We learn (says the Standard) that Ephraim Holmes, a free man of color, died in this place on Monday morning last, from injuries received, by a blow on his leg, given by John Mitchell a free negro who, we learn, is in Jail.
The North-Carolina Star (Raleigh), 21 January 1852.
CITY BAKE-HOUSE.
THE new Bakery in this City, which was announced a few weeks since in such flaming style and recommended to the public patronage by the Register, having gone down, or rather passed into the hands of a free man of color, the subscriber takes occasion to state that he is still in business at his old stand, where he is prepared to furnish all kinds of BREAD in his line of business. The people here know the subscriber — he is not in the habit of disappointing them; and he now assures them that he will spare no pains to please them and merit their patronage. The question is now put to the Mechanics and citizens of Raleigh, whether they will patronize his establishment or a free man of color. GEORGE H. TONNOFFSKE.
Raleigh, October 1st, 1845.
Weekly Standard (Raleigh), 15 October 1845.
A Coroner’s Inquest was held on Sunday last, on the dead body of a new born colored infant, found half-buried in a ditch, in a frequented part of the City. The verdict of the Jury was, that the child was born alive, and inhumanely killed by its unnatural mother, a free woman of color, named MARTHA DICKINSON.
The North Carolina Star (Raleigh), 29 January 1845.
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SUPERIOR COURT.
…
No case involving life was taken up before Wednesday, when MARTHA DICKINSON (a free woman of color) was tried for the murder of her new-born child. The Prosecution was conducted by the Attorney General, and the Defence by C.C. BATTLE, Esq. There was no doubt, from the evidence, whether the child died from violence or neglect, and the Jury, after remaining out several hours, returned a Verdict of Not Guilty!
Weekly Raleigh Register, 4 April 1845.
Our Superior Court is now in session, Judge Caldwell presiding. … The next case taken up was the State vs. John Bullock, for stealing a free boy of color, named Nelson Dudley Richardson, from his parents in Raleigh, and bringing him to this place, where he claimed the boy as his property, and offered to sell him. The case was clearly made out on the part of the State, and after an absence of ten minutes, the Jury returned a verdict of guilty. The offender in this case has been well known in the Western part of the State as a great villain, having been twice whipped, once at Wadesboro’ and once at Asheville. … Carolina Watchman.
The Weekly Standard (Raleigh), 25 March 1846.
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JOHN BULLOCH – This miserable man, who has been lying in jail here for several months, for stealing a free boy of color, from his Parents in Raleigh, was discharged from prison on the 3d inst. He has been hanging about town ever since. One day this week he was detected in an attempt to decoy another negro. This is too much. Twice or thrice has he been whipped, and now just from a gloomy dungeon, he walks in our midst without the least terror of the law! Strange being! Has he common sense? Or is he led captive by the evil one at his will?
P.S. Since the above was written, this wretched man has experienced the “tender mercies” of a rail riding Court. On Wednesday night last he was rode on a rail. This is was wrong. The laws are our protection against such scamps. But the laws would not drive him from among us. We regret that he occasioned our young men to do an act they disapprove of as much as any people. We regret that he has been the means of bringing this stain upon our community; and we trust that he may never return to occasion a renewal of such a scene as our streets presented in the night of his late exit from Salisbury. – Carolina Watchman.
Weekly Raleigh Register, 17 July 1846.
From the Raleigh Register.
A man by the name of Raiford Watkins, of Johnston, was brought before Justice Thompson, in this City, on Monday, upon a charge of attempting to sell Phoebe Flowers, a Free woman of color. He was bound over, in the sum of $200, to make his appearance at the next term of Wake Superior Court, and, failing to give bond, was committed to jail, to await trial.
Tarboro’ Press, 21 September 1850.
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina now in Session – The Petition of Lovedy Henderson a free woman of color, respectfully represents that your Petitioner intermarried some years since with a certain man of color by the name of Horace, then a slave, but with the consent of his owner. That since their marriage by care and industry, she has been enabled to purchase her said husband at the price of Eight Hundred & Seventy dollars of Hugh and John G. McLaurin Executors of Duncan McLaurin deceased. That she has paid the purchase money & has a Bill of Sale duly executed by the said Executors. That your Petitioner now has two children by her said Husband & as by possibility her husband might become the slave of her children, your petitioner is induced to ask the interference of your honorable body, as the only tribunal authorized to grant the relief prayed for. Your Petitioner would not presume to ask this indulgence in her favour, in contravention to the policy of the Laws of the Land, but from the peculiar circumstances of her case & the belief that she will be enabled to establish for her Husband such a Character as to entitle him to the favourable notice of your honorable body. For this, she relied on the certificates of highly respectable gentlemen both in Fayetteville & the City of Raleigh, where they have lived since their intermarriage. Your Petitioner therefore prays the passage of an Act, emancipating her said husband Horace Henderson, and she in duty bound will ever pray &c. /s/ Lovdy Ann Henderson
We Hugh McLaurin & John C. McLaurin Executors of Duncan McLaurin dec’d unite in soliciting the passage of an Act for the emancipation of Horace Henderson as prayed for by his wife and we are free to say that we have long known said Horace who is a Barber and a boy of unexceptionable good character and of industrious & moral habits. /s/ H. MacLaurin for himself and John C. MacLaurin
We the undersigned citizens of Fayetteville freely unite in soliciting the General Assembly to pass an Act emancipating the negro man Horace, that we have known said Horace as a Barber & a Boy of good character, industrious habits and as we believe of the strictest integrity. /s/ J.H. Hooper, John MacRae, John Kelly, Thos. L. Hybart, [illegible] Cochran, John Lippitt, D.A. Saltmarsh, Chas. B. Jones, [illegible] Hawley, William S. Latta, Jas. Huske, Duncan Smith, Henry W. Ayer
We the undersigned citizens of Raleigh freely unite in soliciting the General Assembly to pas an Act emancipating the negro man Horace, that he has lived in the place for the last three or four years as a Barber, and has conducted himself with the utmost propriety, that in his deportment he is humble & polite, free as we believe from any improper intercourse with slaves, industrious & honest. /s/ M. Stokes, R.M. Saunders, Jo. Gales, B.W. Daniel, Geo. Simpson, J. Brown, John Primrose, Hazlett Wyle, Richard Smith, S. Birdsall, Jno. G. Marshall, A. Williams, Fabius J. Haywood, Robert Staniroy
General Assembly Session Records, November 1832-January 1833, Box 5, North Carolina State Archives.
In the 1850 census of Greensboro, Guilford County: Horace H. Henderson, 40, barber, and wife Love, 39, both born in Fayetteville; children James, 18, farmer, Mary Ann, 17, and Timothy, 14, born in Raleigh; and Albert, 10, Sarah, 8, Thomas, 4, and Alexander, 3, born in Greensboro; all mulatto.
[Sidenote: Ninety years after this petition, a Horace Henderson was born into my extended family, but I know no connection between my Hendersons, originally of Onslow County, and Lovedy Ann Henderson. — LYH]
Edward Austin Johnson (23 Nov. 1860-24 July 1944), educator, historian, attorney, and politician, was one of eleven children of Columbus and Eliza Johnson, slaves belonging to a large slaveholder in Wake County. Johnson acquired his earliest education from a free black, Nancy Walton, and after emancipation attended a school in Raleigh directed by two white teachers from New England. These “Yankee” teachers introduced him to the Congregational church, in which he was active for the rest of his life. …
Excerpt from biography of Edward A. Johnson, http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/johnson/bio.html
Born a slave around 1830 in Granville County, James Harris was freed in 1848. After receiving his freedom, Harris was apprenticed to a carpenter and later opened his own business in Raleigh. Harris left North Carolina prior to the Civil War and attended school at Oberlin College in Ohio for two years, followed by trips to Canada and Africa. In 1863, he received a commission to organize the 28th Regiment of United States Colored Troops in Indiana. (Note: Contrary to the original marker inscription, Harris did not serve as a Union colonel. The text has been rewritten and the marker reordered.) After the Civil War, Harris moved back to his native state as a teacher affiliated with the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society. He became involved in Reconstruction politics and was one of the charter members of the state’s Republican Party after serving as a delegate to the state’s Freedmen’s Convention in 1865. A staunch advocate for the rights of African Americans, Harris sought to provide a voice for equality while maintaining a moderate tone. His philosophy was that blacks and whites had to work together to promote the interests of each race. A gifted speaker, Harris received numerous appointments, including service as a delegate to the state’s 1868 constitutional convention. He was elected a state legislator in the house, 1868-1870, and 1883 and in the senate, 1872-1874. Harris also served Raleigh as a city alderman and as an advocate for the construction of the Colored Institution for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind. Harris was appointed vice-president of the National Equal Rights Convention in 1865, president of the National Convention of Colored Men in 1869, and vice-president of the National Black Convention in 1877. He attended the 1868, 1872, and 1876 Republican National Conventions, serving as a presidential elector in 1872. Harris edited the North Carolina Republican in the 1880s and pushed for reforms for the protection of laborers, women, orphans and other disadvantaged groups. Harris died in 1891 in Washington, D.C. and was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Raleigh.
Adapted from http://www.ncmarkers.com
Disgraceful Outrage. – An occurrence took place in this City, on Friday night last, which has excited a great deal of feeling, and will do much towards destroying the deservedly high reputation, which our City has always enjoyed, until recently, as a law loving and law-abiding community. A free man of colour, named Allen Jones, a Blacksmith by trade, who has rendered himself somewhat obnoxious, was forcibly taken from his own house, in the dead of night by a mob, and so beaten, bruised and mangled, that doubts are entertained of his recovery. – Ral. Reg.
Tarboro’ Press, 22 October 1842.
This marker, originally approved and erected in 1938, was the first one in the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program dedicated to African American history. The original sign (depicted in the photograph) was replaced in 2009 by one with a revised inscription.
John Chavis, born around 1763 in Virginia, was a prominent free black preacher and educator in and around Raleigh area from 1810 on. Chavis had an extensive education for the time, likely the best education of any African American of his day. He is best known for his classical teaching in Raleigh, educating children of all races. In 1832 free blacks lost many of their rights in North Carolina, and Chavis lost his freedom to preach and teach. He died in 1838, having lived and worked as a respected member of society.
Little is known about John Chavis’s early life, but it is thought, based on estate records from 1773, that he may have been an indentured servant for Halifax, Virginia, attorney James Milner. It is also speculated that Chavis received early education from Milner’s classical library under the tutelage of Reverend William Willie. In 1778, Chavis enlisted in the 5th Regiment of Virginia, serving for three years for the Patriots. Honorably discharged, Chavis studied at Washington Academy, present-day Washington & Lee University, and possibly studied privately at Princeton with Dr. John Witherspoon, the president of what was then College of New Jersey. In 1800 he returned to Virginia and was licensed as a Presbyterian minister.
Between 1801 and 1807, John Chavis did mission work among slaves for the Presbyterian Church throughout the southeastern United States. In 1809 he moved to Raleigh, where he began preaching as a part of the Orange County Presbytery. It was around this time that Chavis began his school.
Chavis’ school accepted both black and white students, widely expanding the options available for the education of free blacks in Raleigh at the time. Chavis taught white students during the day and black students during the evening. Many were from notable families in North Carolina, including future Governor Charles Manly and the sons of Chief Justice Leonard Henderson. Chavis may also have instructed future United States Senator Willie P. Mangum.
Following Nat Turner’s Rebellion, free blacks across the south lost their standing as citizens. Chavis could no longer legally preach or educate, and was forced to close his school and retire. In 1833 he published his only written work, a sermon entitled An Essay on Atonement. The work was successful and widely read, and helped to supplement his income during the final years of his life. Chavis died on June 15, 1838. His burial location is unknown, although there is speculation that the grave is on Willie P. Mangum’s former plantation in present-day Durham County.
Adapted from ncmarkers.com.
Fourth Generation Inclusive 