Misinformation Monday, no. 2.

The second in a series of posts revealing the fallability of records, even “official” ones.

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The “true facts”: Richard Artis Sr. was born about 1850 in Wayne or Greene County to Vicey Artis and Solomon Williams.

Here’s his death certificate:

First of all, poor penmanship — a “bad hand,” as my grandmother would have said — will do you in. Based on that misshapen “S,” Ancestry.com has indexed this document as the death record of Richard Artis Jr. In fact, Junior was the informant, and his “J” is unambiguous. This is Richard Senior’s death cert.

Second, Richard’s father was certainly named Solomon, but not Artis, as unhelpfully pencilled in.

Third, Richard’s mother’s name is illegible, which is just as well, as it surely does not say “Vicey Artis.”

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

The house and the lot on which they now live.

Buck Martin never married. At the end of his life, he and his bachelor brother Alfred lived together in the “home place,” perhaps the house they had grown up in, which Buck owned. Just down the road lived another unmarried brother, Dortch, and their widowed sister, Virginia “Jenny” Martin Herring.

A few months before his death, Buck drew up a will that insured that Alfred would keep a roof over his head and that, more importantly, his younger children and their mother, Sarah Barfield, would not be dispossessed of the house and acre of land upon which they lived. By its terms, the will provided that the Barfields could remain on the property for the duration of their lifetimes and those of their survivors, after which it would revert to his brothers or their heirs. In fact, they did not stay quite so long. Sarah Barfield died in 1942, and the property reverted to Buck’s brother Ira’s children. Lillie Barfield Holmes bought the house from them, but it later burned down.

[Sidenote: Buck Martin died 18 June 1928 of sarcoma of the right thigh. His brother Ira died of heart failure exactly ten days later.]

Military, North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

World War I draft registration cards: Aldridge, no. 1.

Three sons of John W. Aldridge and their first cousins, sons of George W. Aldridge:

George’s son Prince A. Aldridge appears on a list titled “Negroes Certified” (US Lists of Men Ordered to Report to Local Board for Military Duty 1917-1918, ancestry.com), but it is not clear whether he ever enlisted and served. He moved to Wilson NC after the war and worked as a plasterer and occasional tobacco factory worker. Prince died 15 May 1953.

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Prince’s brother Blanchard (“Blancher”) Aldridge was called up in July 1918 and ordered to Florida A&M’s Tallahassee, Florida campus. His gravestone indicates that he served in 78th Division, Provision Outpost, Machine Gun Training Center.

From his discharge papers: Blanchard Aldridge. #3022528. Priv, 78th Prov Co, 7th Prov Tr Gr MTDMGTC. Honorably discharged. Born in Goldsboro NC. Enlisted at 22 years of age. Occupation: Presser. Brown eyes, black hair, brown complexion. 5’8″. Camp Hannah GA, 6 Jan 1919. Enlisted 1 Jul 1918, Goldsboro NC. Not rated, marksmanship. No battles, no wounds, normal physical condition. Single. Excellent character. Entitled to travel pay from Camp Hannah GA to Goldsboro NC.

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Johnnie Aldridge was the only one of John Aldridge’s sons to remain a farmer in the Dudley area. He was newly married in 1917. I wish I knew the story of the broken skull. Johnnie died 13 April 1964.

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Though, as a medical student, he probably had fewer resources than his brothers John and Zebedee, Tom Aldridge claimed responsibility for the support of his widowed mother and unmarried sisters. He also asserted that his own health was poor. He had already begun to shave years off his age — he was born in 1886, in fact — but had not yet changed the spelling of his surname to “Aldrich.” Tom was enrolled at Meharry School of Medicine at the time he registered, and his obituary reports that he served in the Army Medical Corps in 1918. Tom died in Saint Louis MO in February 1968.

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Zebedee Aldridge, the oldest of John Aldridge’s sons, had been living in Virginia for nearly 20 years by time he registered. He was in his late 30s and was not called to serve. Zebedee died August 1958.

North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Strong genes, no. 1.

Jack Henderson and Daniel Simmons, first cousins.

Jack (1893-1970) was the son of Loudie Henderson. Daniel (1895-1964) was the son of her sister Ann Elizabeth Henderson Simmons. Both were born and grew up in Dudley, Wayne County.

North Carolina, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

Jonah’s apprentices.

On 24 Sept 1870, Geo. Jno. Robinson, Probate Judge, bound to “Jonah Williams (col)” John H. Britt, Ida Britt and Cora Britt, aged 12, 10 and 6, to “live after the manner of an apprentice and servant until the said apprentice shall attain to the age of twenty-one years and until Ida & Cora shall attain the age of eighteen years” John was to be taught trade of a farmer, and Ida and Cora that of house servant. Williams “shall further provide said apprentices each with a new suit of clothes, six dollars in cash & a new Bible at the end of said apprenticeship.” Williams signed the indenture with an X.*

Who were the Britts to Jonah Williams?

They are not listed in Jonah’s household in the 1870 census. Rather, Ida, 9, and Corah Britt, 6, and their mother Hannah Britt, 39, appear in the household of drayman Doctor Thompson, his wife Feribee, and daughter Lucy in Goldsboro, Wayne County. John Britt is not found.

Ten years later, Ida Britt, 20, is listed in the Wayne County household of Jonah’s 80 year-old father, Solomon Williams. Ida and Charity Artis, 42, were described as Solomon’s “daughters.” Charity certainly was, but Ida? It is possible, certainly, that Solomon fathered three children with Hannah Britt in the eight years prior to Emancipation and his 1866 marriage to the mother of his 11 other children, born between 1828 and 1851. If so, the arrangement with his son Jonah might have been a way to insure their care. Solomon did not legitimate the Britts, however, as none appear in his 1883 estate records. The more likely explanation is that Ida was in the household as a quasi-servant, and the censustaker assigned her relationship based on his assumptions. I have not found her in any record after 1880.

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*Wayne County Apprentice Bonds, NC State Archives.

Births Deaths Marriages, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Family cemeteries, no. 2: Artis & Bunch.

The small “Artis & Bunch” cemetery is located on Highway 222 East in Wayne County between Stantonsburg and Eureka NC on land still owned and occupied by Adam’s descendants. There are several graves, including those of Adam T. Artis (9 July 1831-11 February 1919) and his granddaughters Odessa Artis Baker and Esther Artis Bunch. (Apparently, none of Adam’s wives are buried with him.)

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Photographs taken by Lisa Y. Henderson, 2010.

North Carolina, Paternal Kin, Photographs

Finding the Barfields.

Some time in the late 1980s, I learned the name of my great-grandmother Bessie Henderson’s father — Joseph Buckner Martin — and learned that, after the death of Bessie’s mother Loudie, Buck Martin had several children with a woman whose last name was Barfield. I marinated on that for a few years, then a bit of sleuthing revealed that Sarah Barfield was the woman, and her children were Walter, Amy, Lillie and Daisy Barfield. I found Walter Barfield Jr. in the phone book, cold-called him, and found him to be a gracious and welcoming cousin. His father had passed away not too many years before, but Aunt Lillie was still living, and he was happy to introduce us the next time I came home to North Carolina.

Sarah Barfield

I met my great-great-aunt in the spring of 1993 at the nursing home in which she lived in Mount Olive. She was a tiny woman with a wizened, apple-cheeked face, her ivory-white hair pulled back in a small bun.

I took notes:

She said she never saw her half-sister Bessie Henderson, but remembers when she died [in 1910]. Her sister Amy went to the funeral and came home and cried and cried.
Jack Henderson, her half-brother, used to visit them in the country. Once when he came, he wanted to meet their father. She took him there, and Buck received his oldest son in a friendly manner. He was good to his children.
Her sister Amy was in her 30s when she died; Daisy was 18. They are buried in the Barfield cemetery, between Mount Olive and Dudley, not far from the railroad.
Her youngest granddaughter has a photo of Daisy.
She has a daughter Gladys and a son Walter Lee Holmes.
She bought the house that Buck left her mother from one of Ira Martin’s children, to whom it had reverted after her mother Sarah’s death.
Her house burned up with most of her photographs.
She knew Buck’s brother Alfred Martin. He committed suicide.
Once on her way to Washington to see her husband, she spent the night in Wilson with Sarah Henderson Jacobs, who told her, “Don’t ever marry an old man.” Walter Lee was 2 years old at the time. [This would have been about 1922.]
She remembered that my grandmother had children by a “barber man.”

The second time I visited Aunt Lillie was at Christmas, and I took my grandmother with me. When we walked in, Aunt Lillie stared wordlessly, then reached out to touch her face.

Lillie Barfield Holmes passed away peacefully on 1 June 2003, just shy of her 100th birthday.

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Photographs taken by Lisa Y. Henderson, 1993.

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

Adam Artis’ children, part 5: Katie Pettiford.

From the “Adam Artis Family History”:

After Amanda died, Adam died Katie Pettieford of Goldsboro. They had one son, Pickney. Adam was 71 and she was 21 when they got married. Katie employed a male nurse to look after Adam. She sold off his land bit by bit.

Adam died of old age at about 100 years. His last wife, Katie, in 1923, had someone dig down to his coffin and saw off his feet. Several years later she committed suicide. She poured kerosene around a room and set it on fire.

In fact, Adam Artis married his fourth and final wife, Katie Pettiford, on 9 July 1902 in Wayne County. He was 71, as told, and she was about 20. Their only son, Alphonzo Pinkney Artis, was born in April 1903. By common account, Pinkney left home as a boy — ran away, in fact, to Baltimore. Adam died in 1919 at age 87. Katie, who remarried, died in 1940. Her death certificate notes that she burned up inside her house, but does not mention suicide.

As for the rest, the story I’ve heard is that Katie, guilt-ridden over her abuse of Adam in his decline, grew convinced that he was haunting her from the grave. On the advice of a root doctor, she had his body exhumed and his feet cut off to keep him from walking the world.

Births Deaths Marriages, Free People of Color, Migration, Other Documents, Paternal Kin

Age 121?!?

On March 30, 1932, in Lucy, Tennessee, just north of today’s Memphis International Raceway, an old man closed his eyes a final time. His doctor described his death in an unusually detailed, almost poetic, passage: “causes due to advanced age weakening of heart muscles beats slowing down until stopping quietly but regular.” He was, according to the death certificate, 121 years old, and his name was Guy Lane.

Guy Lane?!?!

I scanned the rest of the form: farmer … living in Shelby County … born in North Carolina … son of Guy Lane … an informant named Lillie ….

My great-great-great-great-grandmother, Vicey Artis, born free in or near Wayne County around 1810, had a sister named Sylvania. Both women married enslaved men. (And their brother Daniel married an enslaved woman.) On 31 August 1866, Vicey Artis and Solomon Williams and Sylvania Artis and Guy Lane registered their decades-old cohabitations in Wayne County and thereby legalized their marriages. Old Man Guy died before 1880, but ….

Sylvania and Guy Lane’s twelve children, who used both parents’ last names, were born over the course of more than twenty years. Morrison Artis, born 1837, was first, followed by Mary Artis (1839), Jane Lane Sauls (1842), Daniel Artis (1843), Mitchell Lane (1845), Mariah Artis (1846), Guy Lane Jr., Penny Lane (1850), Dinah Lane (1851), Julie Lane Sutton (1853), Washington Lane (1855) and Alford Lane (1859).

In 1869, Guy Lane Jr. married Dinah Dew in Wayne County. They appear together in the 1870 and 1880 censuses and had at least six children: Ora, Moses, Lizzie, William, Mary S., Milton F. Lane, and a girl. By 1900, though, Guy and his family are nowhere to be found in North Carolina. Instead, they surface 800 miles due west, just outside Memphis. (Had they been Exodusters sidetracked on the way to Arkansas?) Guy had a new wife, of four years — Eliza, born in Tennessee — but his youngest two children, Milton and Guy Jr. (actually III), both born in NC, were with him. In 1910, on the Memphis & Shakerag Road, 60 year-old Guy and Eliza Lane are listed with eight year-old daughter Lilly. Both reported that they had been married twice, and Eliza reported that only one of her nine children was living. In the 1920 census, the couple are living with Lillie and her husband Robert Burnett. Guy continued to work as a farmer, and his age is reported as 78. Ten years later, in 1930, Guy and Liza are living alone again, and his age has leapt inexplicably to 114. By time he died in 1932, Guy had gained another seven years.

The credible evidence suggests that cousin Guy Lane, in fact, was born about 1848, making him a more reasonable 84 years old when his heart slowed down until stopping quietly. He is not forgotten.

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

Funeral Program Friday: Bettie Aldridge Saunders.

Betty Cecilia Aldridge Saunders was born in Dudley, Wayne County, North Carolina, the second daughter among John and Ora Bell Mozingo Aldridge‘s 11 children. She died in 1990 and was buried in the cemetery of the church to which Aldridges have belonged since the 1870s.

L. to R.: Horace “Snook” Henderson, Cecilia A. Saunders, William Saunders, Catherine Aldridge Davis, Frances Henderson Taylor, Carrie Lee Henderson Hill, ??, Johnnie “Dink” Henderson, Annabelle Henderson. Dudley NC, 1970s. Snook, Frances and Dink were Cecilia’s first cousins. Their mother, Nora Aldridge Henderson, was a sister of Catherine A. Davis and Cecilia’s father Johnnie Aldridge. Carrie was the Hendersons’ cousin on their father’s side.

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(The first of an occasional spotlight on these funeral staples.)

Scuffalong: Genealogy.

Tag Archives: Wayne County