Tag Archives: Henderson

Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Lewis Henderson’s Simmons branch.

Of all Lewis and Mag Henderson‘s children, descendants of only Ann Elizabeth and Loudie walk this earth.  Loudie had just two children in her brief life, Jack and Bessie, but their collective offspring number in the hundreds. Ann Elizabeth did not live long either, but her children Daniel and Dollie ensured her legacy. I have talked about Loudie’s children here and introduced a purported photograph of Ann Elizabeth here. Now, more about Ann Elizabeth’s life.

Ann Elizabeth Henderson was born about 1862, probably in northern Sampson County. Her sister Isabella J. died early, leaving Ann Elizabeth the oldest girl in her family. The 1870 census of Brogden, Wayne County, North Carolina, shows Lewis Henderson, farmer, with wife Margarett and children James L. [known by his middle name, Lucian], Ann E., Caswell, and Mary S. [called “Sudie.”] On 21 January 1879, William Freeman applied at the Wayne County courthouse for a marriage license for Hilery Simmons, of Wayne County, age 24, colored, son of George Simmons and Axy Jane Simmons, both living, and Ann E. Henderson, of Wayne County, age 17, colored, daughter of Louis Henderson and Margret Henderson, both living.  Hillary’s brother, R[iley] H. Simmons, a Methodist minister of the AME Zion Church, married the couple on two days later at Ann’s father Lewis’ home in Dudley.  Hillary’s father G.W. Simmons (or maybe his brother General W. Simmons,) Hatch Brooks, and Ann’s brother Lucian Henderson officially witnessed the ceremony.

In the 1880 census of Brogden township, Wayne County, 28 year-old tenant farmer Hillory Simmons, his 17 year-old wife Ann Elizabeth, and 7 month-old daughter Abraskry shared a housheold with Ann’s sister nine year-old Sarah Henderson and 22 year-old brother Lucian Henderson. [“Abraskry”?!? Should that have been “Nebraska”? Was she named for a new state much in the news during the previous decade’s battles with Cheyenne, Pawnee, Sioux and other Natives?] The bulk of Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons’ life played in the two decades bracketed by the 1880 and 1900 censuses. We can assume that she was enumerated in 1890 with her husband and young children, but that record does not survive.

More intriguingly, the entire family is missing from the 1900 census, most likely the result of oversight but doubly unfortunate because she died around that time. In between, there are just a few glimpses of Ann Elizabeth in membership rolls of the Congregational Church of Dudley and in the deeds by which she and Hillary repeatedly mortgaged their 28-acre farm. In 1900 — 1901, at the latest — Ann Elizabeth Simmons died. She is surely buried in Congregational Church cemetery, perhaps next to her husband’s grave, or maybe with the Hendersons. Wherever she is, her grave is unmarked. Only children Minnie, Daniel and Annie C. “Dollie” survived her. In June 1902, Celestial Manuel Kemp, herself newly widowed, stepped into Ann Elizabeth’s shoes. Her first child with Hillary was born in 1904, the same year that H.B. Simmons applied for a marriage license for Jesse Budd of Wayne County, age 20, colored, son of John and Lou Budd, and Minnie Simmons of Wayne County, 17, colored, daughter of H.B. Simmons and Annie Simmons (he living, she dead).  Rev. W.H. Mapp, a Pentecostal Holiness minister from Norfolk, Virginia, performed the ceremony on 27 May at H.B. Simmons’ residence in the presence of Edie Hunter,  Cora Budd, and Sarah Jacobs, all of Wayne County.  Sarah Henderson Jacobs, Minnie Simmons’ aunt, was the little girl who lived with Ann Elizabeth and Hillary just after they married, as recorded in the 1880 census.

Minnie and Jesse Budd’s first child, Jesse Manuel Budd Jr., was born 27 February 1905. Shortly after, the family moved to Philadelphia, where William Edward Budd was born in October 1906. Eddie died at home at 1652 North Darien Street at the age of nine months.  Jesse Jr. died in Goldsboro of complications from an appendectomy in August 1916. Her own children lost, Minnie sought to adopt my grandmother Hattie Mae, her first cousin’s child, who was being reared by Sarah Henderson Jacobs. Sarah, however, would not separate Hattie from her sister Mamie.

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Minnie Simmons Budd, perhaps the 1940s.

In 1910, the censustaker found Hilory Simmons, wife Zalista, and children Daniel, Dollie, John, Susan A., Charles and Kajy living in Brogden township. The family remained in the Dudley area, and Hillary B. Simmons died 25 October 1941. On 24 Dec 1912, Hillery Simmons applied for a marriage license for Yancy Musgrave of Wayne County, age 21, colored, son of Alford and Pollie Musgrave, both living, and Annie C. Simmons, 17, colored, daughter of Hillery and Annie E. Simmons (he living, she dead).  Riley Simmons (now described as a Freewill Baptist minister) performed the ceremony the same day at Annie Simmons’ home in Dudley in the presence of Minnie Simmons of Dudley, Dave Budd of Mount Olive, and Liddie Winn of Dudley. Dollie’s children were Yancy Oliver (1913), Alfred Rudolph (1916), Bruce M. (1917), Marie Estelle (1920), Muriel (1922), Rossie Lee (1923), Ruth (1924), and Ralph Mordecai Musgrave (1926). Four months after Dollie’s marriage, on 10 April 1913, Daniel Simmons married Annie Irene Hogans, daughter of James and Annie Watson Hogans, in Goldsboro.

Daniel Simmons Annie I Hogans Wedding

The couple’s first two children, James Daniel (1914) and Hettie Louise (1915), died in infancy. The family then moved briefly to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where daughter Harriet Latta Simmons (1916-1970) was born. Daniel and Annie Irene Simmons moved to Richmond, where a second James Daniel (1919-2001), Anna Bell (1921-2000) and twins Mary (1924-2004) and Martha (1924-2012) were born;  then to Philadelphia, where Hillary Bunn II (1926-2010), Stanley Armstead (1928-2000), and Matthew Dallas (1930-2009) were born; and finally Brooklyn, where twins Clement and Clifton (1931) died within a day of their birth. Annie Irene H. Simmons died soon after.

Annabelle Mary Daniel Martha Harriet Stanley Dallas Hillary Simmons

Top: Anna Bell, Mary, Daniel, Martha and Harriet. Bottom: Stanley, Dallas and Hillary.

Dollie Simmons Musgrave died in Norfolk, Virginia, in the early 1930s. Minnie Simmons Budd died in Philadelphia on 8 June 1961, and Daniel Simmons died in Farmingdale, New York, on 8 October 1964. Daniel Simmons in Dudley

 Daniel Simmons at left, an unidentified man, and possibly his stepmother Celestial and father Hillary B. Simmons, perhaps late 1930s, Dudley, North Carolina.

Photo of Minnie S. Budd in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson; photos of Daniel Simmons and family courtesy of D. G. Campbell.

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DNA, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

DNA Definites, no. 16: Henderson.

Hard on the heels of my first Henderson match* comes another.

K.H.’s family tree shows that he or she is a descendant of Susan Henderson Wynn, half-sister of my great-great-great-grandfather Lewis Henderson. I’ve reached out to the woman who administers K.H.’s account — bizarrely, she’s someone who reached out to me a year or ago about some Artis research she was doing for a friend — to confirm the connection.

*By this, I mean a Henderson who is not also an Aldridge. They are my double-cousins, and much closer on the Aldridge side.

 

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DNA, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

DNA Definites, no. 15: Henderson.

I spotted the match on Ancestry DNA back in February. A German surname. A family tree largely filled with what appeared to be Germans and Frenchmen. But interspersed among the list of ethnic origins — Nigeria, Mali, Ivory Coast/Mali, Senegal …? I examined the tree a little more closely, and — there — could it be? A name I recognized. A rather common name, but one that matched that of a grandson of Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons, my great-great-grandmother Loudie Henderson‘s sister.

I reached out.  I also emailed a cousin, the daughter of the named man’s sister, if she thought her uncle had offspring of that age, in that place. It was very possible, she said. This uncle had not been in touch much. He was believed to have assumed a sort of liminal identity — not quite white maybe, but far from black. He had married several times, she thought, and had died in California.

Months passed.

Then, at the beginning of September, I heard back from E.G. He doesn’t know much about his grandfather, the match, but wondered if I did. Yes, I replied, I do. Ancestry (with its usual underestimating) pegged E.G. and I as 5th to 8th cousins, but we are 4th. Our great-great-grandmothers were sisters. He is the first Henderson relative I have matched beyond my double-cousins (whom I match more closely as Aldridges), and the first in my own Lewis line beyond my immediate relatives.

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

To my ….

Abstracts of wills filed in Wayne County Superior Court, Goldsboro, North Carolina:

Lizzie E. Hagans — (1) to my beloved husband Will S. Hagans and his heirs in fee simple my house and lot in the town of Goldsboro, situated on Oak Street between West Center and James Streets and known as 104 West Oak Street; (2) to my husband $5000 with all benefits from life insurance policy #190279, Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company; (3) Will S. Hagans appointed executor. Signed 5 August 1904 in the presence of H[enry] S. Reid and J.A. Dees.

On 2 May 1917, C[larence] Dillard and J. Peele swore that they were knew Lizzie Hagans for a number of years, were well-acquainted with her handwriting and verified her signature. Henry S. Reid also swore that he witnessed the will, which was recorded and filed on 3 May 1917.

HAGANS -- Lizzie Hagans Death Cert

She had inherited Oak Street house from her (probable) uncle, William Burnett. Lizzie Hagans died shortly after William S. Hagans moved his family from Goldsboro to Philadelphia. 

——

Adam T. Artis — (1) S.S. Strother appointed executor; (2) a decent burial suitable to the wishes of my family and friends; (3) to my wife Katie Artis, all of the Thompson tract on which I now live, about 18 acres, all household and kitchen furniture and personal property; (4) to son Pinkney Artis, $100; (5) to son June Scott Artis, $10; (6) to son Henry Artis, $10: (7) to son Columbus Artis, $10; (8) to son William Artis, $5; (9) to son Walter Artis, $5; (10) to daughter Josephine A. Sherard, $15; (11) to son Robert Artis, $5; (12) sell the balance of my land to pay out the above, then divide the remaining in equal shares among my children Vicey Aldridge, Liza Evert, Augustus K. Artis, Georgana Reid, Mary Jane Artis, Emma D. Locus, Ida Reid, Lillie Thompson, Napoleon Artis, Haywood Artis, Addie Artis, Annie Artis, Alberta Artis, and Jesse Artis, and, at Katie’s death, property to be divided among the twelve heirs above whose gifts are not limited. Signed with an X in the presence of W.F. Lewis, J.J. Coley and J.E. Exum. Codicil: (13) to son Noah Artis, $10.

Recorded and filed 1 May 1919.

Adam Artis’ will includes the names of 23 of his children. Emma’s name is crossed out because she died before the terms of the will could be carried out. Known children whose names do not appear include Cain Artis, who died in 1917; Caroline Artis Coley and Louetta Artis, who presumably died before the will was made; Adam Artis Jr., who seems to have been very much alive in Washington DC. (Was the omission of his name inadvertent, as with Noah?) Despite newspaper reports claiming that Adam  fathered 47 “legitimate” children, these 27 are all I have been able to identify. Though there were doubtless others who died in childhood, I doubt there were 20 of them, and I am fairly certain that no other children reached adulthood.

——

Mathew Aldridge — (1) to daughters Fannie B. Randolph and Mamie J. Aldridge, 1/2 undivided interest in my dwelling house and lot on Pine Street. Signed 27 August 1919 in the presence of N.D. White and Ida Darden.

Recorded and filed 18 May 1920. Fannie Aldridge was qualified as administratrix.

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Hmmm. Mathew Aldridge’s will provided for neither his wife, Fannie Kennedy Aldridge, nor his oldest daughter, Daisy Aldridge Williams. Perhaps he had settled property upon them prior to making his will.

——

Lucian Henderson — to John Wesley Carter, all my real estate known as my home place, 8 acres, provided that John W. Carter care for me and my wife Susan Henderson, otherwise null and void. My trusty friend John W. Carter appointed executor. Signed with an X in the presence of Everest Lewis and R.E. Simmons.

Lucian Henderson died 22 June 1934 and his will was recorded and filed 27 June 1934.

Lucian and Susan Henderson’s only child, Cora Q., died in 1907. For more re his friendship with John W. Carter, nephew of his sister Sarah’s husband Jesse A. Jacobs, see here.

——

Joseph Aldridge — (1) a decent burial; (2) to my wife Martha C. Aldridge, all my real and personal property during her lifetime or widowhood; (3) to my sons Allen Aldridge, Daniel Aldridge, William Aldridge and Milford Aldridge, $1 each, to my son Joseph Aldridge, my watch, to my son George Aldridge, my clock; (4) after Martha’s death, all my personal property to be divided between my sons Joseph and George and my daughters Mary Aldridge, Luella Aldridge and Lillie Mae Aldridge; as tenants i common, Mary, Luella and Lillie Mae to receive 12 acres to be laid out of the someplace on the east side of the old stagecoach road; to Joseph and George, all the remainder of the land between what I received from the estate of my father Robert and my brothers George and Dave. Signed 5 May 1934.

Recorded and filed 12 September 1934.

Martha Hawkins Henderson Aldridge remarried in 1940, triggering the terms of paragraph 4 of the will. As set forth here, she remained close to Joseph Aldridge’s children the remainder of her life. Also, a small clue I hadn’t noticed before: Joseph indicated that he received land from the estate of his brother Dave. As noted here, I had lost sight of David Sloan Aldridge after 1904, but now know that he died before 1934.

 

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Agriculture, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Crop liens & chattel mortgages.

The following abstracts are taken from agreements recorded at the Wayne County Register of Deeds office in Goldsboro, North Carolina:

Ira Henderson (1885-1946) was the son of James H. and Frances Sauls Henderson. On 11 March 1922, to secure payment of a $200 loan from B.W. Southerland Company of Duplin County, due 15 June 1922, Ira pledged: one bay mare about 8 years old known as the Parker mare; one mouse-colored mare mule about 8 years old; a one-horse Hackney wagon; one top-end spring buggy (red running gear); one set of harnesses; 9 red jersey shoats waighing about 50 pounds each; also, his entire interest in all his crops of cotton, corn, tobacco and all truck crops of every kind grown in 1922 on the lands of Nancy Winn near Mount Olive or any other land he cultivated. Signed with an X.

John J. Aldridge (1881-1964) was the son of John W. and Louvicey Artis Aldridge. On 29 January 1923, he conveyed an interest in all his crops to Seminole Phosphate Company to secure a $200.71 loan for fertilizer “used on my lands in Brogden township.” Terms required that he repay the loan with 6% interest on or before 1 October 1923.  Signed J.J. Aldridge

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Births Deaths Marriages, Free People of Color, Land, North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Family cemeteries, no. 15: Henderson-Aldridge.

There was another Aldridge cemetery, but its whereabouts are only vaguely remembered.  Not far off Highway 117.  A few miles north of Dudley. Robert Aldridge was buried there about 1899 and, presumably his wife Mary Eliza Balkcum Aldridge, too. There they remain, though others who died in that era were disinterred and moved to what is now known as the Henderson-Aldridge cemetery.

The oldest graves belong to Robert and Eliza’s son John W. Aldrich (1853-1910), his wife Vicey Artis Aldrich (1865-1927), and their daughters Lula Aldridge (1882-1918) and Amanda Aldridge Newsome. [“Aldrich” was the preferred spelling of son J. Thomas Aldrich, who erected the stones.] Most of the other graves belong to descendants of John and Vicey, or of John’s brother Robert Jr. and his offspring.

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Burials include Catherine Aldridge Davis (1900-2009) and her son George E. Davis (1921-1964); Lenora Henderson (1902-1961) and husband Henry Lee Henderson (1901-1942); Aaron H. Henderson (1922-1943); Horace B. Henderson (1923-1984) and wife Katie Lee Henderson (1924-1963); Hoover Aldridge (1929-1970); Dr. James T. Aldrich (1890-1968) and wife Athalia F. Aldrich; Frances Newsome (1883-1961); Allen Aldridge (1908-1969); Milford Aldridge (1913-1985); Sarah Eliza Aldridge Powell (1918-1998); Paul Aldridge (1913-1947) and wife Lonie Mae Aldridge (1919-1940); Robert Aldridge (1865-1941); Lula Aldridge (1882-1919); Amanda A. Newsome (1892-1918); Bennie R. Aldridge Jr. (1940-2008); and, most recently, Isaiah Len Henderson (1998-2013) and Ross M. Sutton (1935-2013).

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, 2013.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Free People of Color, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Collateral kin: the Halls.

I was a child plagued by respiratory illness and nearly every winter endured a tough bout with bronchitis. When the worst was over, and I was in a recuperating stage, my mother returned to her teaching job, and I sometimes spent a few days at my Aunt Mildred’s house one street over.

Mildred Henderson Hall was not really my aunt. She was my grandmother’s first cousin, daughter of her uncle Jesse “Jack” Henderson. During my grandmother and father’s childhoods, Uncle Jack and his children were the only nearby Henderson relatives. By time I came along, Mildred, her youngest sister Doris Henderson Ward and some of their children were the only other Hendersons left in Wilson. Mildred’s youngest daughters were still at home when I was child, and I grew to know them and the younger of their two brothers best.

I loved my brief stays at Aunt Mildred’s, wrapped in blankets and installed on the couch in her wood-paneled den, drowsing before the television while she handled calls related to the family business. Occasionally, I got a glimpse of the teenaged Patricia, impossibly glamorous in my eyes, leaving for school. More often, Aunt Mildred’s husband, Louis Hall, would stop at home between jobs. He was not a tall man, but he seemed to me a big one. In later years he had a belly, but I think my impression came more from his persona than his actual size. He had a warm smile and a ready laugh, and I, who had no living grandfathers, was drawn to him.

Louis & Mildred Hall fireplace

Louis and Mildred Henderson Hall at home, probably mid-1960s.

Years later, as I researched a thesis examining the involuntary apprenticeship of free children of color, I grew familiar with all the free families of color in Wilson and Wayne Counties. I came upon a set of Halls from the Stantonsburg area and, curious, traced them forward. I was delighted to find that Uncle Louis was descended from this very family. Years after that, I was even happier to be able to provide my Hall cousins with rare documentation of their antebellum forebears’ births.

The family’s earliest known ancestor was Eliza Hall, a free woman of color born about 1820, probably in what was then the heel of southwest Edgecombe County. How she met James Bullock Woodard, a prosperous white farmer and slaveowner, is unknown, but by Eliza’s early 20s they had begun a relationship that would last at least a decade. A sympathetic relative of Woodard’s, perhaps feeling that blood is blood, recorded the births of James and Eliza’s children in her family’s Bible:

Ages of The children of Eliza Hall

William Henry Hall was born Feb the 11th 1844 Patrick Hall was born October the 6th 1845 Margaret ann Hall was born Feb the 12th 1847 Louiser Hall was born April the 9th 1849 Balam Hall was born Feb 7th 1851

William H. Hall lived and farmed near Stantonsburg, Wilson County, most of his life. He married three times — to Lucy Barnes, Annie E. Smith and Mamie Artis — and had at least nine children. His fifth, more or less, was Robert Hall, born 18 July 1886. When Robert was about 4 years old, his father sold to trustees the quarter-acre of land upon which Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was founded. William H. Hall spent his last years living in his son Robert’s household and died 23 June 1925.

On 7 January 1908 in Wilson County, Robert Hall married Katie Farmer, daughter of Robert and Marenda Bynum Farmer. (And Katie’s sister Ida married Robert’s brother Thomas Hall.) Robert supported his large family as his father had done, by farming. Uncle Louis, born in 1920, was Robert and Katie Hall’s fifth child. He and Aunt Mildred reared six children on Queen Street in Wilson as they built East Carolina Vault Company, a family-owned business that now employs third-generation Halls.

Wilson County is a small world of criss-crossing family lines, and Uncle Louis was not the only descendant of Eliza Hall that I knew. Once, I saw my cousin (his daughter) hugging my geometry teacher at the mall. They, in fact, are first cousins. Another of their first cousins was the assistant principal at my high school. And as I prepared this blogpost, I ran across a marriage license for a daughter of William H. Hall’s brother Balam and one of my cousins, Snow B. Sauls.

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William H. Hall is buried in the cemetery of the church he helped establish.

Photographs from collection of Lisa Y. Henderson; excerpt from Lewis Ellis Bible courtesy of Henry Powell; sources include birth and death certificates, World War I draft registration, deeds.

 

 

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