North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

Infant baptisms.

From the records of the First Congregational Church of Dudley NC, an excerpt from a list of infant baptisms that reveals the centrality of the Henderson family in the church’s early congregation. In 1896, two of the nine babies baptized were siblings Minnie and Daniel Simmons, born in 1887 and 1895, children of Hillary and Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons.

The following year, Hendersons comprised two-thirds of the infants baptized. Clement Manuel (1897) was the grandson of Edward and Susan Henderson Wynn. (His parents were Alonzo and Sallie Wynn Manuel.) Bessie and Jesse Henderson, born in 1891 and 1893, were children of my great-great-grandmother Loudie Henderson, and Hattie Jacobs (1895) was Sarah Henderson Jacobs‘ daughter.

——

Copy of entry made from originals held by First Congregational Church, Dudley NC.

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Eureka, no. 1.

In an old notebook, I found this comment scribbled in 1988:

“Polly Ann Price married Lewis Martin at Calvin Dail’s house. Calvin Dail’s wife was Susan Price. Polly and Susan were near enough in age to be sisters.”

Lewis H. Martin and Polly Ann Price‘s son was Joseph “Buck” Martin, father of my great-grandmother Bessie and her brother Jack Henderson. I have not given them much thought over the years, it is true. Tapping into the research of others, I have long been able to extend Lewis Martin’s lines back a few generations into Caseys, Lewises, Grants, Utleys and Selfs. Polly Ann’s parentage was a mystery, though, a full stop, and I never got beyond wondering if Susan Dail was a key.

Five minutes on the internet today — searching for Susan Price Dail — and, voila, she and Mary “Polly” Ann were indeed sisters, and their parents were James Price (1805-circa1870) and Margaret Herring (1809-1898). Several Ancestry.com family trees claim the couple, but posit differing — and occasionally impossible — individuals as their parents. I’ll examine the possibilities soon. (And hope a revelation comes in fewer than 25 years!)

North Carolina, Oral History, Paternal Kin

The link.

As a daughter often is, in the early 20th century Sarah H. Jacobs Silver was the linchpin of Lewis and Mag Henderson’s family. Death and migration had forced in wedges. Sarah set her broad back against them. She was in Wilson with her sister Loudie’s son and grandchildren; her brother Lucian was in Dudley; and brother Caswell in New York. Sister Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons died leaving children, but Carrie Henderson Boseman left none behind. Sarah maintained links between them and across generations, made sure her aged parents were cared for, and, later, when Lucian was failing, saw to it that he and his sickly wife ate:

Mama Sarah’d fix dinner and send it down to Dudley on the train. The man that run the whatchacallit, engine? Up there, where stokes the fire or whatever is on the train. He would take it. She would tell what day she was gon send it. And so somebody’d be up there to the train station to get it. And the train, ‘cause a lot of time the train didn’t stop. But anyway, the man, the conductor, he would pull the thing, whatever, for the train to stop long enough for him to drop off this package. And that’s the way Mama sent food down there to Uncle Lucian and A’nt Susie.

Though her mother was dead, and her grandmother, and her great-grandmother, and though she lived a long day’s journey away from her birthplace – because of Sarah my grandmother knew her family. Visited Uncle Lucian, A’nt Nancy, A’nt Ella, Cousin Henry and his wife Nora, and Cousin Dolly in Wayne County. Uncle Caswell in New York. Cousin Min in Philadelphia, and Min’s brother Daniel in Baltimore. Lived for a while with A’nt Mollie in Greensboro. Worked in tobacco with Cousin Elias and his children David John and Estelle. She didn’t always know exactly how she was kin to all these Hendersons, and over the years the bonds faded, but she knew they were her people. With her stories as blueprints, I was able to rebuild.

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

North Carolina death certificates: HENDERSON.

North Carolina did not require death certificates until 1914. The following abstracts relate to the first two generations of Hendersons whose deaths were recorded by law.

Spouse and children of Lewis Henderson (1836-1912), son of James Henderson and (Sallie?) Skipp:

Marguriet Henderson. Died 17 July 1915, Brogden, Wayne County of unknown causes. Black. Age 82. Born Sampson County to an unknown father and Margaret Bowkin. Informant, Lucian Henderson.

Lution Hinderson. Died 22 June 1934, Brogden, Wayne County, of cerebral hemorrhage. Colored. Married to Susan Hinderson. Age 75 years, 3 months. Farmer. Born Wayne County to Louis Hinderson of Wayne County and Maggie Hill of Sampson County. Informant, Jonnie Carter, Dudley. Buried in Dudley.

Sarah Jacobs Silver. Died 8 Jan 1938, Selma, Johnston County NC, of probable heart disease (“dead when seen.”) Age about 55 years old [actually, 62.] Born Wayne County NC to Lewis Henderson and Margaret Carter, both of Wayne County. Informant, Hattie Jacobs, 303 Elba Street, Wilson NC. C.E. Artis, undertaker. Buried in Wayne County NC on 12 Jan 1938.

Spouse and children of James Henry Henderson (1838-1920), son of James Henderson and (Sallie?) Skipp:

Amelia Brazzell. Died 26 Mar 1914, Goldsboro NC, uremic convulsions (contributing: operation for ryosalprism[?]). Age 37. Married. Born Wayne County NC to Jim Henderson (born Greene County) and Francis Henderson (born Greene County). Informant, E.L. Henderson, Goldsboro NC. Buried 27 Mar 1914, Jason NC.

James Henderson. Died 21 Jun 1920, Faison, Duplin County NC, 12:15 a.m., acute gastro-enteric colitis. Wife, Laura Henderson. Carpenter. Age 80. Born Onslow County NC to James Henderson and Sallie Henderson, both of NC. Buried 22 Jun 1920.

Lewis Henderson. Died 20 June 1932, cerebral tumor (non-malignant), Mount Olive, Wayne County NC. Colored. Married to Hattie Henderson. Age 46 “as near as known.” Born in NC to Jim Henderson and Francis Henderson, both of Wayne County. Buried 20 Jun 1932, Saint Luke. Informant, Hattie Henderson.

Ira Henderson. Died 22 Oct 1946, E. Hillsboro, Mount Olive NC, of bronchopneumonia (due to broncho asthma.) Colored. Married to Johnie Henderson. Carpenter. Born 3 Aug 1881, Wayne County NC to Jim Henderson and Francis Henderson, both of Wayne County NC. Informant, Mrs. Johnnie Henderson, Box 243, E. Hillsboro St., Mount Olive. Buried 25 Oct 1946, Mount Olive NC.

Elias Henderson. Died 14 Nov 1953, Wayne Memorial Hospital, Goldsboro NC, of uremia. Resided Miller’s Chapel section, Goldsboro NC. Negro. Married. Born 24 May 1888, Wayne County NC to Jim Henderson and Laura (last name unknown). Farmer. Informant, Jazelle Henderson, Goldsboro NC. Buried 17 Nov 1953, Lane’s, Wayne County NC.

Georgetta Elliott. Died 8 Sep 1972, LaGrange, Lenoir County NC, coronary occlusion. Negro. Widowed. Born 12 Aug 1894 to Jim Henry Henderson and Frances Sauls. Informant, Mackie B. Williams, 406 Forbes Street, LaGrange NC. Buried 10 Sep 1972, LaGrange cemetery, LaGrange NC.

Spouse and children of Alexander Henderson (1860-1916), son of James Henderson and Louisa Armwood Henderson:

Alexr Henderson. Died 13 June 1916, Goldsboro, Wayne County, of phthis pulmonalis. Colored. Married. Age 56. Born Wayne County to Stephen Henderson and unknown mother. Buried Elmwood cemetery. Informant, Mary Henderson.

Mary J. Henderson. Died 7 September 1926, Goldsboro, Wayne County, of strangulated umbilical hernia. Widow. Age 60. Born Simpson [sic] County to unknown parents. Buried Elmwood cemetery by James Guess. Informant, Will Henderson.

Theodore Henderson. Died 15 November 1936, Goldsboro, Wayne County, “from knife wounds.” Married to Bettie Henderson. Age 45. Common laborer. Born Duplin County to Elix Henderson and Mary Odom, both of Wayne County. Buried Elmwood cemetery by James Guess. Informant, Willie Henderson.

Will Henderson. Died 6 Dec 1959, 712 N. John Street, Goldsboro NC, of cerebral apoplexy. Negro. Married. Minister. Born 1 Dec 1878, to Alaxander Henderson and Mary Odom. Married to Susie B. Henderson. Informant, Margaret Brown, 826 N. Center, Goldsboro NC. Buried 9 Dec 1959, Lightner cemetery, Wayne County NC.

Spouse and children of John Henry Henderson (1861-1924), son of James Henderson and Louisa Armwood Henderson:

John Henderson. Died 8 August 1924, Goldsboro, Wayne County, of pulmonary tuberculosis. Colored. Married. Age 63. Farmer. Born Sampson County to James Henderson of Onslow County and [blank] Armwood of Sampson County. Buried Dudley NC. Informant, Sarrah Henderson.

Sarah Henderson. Died 12 June 1930, Dudley, Wayne County, “cause not known — sudden supposed to be acute indigestion.” Widowed. Colored. Age 62. Daughter of Bryant and Bettie Simmons. Buried in Dudley by James Guess. Informant, Henry Henderson.

Henry Henderson. Died 19 Oct 1942, en route to hospital in Goldsboro NC, “found dead in car, supposed heart attack.” Born 23 May 1901, Dudley NC, to John Henderson and Sarah Simmons. Laborer. Informant, Lenora Henderson. Buried Congregational Church cemetery, Wayne County NC.

Spouse and children of Nancy Henderson Smith Diggs (1865-1944), daughter of James Henderson and Louisa Armwood Henderson:

Willie Smith. Died 29 Jul 1912, nephritis, Goldsboro NC. Born 9 Aug 1900, Goldsboro NC, to I.R. Smith and Nancy Henderson, both born in Mount Olive NC. Informant, C[?].M. Smith, 100 Smith Street, Goldsboro NC. Buried 3 Jul 1912, Elmwood cemetery, Goldsboro NC.

Isham Smith. Died 12 May 1914, 10:20 p.m., State Hospital, Fork township, Wayne County NC, of cerebral hemorrhage. Age 56. Undertaker. Educational attainments: “Read & write.” Parents unknown. Married. Buried in Goldsboro, NC. Informant, W.W. Faison, M.D., Goldsboro NC.

Ernest Smith. Died 5 Oct 1918, 7:00 p.m., Goldsboro NC, of lobar pneumonia (influenza). Colored. Married. Barber. Born 11 July 1888 to Isham Smith and Nancy Henerson [sic]. Informant, Nancy Smith, 100 Smith Street. Buried 8 Oct 1918, Elwood cemetery, Goldsboro NC, by James Guess, undertaker.

Nancy Smith. Died 11 Dec 1944, 4:30 a.m., fracture of pelvis (“fell off bed”), 309 Smith Street, Goldsboro NC. Born 7 Feb 1890, Mount Olive NC to Jim and Eliza Henderson. Widowed. Informant, Mrs. E. Hall, 309 Smith Street, Goldsboro NC. Buried 17 Dec 1944, Elmwood cemetery, Goldsboro NC, by James Guess [her son-in-law.]

Annie Guess. Died 8 Aug 1953, Goldsboro NC, of coronary insufficiency and aortic insufficiency. Colored. Married. Born 11 Sep 1890, Goldsboro NC, to Issam Smith and Nancy Henderson. Informant, James Guess Sr., Goldsboro NC. Buried 11 Aug 1953, Elmwood cemetery, Goldsboro NC, by James Guess, undertaker.

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

Her story.

Bessie Henderson has died, and her children remain.

Mamie Lee was the first child, and my grandmother was the second. And the second Hattie Mae. The first was Sarah Henderson Jacobs’ daughter.

That’s who they named me after. I asked them why they named me Hattie after a dead person. “What? You don’t like Hattie? Well, I just thought ’twas nice.” And after I looked at her picture, I said, “Well, she was pretty.” Since Jack knew her, and he wanted her picture, when I come up to Philadelphia, I give him the picture. ‘Cause they grew up together. And his children thought she was white, wanted to know what old white girl was that. Mama never talked about her. But A’nt Nina, she would tell everything. Mama got mad with her, said, “You always bringing up something. You don’t know what you talking ’bout.” And she never did say – well, if she said, I wouldn’t have known him, but I never did ask her – who Hattie’s daddy was. I figured he was white. Because she looked — her hair and features, you know, white.

Jack Henderson told my grandmother that he remembered “when she was got,” that he was nearby when it was happening, that Tom had Bessie over a barrel, literally. Bookish and soft, James Thomas Aldridge tended his mother and younger sisters and his ailing father’s dry goods store while dreaming of a bigger and better world faraway. He would have been a nerd if they’d had them then. Bessie’s pregnancy changed his life:

‘Cause his mama didn’t want her son to get married. ‘Cause he wanted to be a doctor, and so she was gon help him be one. And if he got married and started having children, he couldn’t be a doctor. And down there in a little town like Dudley, you had to go away from there ‘cause it wont no more than ‘bout sixth, seventh grade. And you had to go to a larger place if you wanted to go to school.

So the pregnancy stirred him, thrust him out toward his reveries, away from Dudley and the grey-eyed baby whose mother was soon to die. Tom, already 24 years old but claiming to be much younger, fled to Raleigh, where he entered Shaw University’s preparatory division and exited its college eight years later on his way to Meharry Medical School. He would become a doctor, indeed, a big-time, money-making, Cadillac-driving Saint Louis doctor, elected president of the National Medical Association in 1961. But it’s his daughter’s story we’re telling right now, the daughter who never got past sixth grade, who never met her father ‘til she was good and grown.

Let me back up. Sometime around 1905, Mama Sarah and her husband, a good man named Jesse A. Jacobs Jr., moved 40 miles north of Dudley to Wilson, a tobacco market bursting with new golden-leaf millionaires. Colored folks from all over coastal Carolina, drawn to the town’s bustling opportunity, built a vibrant community on the southeast side of the railroad that cleaved the town in two. Sarah took in washing and ironing, did seasonal work at tobacco factories, and reared Jesse’s brood, who turned out largely ungrateful. Her own daughter died in 1908, aged 14, and nobody knows why.

Meanwhile, down in Dudley, Lewis and Mag Henderson faded in their iron bedstead with only their teenaged granddaughter Bessie to manage the household. Lucian Henderson likely farmed his parents’ reduced acreage with his own, but it was left to Bessie to cook and clean and sew and launder and do all the other relentless drudgery that needed doing. Her mother was long dead, and there were no other close relatives nearby upon whom to rely. Did she resent her responsibilities? Did she chafe under the grind of pot-stirring and water-fetching and skillet-scouring and jar-slopping? What did she want? She was a chancey girl, a risk-taker, one who took her pleasure where she found it, even when it clamped the lid tighter on her trap. She was a beautiful girl, but nearly unmarriageable, as she dragged her heavy belly through the spring of 1910.

Bessie gave birth to my Hattie Mae on June 6, very likely attended by the child’s grandmother, a midwife named Louvicey Artis Aldridge. Though Vicey had forbidden a marriage between this girl and her special boy Tom, she was not altogether unmoved by her grandbaby, who looked much more Aldridge than Henderson. Vicey and her daughters played small intermittent roles in my grandmother’s early life, but there is no doubt: Sarah Henderson Jacobs was the family’s matriarch and matrix, though no children of her own lived even to adulthood. She reared Bessie’s children and kept them clothed and fed and sheltered, if not exactly loved.

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs

John H. & Sarah Simmons Henderson.

John Henry Henderson, son of James and Louisa Armwood Henderson, married Sarah Elizabeth Simmons, daughter of Bryant and Elizabeth Wynn Simmons, in about 1886. The couple remained in the Dudley area their entire lives and reared three children — Frances, Charles Henry and Henry Lee — to adulthood. John died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1924.

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

Bessie Lee Henderson.

Bessie Henderson is the fulcrum. Or Bessie’s death anyway. The point at which my Hendersons diverged from the line, left Dudley’s track, frayed the thread that bound to them to their people. Her death launched my grandmother out of Wayne County and away from what could have been. Given all that happened later, the ways things turned out, it is not hard not to see why my grandmother cast the first few months of her life as the glory days. She was with her own mother and surely cherished.

Let’s look at her. At the only photo we have. Probably the only one there ever was.

She is a broad-faced, heavy-lidded beauty, the barest hint of a smile playing on her lips, a high-yellow Mona Lisa. Thick dark hair pulled up a la Gibson Girl; a hint of widow’s peak; a straight-bridged nose; a full bottom lip. The fat lobes of her ears depend from the nest of her hair. I recognize them as my grandmother’s.

What was the occasion? Why the first photograph of her life? It was surely taken in Goldsboro, or maybe Mount Olive, the small town and smaller town that bracketed Dudley, the crossroads at which she passed her entire short life. There are no props. The painted backdrop is mottled and indistinct, save a white bird swooping downward, a wingtip brushing her left hand. The portrait is three-quarter length, and it is hard to gauge her size. She was surely of no great height, perhaps an inch or two over five feet, and slim, but with a hint of hippiness. Her daughter and nieces were narrow-shouldered, but she seems not to have been so.

One arm, folded behind, rests on her hip. The other hangs loosely at her side, a slender hand brushing her thigh. I do not recognize the fingers; they are not my grandmother’s. Her arms, exposed below the elbows of her ruffled white blouse, are much, much browner than her face, evidence of her time in her grandfather’s fields, straw hat shielding her brow. There is a ring on her left middle finger. There are also two lockets hanging from her neck. She barely knew her mother; her father was a kind but distant white man; she never married. Who then gave her these trinkets? What became of them? What tiny images hid in the clefts of the lockets? Who loved her?

Like her own mother before her, Bessie was just nineteen when she died. She looks older here. A little weary maybe. A little sad. A second child born out of wedlock would get her drummed out of the church that her grandfather had helped found. The baby’s daddy joined church weeks later. Within months, Bessie was cold in her grave.

My grandmother tells it this way:

I thought of many times I wondered what my mama looked like. Bessie. And how old was she, or whatever. See, she was helping Grandpa Lewis. The pig got out of the pasture and, instead of going all the way down to where the gate opened, she run him back in there, to try to coax him in there. And when they picked him up and put him over the fence, she had the heavy part, I reckon, or something, and she felt a pain, a sharp pain, and so then she started spitting blood. Down in the country, they ain’t had no doctor or nothing, they just thought she was gon be all right. And I don’t think they even took her to the doctor. Well, she would have had to go to Goldsboro or Mount Olive, one, and doctors was scarce at that time, too, even if it was where you had to go a long ways to get them. And so she died. She didn’t never get over it. I don’t remember ever staying down there. ‘Cause they brought me up to Wilson to live with Mama and Papa. I stayed with them after Bessie died. My sister says she does, but I don’t remember Bessie. You never know what you’ll come to.

——

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Oral History, Other Documents, Paternal Kin, Photographs, Religion

When your pilgrimage is over.

… Self life that might hender and draw you to earthly thing it inpels you on in to Godlines Paul sed I die dailey to the things of this world yeal your life dailey and hold your life in submision to the will of God and live by his word that you may grow unto the fulles measure of the staturs of Chris the one that lives wright is the ones who will a bide bide with him the day of his coming and stand when he a …

… Come by your God like impression God will take care of you no matter where you are cax aside all fear and put your trust in God and you are save. Then when your pulgrimage is over and you are call from labor to reward you will be greeted with that holy welcome that is delivered to all true missionaries come in the blessed of my father …

My grandmother had a large, dusty black Bible that had belonged to her “mama,” Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver. (The Bible’s original owner was Carolina Vick, a midwife in east Wilson — her family’s birth and death dates are inscribed in its leaves.) When I first thumbed through the Book in the early 1990s, I found two scraps of paper stuck deep in its chapters. Pencilled in a square, unsophisticated hand were these bits of Sarah’s sermons. She had left the Congregationalism of her upbringing and joined the Holiness movement sweeping the country in the early 1900s. My grandmother was not impressed:

I was just thinking ‘bout that today, ‘bout how we used to do. Mama’d make us go to Holiness Church and stay down there and run a revival two weeks. And we’d go down there every night and lay back down there on the bench and go to sleep. Then they’d get us up, and then we didn’t have sense enough to do nothing but go to sleep and get up.

Mama’d go every night. And they’d be shouting, holy and sanctified, jumping and shouting. I don’t know, that put me out with the Holiness church. And sanctified people. I know Mama wont doing right.

Evangelist Sarah spent night after night jumping and shouting, leaving my adolescent grandmother to wash and iron the endless loads of laundry they took in from white customers. Sarah apparently met her second husband, Rev. Joseph Silver, founder of one of the earliest Holiness churches in eastern North Carolina, on the revival circuit. They married in 1933 and divided the five years before her death between Wilson and his home in Halifax County.

Sarah H. Jacobs and her Bible, with my uncle Lucian J. Henderson in the background, taken in Wilson NC circa 1930. (I have the Bible, but some time between when I first saw — and transcribed — the sermon scraps and when I took possession after my grandmother’s death in 2001, the pieces of paper were lost.)

Free People of Color, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

The apprenticeship of “base-born” children.

Apprentice records show a dozen or so free colored Henderson children in Onslow County in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It seems likely that they were from one extended family – and my kin – but proof is thin. There is persuasive evidence that the mother of Nancy Henderson, a free woman of color, was a white woman named Nancy Ann Henderson, but no evidence to date that this Nancy Ann had additional free colored children. James and Bryan were Patsey Henderson’s children; Durant, Willis, Miranda, Patsey, Gatsey, Minerva, William and Betsey were Nancy’s children; and there is considerable evidence to suggest that Nancy Henderson and Patsey Henderson were sisters. My comments and speculations are in italics.

Sucky Henderson was bound to Richard Trott in 1809. Sucky, Polly and Naomi below possibly were too close in age to Nancy and Patsey Henderson to have been their children. Sisters instead?

Polly Henderson to Isaac Barber in 1809.

Durand Henderson, son of Nancy Henderson, to Henry Hyde in 1811. Durant Henderson was also called Durant Dove. He and his brother Willis were the subject of a North Carolina Supreme Court case, about which more later. He is the progenitor of today’s Lenoir County Doves.

Sukey Henderson to Richard Trott in 1811.

Naomi Henderson to Adam Trott in 1811.

Durant Henderson and Willis Henderson to John Jones in 1818.

James Henderson and Bryan Henderson, sons of Patsey Henderson, to Jesse Gregory in 1821.

Miranda Henderson and Patsey Henderson, daughters of Nancy Henderson, to Nancy Henderson in 1821. Who was the Nancy Henderson to whom the children were bound? A child could not be bound to his or her own parent. Was she Nancy Ann Henderson, Nancy Henderson’s mother?

Patsey Henderson, age 5 or 6, to Jason Gregory in 1822. Was this Nancy’s child (as above)? Or Patsey’s?

Gatsey Henderson and William Henderson, reputed children of Simon Dove, to James Glenn Sr. at August term, 1822. Nancy Henderson and Simon Dove never married, but had several children together. In the 1850 census of Upper Richlands, Onslow County, Nancy Henderson, 55, headed a household that included Gatsey, 30, Nervy, 25, Monday, 6, Lott, 4, Jessee, 1, and Sally Ann Henderson, 6 months.

James Henderson and Bryan Henderson to Jason Gregory in 1823.

Betsy Henderson to James Glenn Jr. in 1823.

Betsy, Nancy and Appie [no surnames] to David Mashborn in 1823. Are these Hendersons? If so, is Appie another of Nancy Henderson’s daughters?

Miranda Henderson, James Henderson, Martha Henderson and Bryant Henderson to James Glenn in 1824. Two of Nancy’s children and two of Patsey’s, bound together.

Miranda Henderson to Elizabeth Williams in 1824.

William Henderson to Lemuel Williams in 1824.

James Henderson and Bryan Henderson, “the baseborn children of Patsey Henderson,” to James Glenn Sr. in 1824.

Betsy Henderson and Gatsey Henderson, daughters of Nancy Henderson, to Lewis Mills in 1824.

Patsy Henderson to Amos Askew in 1824.

William Henderson, son of Nancy Henderson, to Lemuel Williams in 1827.

Durant Dove and Willis Dove were bound to James Mills in 1828. These boys were otherwise known as Durant and Willis Henderson.

Durant Henderson and Willis Henderson to James Mills in 1829.

North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Loudie’s legacy.

Loudie was the youngest of Lewis and Mag Henderson’s children, the one who never left home, the one who scarcely had time to do so, for she died at 19, but not before making her mark in the form of her children Bessie and Jesse. Loudie died in childbirth and, had circumstances been different, her children’s father might have reared them, but that was not to happen in that place and time. Their father was a white man, a lifelong bachelor farmer named Joseph Buckner Martin and called Buck. If his love for his second set of children, also by a colored woman, is any indication, he felt for Loudie and her two, but there was a long way between loving one’s yellow babies and taking them in, and so Lewis and Mag and their daughter Sarah (who would have a child of her own by a white man) reared them.

Jesse Henderson, then called Buddy, followed his aunt Sarah and her husband Jesse Jacobs to Wilson. They and Jesse’s younger children by his first wife settled into a L-shaped, three-roomed bungalow on Elba Street, a block off black Wilson’s best residential address and a few blocks over from the main business drag, East Nash Street. Jesse found work at Jefferson Farrior’s livery stable on Barnes Street, perhaps through a Dudley connection who worked as Farrior’s maid. When Big Jesse brought his wife’s nephew Jesse into the livery, Farrior christened the younger man “Jack” to cut down confusion. (The name stuck so well that some of his children never knew anything different, and a rumor grew that Farrior was Jack’s real daddy.)

Jack I almost knew. Our lives overlapped, and we could have met, but I was a child when he was a sick old man, and before my sixth birthday, he was gone. I know his children, and I have his few photographs, and I will have to be content with that. He is below, with open collar and cheroot.

Photograph of Jack Henderson, friend and dog in the collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

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