John Tyler Memorial Highway.)
Mary Brown Allen died 1 Apr 1916, aged 67 in Harrison township, Charles City County. Her death certificate reports that she was born in Amelia County, Virginia, to James Brown and Catherine Booker, both born in Virginia. She was buried 2 Apr 1916, and Junius Allen of Roxbury was informant for the certificate.
On 22 Nov 1917, in Roxbury, the widower Graham Allen, 58, widow, born Prince George County, resident of Charles City County, son of Edmund and Susan Allen, married Lenner Charles, 32, born Charles City County to William and Lucy Charles. The couple appear in the 1920 census of Harrison, Charles City County on Kemmiges Road with a five year-old daughter named Sallie. (Was she Graham’s child?)
John, Edward, Milton and Junius Allen registered for the World War I draft:
I have not found a card for Alexander and assume he died before the war. Edward actually served; I don’t know about Milton and Junius.
In the 1920 census of Harrison, Charles City County, on Kemmiges Road, Stephen Whirley, farmer, is listed with wife Emma and children Samuel, Graham, Matilda and Susie. John and his family remained in Newport News, as did “Junnus” Allen and his wife Margaret, with brother-in-law Samuel Johnson, at 1752 Ivy Avenue. Junius worked as a transfer drayman; Samuel as a bricklayer at the shipyard. Edward may have been living and working in Washington County, New York. Milton was definitely gone. In the 1920 census of Kokomo, Howard County, Indiana, at 1011 North LaFontaine Street, there is a listing for Virginia-born Milton Allen, single, age 21, living as a roomer in a household headed by Myrtle Harston. Milton worked as a laborer in a stove factory.
On 10 January 1928, Graham Allen died of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of about 74. According to informant William Webb, Graham was born in Charles City County to unknown parents and left a widow, Lena Charles. He was buried at New Vine Church on 14 January 1928.
In the 1930 census of Harrison, Charles City County: Emma Whirley and daughter Susie were listed “cook-private family” in household of Eugene A. Dietrich, a German-American grocery merchant. I have not found Edward, though I believe he was living in Charles City County. Nor can I locate Milton and Junius. (There is a Junius Allen listed in Newport News city directories in the 1940s, but I am not certain they are the same man. There is also a Junius Allen listed in the 1902 directory, which definitely is not Emma’s son, so I am cautious.) At least one of Emma’s children had gone North by this time and is found with her daughter in the 1930 census of Baltimore, Maryland, living with her half-brother. At 1314 Mulberry Street, rented for $40, are listed John W. Whirley, 31, wife Susie, 28, sister Matilda, 20, boarder Sam Bradley, 30, and niece Dorothy Whirley, 1. John worked as a laborer in a car shop; Matilda as a laundress in a laundry; and Sam as a hospital waiter. All were born in Virginia except Susie, who was born in South Carolina. On 24 Dec 1930, in Charles City County, Graham Whirley, 22, laborer, son of Stephen Whirley and Emma Allen, residing Roxbury, married Arnether A. Harris, 20, daughter of John A. Harris and Mary Jefferson, residing in Providence Forge. I have not found Samuel Whirley in 1930.
Edward N. Allen died 25 Jan 1933 at the Marine Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, of aortic aneurism and valvular heart disease. Based on information he provided as a patient, Edward’s death certificate reported that he was born 17 May 1890 to Graham Allen and Mary Brown of Virginia and resided at RFD#2, Box 66, Roxbury, Virginia. Edward was buried 30 Jan 1933 at Hampton National Cemetery, in section Fii, Site 6459-A.
In 1935, Samuel Whirley made a splash in Fredericksburg, Virginia, newspapers after being on the lam for a year on larceny and false pretense charges. It’s not clear whether this one-armed man was Emma Allen Whirley’s son, but an article noted that he had spent time in Baltimore while on the run.
In the 1940 census of Hopewell, Virginia, at 601 Maplewood Avenue, Graham Whirley, 25, a chemical plant laborer, is listed as a lodger with Andrew and Lena Joyner. There is no sign of his wife. On 21 January of that year, in Charles City County, his past behind him, Samuel Whirley, 37, born in Charles City County to Stephen Whirley and Emma Allen, residing Petersburg, married Alice Howard, 23, born Charles City County to Laura Howard. The rest of the Whirleys — Emma, Susan, Matilda — are nowhere to be found, though I know they were living. Similarly, of the Allens, I can only place John and his children.
I lose the thread of my great-grandfather’s extended family after 1940. I’ve written of my brief and unsatisfactory telephone conversation with Dorothy Whirley in 1996. She had no children, nor did Edward Allen, but it’s hard to believe that none of Graham’s sons, save John, or his grandchildren by his daughter Emma, have contemporary descendants.
Were Walter “Wat” and Nancy Carter the step-father and mother of Joseph and Jasper Holmes? Here is the evidence:
My conjecture: Nancy [last name unknown] married first Payton Holmes in Charlotte County and had at least two children, Joseph and Jasper. Nancy then married Walter “Wat” Carter in Charlotte County. Their children included Louisa, Lettie, Walter Jr. and Eliza. Between 1867 and 1870, perhaps in response to his brother’s murder, Jasper moved his family to Charles City County. Between 1870 and 1873, Wat and Nancy Carter and family also moved to Charles City County. Lettie Carter Booker married and settled in Queens with her husband. For some period, her nephew Walter Holmes, son of Jasper, lived with them. The fortuitous capturing of this stay in the 1880 census cements these relationships for me, as it is a direct connection between Jasper and his half-sister.
Sources: federal census records; Charlotte County VA death records; Charlotte County voter register; Charles City County VA birth, marriage and death records; Freedman’s Bank records.
Here’s another account of Joseph Holmes‘ murder, presented as a pivot point in the romanticized life of the author’s father:
When Jim Wilkes rode into Raft River Valley in 1870, he had two pasts behind him though he was barely twenty-one. His real name was Griffin Seth Marshall. He had called himself Jim Wilkes only since a spring evening in 1867 when an incident in a Virginia village had sent him into exile as a fugitive from the law.
I heard the story from Mother — I am the daughter of Kate Parke and Griffin Marshall. Father wouldn’t have considered it suitable for a little girl, but Mother had no such qualms. Mother had a strong sense of drama, and for her the story was the thing.
“Your father changed his name,” she told us, “because he got in trouble back home and had to leave the country. He never done anything. No indictment was ever found” — Mother was careful to insert the formal, exonerating phrase — “but he was in a crowd one night with his brother John and this colored man was killed. He’d been a slave of your grandfather’s before the war, so when he was shot they thought the Marshall boys had something to do with it. There were soldiers there, northern soldiers, but your father and his brother got away. They left the country that same night — without even saying goodbye to their mother. That was when they changed their name. That’s History,” Mother would add, as she usually did when she told us a story about the early days. “Do what you will with it.”
The time came when I visited the Virginia village. And I discovered not only that every word of Mother’s account was true, but that the full story was adorned with details and a couple of postscripts that would have delighted her.
THE NAME of the village is Charlotte Court House and it is the seat of Charlotte County. It’s the courthouse, built in 1823, is a handsome building of red brick, with a white portico and four white columns overarched by venerable trees. Before the courthouse on an evening is the spring of 1867 a crowd had gathered to listen to a speech. The speaker was a Negro, who was able to make a speech only because Federal troops were camped in a grove of trees across the street. His name was Jo Holmes. He had been a slave, the butler of Judge Hunter Marshall whose plantation Roxabel was five miles from the village. Now Jo Holmes was not only a free man but also a member of the Virginia legislature. Jo Holmes’ podium was the slave block that still stands at the point where the walk from the courthouse joins the street. According to the local story, he was advocating mixed marriages. He didn’t get very far with his speech. A shot was fired and Jo Holmes fell dead. The bullet, I was told is buried in the front wall of the courthouse.
In the crowd were my father and his older brother John who were home on vacation from Clifton Academy in Fauquier County. John had been in the Confederate cavalry. (Their oldest brother Hunter had been killed in the Civil War — four days after Appomattox.) Griffin, who was only seventeen, had been too young to go to war. With them was cousin David Morton, actually a second or third cousin, and a friend named Fred Beal.
The shot that killed Jo Holmes came from the part of the crows where the four young men were standing. One of the four did fire the shot — then slipped the gun into the hand of a friend who threw it into the creek that runs through the hollow beside the courthouse. The Federals came running, but before they could get to the scene the four boys had made their escape with the help of relatives and friends. They were hidden for several hours in a house in the village. Before dawn they were driven to Pamplin, the nearest station on the Norfolk and Western Railway, and put on a train headed west.
The four fugitives soon parted. A letter from Griffin to his older sister Mary dated May 29,1867 — I got it from the daughter of Father’s sister — shows that he and John had been commended to the care of people named Taylor in country that might be Texas. There is no mention of the other two boys. The letter is written on a piece of stationery embossed in the upper left-hand corner with the head of an Indian and, beneath it, the legend “N.P. Co.”; but there is no place name on the letter and the envelope is missing. It reads as follows:
May 29, 1867
My Dear Sister: You must really excuse me for not writing to you sooner but I have been sick nearly ever since I have been here and the other part of the part of the time I didn’t feel like writing. I haven’t had anything to do at all- we have been waiting for Mr. Taylor’s son to come down here- but he has been sick and is now worse and probably never will be able to come. The old man said that he (his son) could get better situations than anyone else and advised us to wait for him and of course as we are under his care we took his advice and are now waiting to see what is going to turn up. Mr. T. Sr. went up to see about his son yesterday and we are expecting him back every day. Morgan is well and in pretty good spirits, but I am not in good spirits. I am getting tired of doing nothing and paying board.
This is the hardest country I ever saw; there isn’t a tree of any consequence in two hundred miles of this place. One day it is hot as five hundred (this was a simile my father often used) and the next day you can’t wrap up and keep comfortable-now today it is very hot. I wrote to Ma some two or three days ago; tell her to write to me and that often. Has the old fuss died out yet or not? I am very anxious to know the effect that thing produced. I haven’t got anything to write about and I am going to stop. Give my love to Bee Jim and all at Roxobel and regards to all of my friends and write soon to your affectionate Brother
The handwriting is the same that appears in two letters Griffin had written to his mother a few months before from Clifton Academy, but the writer signs himself not “G. S. M.” or “G. S. Marshall” as in the earlier letters but “J.T. Wilkes.” The “Morgan” he refers to can only be his brother John. “I never understood,” said my cousin Sarah when she handed me the worn sheet, “what a letter with that strange signature was doing in Mother’s papers.”
…
I once asked my father who killed Jo Holmes. He replied only it was not he.
— An American Memoir, Margaret Marshall, originally published in The Hudson Review, volume 24, number 2 (1971).
—–
Gawd.
I could pick at the details of this account — starting with the date of the letter, a full two years before Joseph Holmes was actually killed — but what’s the point? It is so obviously unconcerned with Joe Holmes — “delightful postscripts”? — or his life that accuracy is too much to ask.
This photo is found among literary editor Margaret Marshall’s papers in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University:
It is labeled “Roxabel.” This is either a photograph of the back of the house, which has been much modified if it is, or is mislabled. It certainly does not match Marshall’s white portico-and-columns description. (That’s a shed roof porch with posts.) Further, Roxabel is still standing, and I’ve been there. It’s used primarily as the background for tasteless plantation-themed weddings these days, but was mercifully still when I drove up with Kathy Liston, a Charlotte County archeologist-cum-genealogical researcher who opened many a door, literal and figurative, for me in my quest for Jasper and Joseph’s roots. With a wing added long after the Marshalls left, here is Roxabel today:
If Joseph R. Holmes was enslaved here, was his brother Jasper as well? Or had they been separated early, Jasper perhaps sold locally as excess or to settle a debt. I don’t know. But I do know that, emancipated in 1865 and at least free to build a relationship on their terms, the brothers’ bond was sundered forever by a rash pistol shot.
Scuffalong: Genealogy. 