Maternal Kin, North Carolina, Oral History, Religion

Church home, no. 2: Holy Cross Mission, Statesville NC.

Me: Where did y’all go to church?

Margaret Colvert Allen: We were Episcopalians.

Me: What was — was the church in Statesville? What was it called?

MCA: Holy Cross Mission.

Me: It was a black church?

MCA: Mm-hmm.

Me: Oh, okay. And y’all participated —

MCA: Everybody but Papa.

My mother: What was Papa?

MCA: He was a late bloomer. [Laughs.] He didn’t join the church ’til he was about … oh, near 50, something like that. No, it wasn’t that late. About 40, I guess. Like all people who join church late like that, they are fanatics when they finally do, and that’s the way he was. But in the meantime, you see, we had been going with Mama to church. Went to Sunday school, we went to eleven o’clock service, then we went back again at four. And, when he joined church, he joined another church his mother belonged to. Which was an AME Zion church. And we had to go to that church, too.

Me: Plus the Episcopal church???

MCA: We had to go to his church at night. It was all right, ’cause we didn’t mind. That was an outlet.

“Trinity Episcopal Church was organized as The Chapel of the Cross in 1858. The congregation built a church on Walnut Street in 1875 to serve its 25 members and took the name Trinity Church. The Walnut Street church stands today and is the Quaker Meeting House. Holy Cross Church, Statesville’s African-American Episcopal congregation, was formed in 1887. The Holy Cross congregation held services on Washington Avenue in a building which is no longer standing. After nearly 100 years the congregations of these churches merged. Ground was broken on the plot of land on North Center Street at Henkel Road on June 18, 1967, beginning construction of the church building that is home to our parish today. The Blessing of Trinity Episcopal Church was held September 28, 1968.” — From “Parish History,” http://www.trinityepiscopalstatesville.org/church.html#history

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

Witnesses to a homicide.

Harriet Nicholson, then about 16, married Abner Tomlin on November 20, 1877, in Iredell County. Their marriage license lists “L. Nicholson” as Harriet’s mother and leaves blank the space for a father’s name. Harriet’s son Lon Colvert was two years old and remained with his father’s grandparents.

The couple settled in Olin township, likely near Abner’s family. Harriet may have been pregnant when she married; their son Milas (named after Ab’s father) was born about 1877. In subsequent census records, Harriet reported having given birth to as many as nine children by Abner, but my grandmother knew only one, Harvey Golar Tomlin, born about 1891. However, at least one other child, Lena, lived to young adulthood, as the newspaper article below attests:

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HOMICIDE FRIDAY NIGHT. Jess Shaw, Colored, Shot and Killed in Wallacetown — Bob Owens Charged With Murder — Conflicting Testimony

Jess Shaw, a colored man probably about 19 years old, was shot and killed between 10 and 11 o’clock Friday night in Wallacetown, a colored suburb on the A., T. & O. Railroad, just south of the Statesville depot. Bob Owens, a young colored man is charged with the killing and was held by the coroner’s jury.

The shooting took place near the house of Emma Rhinehardt. According to the testimony Shaw had borrowed a guitar from Grace Belk, colored. She told him he could pick it but not carry it away. He did carry it away and when the woman saw him, shortly before the killing, she cursed him about the guitar and advanced on him with a knife. Jess stooped down to pick up a rock, or did pick up one, and just then he was shot. Three shots were fired, but only one took effect. It is known that Bob Owens, Grace Belk, Maggie Morrison, Dovey Gray and Emma Rhinehardt were present when the shooting occurred. Jess ran up the railroad when shot, a distance of 100 or 150 yards, and calling to Ab. Tomlin’s wife told her he had been shot and that Bob Owens had shot him. Tomlin and his daughter Lena went to him and carried him to their house. He died in about 15 minutes but before dying told them again that Bob Owens had shot him.

… Dr. Long, who made the post mortem examination, assisted by Dr. Carlton, found that one ball had entered the abdominal wall of Shaw’s body, passed through a large intestine in two places, completely severed a large artery and buried itself in the muscular tissue of the pelvis, from which it was removed by the surgeons. Death was due to internal hemorrhage produced by the shot.

The testimony as to the shooting is conflicting. Ab Tomlin and his daughter testified to Shaw’s telling them that Owens shot him. …

Owens is a small black negro and bears a fair reputation among white people, but his reputation is said to be bad among those of his own race.

The locality where the shooting occurred is a colored settlement that is noted for rowdyism.

— Statesville Semi-Weekly Landmark, 4 October 1898.

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Ab Tomlin apparently died soon after this incident, as his wife Harriet is listed as a widow in the 1900 census. Of their son Harvey Golar, known as “Doc,” more later.

Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Oral History

Aunt Bert shot a white man.

Damage Suit Asks $25,000

Suit for $25,000 personal damages has been filed by James L. Warren against Odessa Waddell Williams, executrix of the estate of the late Bertha Mae Murdock, in Iredell Superior Court.

Warren contends in his company that he suffered the damages when Bertha Mae Murdock allegedly shot him in a restaurant near here March 28, 1944, prior to her death.

According to Warren’s complaint, she allegedly shot him while he was visiting at Bill Bailey’s Barbecue Stand four miles west of here. He claims she was a co-partner in that firm at the time.

Warren says that, as result of the alleged shooting, his leg had to be amputated.

Statesville Record & Landmark, 16 December 1955.

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I’ve been looking for an article like this for years, and I don’t know how I missed this one. Still, I’m hoping to find something from 1944, the year Bertha Mae Hart Murdock, daughter of Harriet Nicholson Hart, shot James Warren.

Here’s the version of events my family tells: Aunt Bert married a scandalous man who ran a roadhouse out in the country catering to white folks looking for a little liquor with their barbecue. A patron said something to her one day, and maybe got fresh, and she pulled a pistol and shot him. (There was no “allegedly” about it.) She was convicted and sent to the state women’s prison in Raleigh, where she served as cook for the governor before her release.

Photo of Bertha M. Murdock in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Births Deaths Marriages, Maternal Kin, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Oral History, Photographs

It was our aunt, screaming and crying.

Hattie Hart Dead.

Hattie Hart, colored, wife of Alonzo Hart, died Thursday night at 9:30 o’clock at her home, death occurring at the age of 63 and resulting from a stroke of apoplexy. The funeral took place at the Center Methodist Church at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. — The Landmark, Statesville NC, 2 Jun 1924.

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This is how my grandmother recalled the death noted above:

“She was subject to high blood pressure, and she had this attack on this day, and we all had to go out there. It was me — Louise was in Jersey — and it was Launie Mae, Mama and Papa. And I think Golar went, too. Anyway, I know we all went out there, and she was sick for a few days and then she died. But the day that she died, we had gone to the store. Some old country store, and we had to go a long ways, but we could see down the road, you know. So we went on down the road and when we came back, there were some people who lived across the pasture in some houses that belonged to Mr. Hart. (That was the step-grandfather — stepfather of Papa.) He owned all these houses, and we saw these people running across the street, and Launie Mae said, “Lord, there’s something happening!” and I said, “There sure is.” And the closer we got, the more we kept hearing this noise, you know? And it was our aunt, screaming and crying, you know, ‘cause Grandma had passed.”

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Photo of Harriet Nicholson Tomlin Hart in collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Tag Archives: Statesville

Church home, no. 2: Holy Cross Mission, Statesville NC.

Witnesses to a homicide.

Aunt Bert shot a white man.

It was our aunt, screaming and crying.