Louisburg Parade Threatened By KKK

As we all know, our country has a horrible history of racism. That history, which began with the introduction of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the Americas, is still being written, today.

Louisburg, North Carolina, one of my ancestral home places, is located just 29 miles from Raleigh, the state capital. The area was a Confederate stronghold, and to this day boasts many a proud descendant of the Gray. Indeed, just north of the town center, there is erected a monument to the original Confederate Flag (not the battle flag), which stands in the midst of the road on what is part of Louisburg College's campus. And, being a southern city, it shouldn't be surprising to learn of the presence of one of our country's best-known, overtly racist organizations - the Ku Klux Klan - in Louisburg's story. That said, realizing the depth of activity that was taking place in the town, while I, as a toddler, was spending time there (with my grandmother), still gave me pause.

Confederate Monument - North Main Street, Louisburg, North Carolina
Erected May, 1914

I recently found the following newspaper clippings while cleaning out my family home in Louisburg. They are about threats that were made by the KKK to the 1964 Christmas Parade. They were located at the bottom of a box of other artifacts from the 50's and 60's, along with several family letters. I've decided to share them on my blog for a couple of reasons: my family members would have been affected by these events, and, as already stated, I was actually staying in Louisburg with my grandmother when these things took place.

I will let these articles speak for themselves, but I do want to mention one thing. There must be something about the date December 6th, and Louisburg. As I was preparing this post, I realized that the first article about the Christmas Parade, of which these articles speak, was published on that date - the same date as another fateful event in this town. Sadly, December 6th (2013) was the date of the removal and burning of historical documents from the Franklin County Courthouse (in Louisburg). If you aren't aware of that sad story, dear reader, click here.

Here follow the clippings I found. Click on each article to enlarge it.


Article 1:

Source: News and Observer, Raleigh, NC, December 6, 1964   

Article 2 (3 pieces - I believe this to be from The Franklin Times, Louisburg, NC)

      

                    

 Article 3 (Appears to be an editorial: author and date unknown)

Sometimes, reading the ugly truth of our times (then and now) can be disturbing. That's why I'm so glad that my grandmother, or whoever clipped these, included this closing article. I agree with the sentiment of its writer, and reading it gave me a sense of hope and peace.

Source unknown

As always, comments are welcome. If you happen to have been a resident of Louisburg at this time, and you have personal memories of this event, I'd love to hear from you. :)

Renate

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19 Years Without My Daddy - I Wish I'd Known

This tribute started off as a very long, loving Facebook post about my father. However, just after I uploaded the first photo to go with the post, my computer froze, and I spent over and hour, trying to get it to unfreeze, so that I wouldn’t lose the post. Nothing worked, so I had to turn it off and back on again, losing (of course) my thoughtful and well-written tribute to my father. Now the hour is late, and I know I can’t get it all back, so here’s just a little of what I wanted to say (greatly paraphrased).

That's me with my dad on his 65th birthday.

Before this day comes to an end, I want to share that today marks 19 years since my father left this earth. I love and miss him, immensely. Before his death in 1997, I’d dibbled and dabbled a bit in genealogy, however, it was when faced with the task of writing my dad’s obituary that I realized how little I knew about him and his life “pre-Renate”, and I certainly didn’t know of his family history. And, so it was then that I consider my real beginning as a genealogical researcher, as I started my quest to learn as much as possible about my father, and subsequently my YARBOROUGH ancestry, which was soon followed by all of my other family lines.

There was so much I didn’t know about my father before I became a researcher. I didn’t know that about his distinguished military career – about all of the honors and recognitions he’d received, as he worked his way to the rank of Army Major, before he retired in 1964, or of the racism he faced while on that journey.  I didn’t know anything about the Montford Point Marines, or of the two-plus years my father spent as one of the first to integrate the US Marine Corps, at the beginning of his military service.

I still don't know what's going on here, but what I do know is that everyone's attention is on my Daddy!

 I didn't know that, before he joined the military, my father spent a year at NC A&T; nor did I know that he continued to complete college coursework while in the Army, excelling in all of his coursework, and stopping just short of earning his degree.  I didn't know what a fantastic writer my father was, until I happened upon love letters he'd written to my mother before they were married, and editorials he'd written to an Ohio newspaper, when he was stationed outside of Cleveland (where I was born).

I didn't know that my father had 2 half-sisters and a half-brother, all of whom were deceased before I was born, and that I had a first cousin, born the same year as my dad, who lives in the Bronx. I didn’t know that my father played basketball in high school, and was the quarterback of his football team at Nash County Training School. I didn’t know that the reason my father had to move to Nash County to live with his uncle (the principal of Nash County Training School) was because he was acting up in school, and his mother (widowed since my dad was 4) needed some help with him!

That's my daddy - #10! Where are his kneepads?

These are just a few things I didn't know about my father, but my quest to learn more about him, led to my now 19+ year journey as a genealogist. So, on this day, I choose to remember my father, not with tears, but with a smile. Thank you, Daddy, for inspiring me to do this work. I only wish you were here so I could CELEBRATE all of your magnificent achievements with you, and so that I could ask you the questions I didn't know to ask, and hear some of the stories you probably didn't want to tell when you were here.

Arthur P. Yarborough
June 21, 1924 - October 4, 1997

Mysterious Monday - Are You My Great-Grandfather?

A few days ago, I posted a photo on Facebook, along with the following message:

HELP WANTED! HELP NEEDED!!!
Gen-friends, this photo is one of many that I got today on a loan from a cousin. I need to hear any and all observations that you might be able to make about this photograph – about the subjects, their possible/probable relationship, as well as the photograph, itself. Physically this is a 3.5 X 5 carded frame, which is layered. The oval-shaped photograph appears to be glued onto the card stock, but it seems to be professionally cut, so it probably came that way. Notice the scallop design around the edge of the frame, as well as around the rectangular box that the picture sits inside of. Also, take note of the black edges on each side of the photo.
Please share your thoughts/knowledge regarding approximate time frame based on clothing hairstyle, etc. Please offer any ideas or suggestions about the picture in general. I really need you to be as objective as possible, so I don't want to give any clues or hints about what I know and/or suspect about the picture. James Morgan III, I'd especially like to hear from you. I think you'll know why. :)Maureen Taylor, your expert opinion is also invited. :)

The back of the frame is blank. It is not a post card, and there are no markings.

Unless you ask me a question, I will probably stay silent until I have come to some kind of conclusions. Thank you in advance for your help, and please feel free to tag anyone you know who might be "expert" in this type of work.

Thank you, in advance! I can wait to read your input!

Here's the picture. (One is close up, and the other a bit further away, so that everything I described can be seen.)

As I'd hoped, the photograph generated a lot of interest. Many who commented wanted me to tell what I knew about the photo, but if I had, it would have biased the perception of others, so I refrained. But, now the time has come for me to reveal what I (kind of) know, and to share my wonderings and newly-developed theories about the photograph.

So, for starters, the only thing I know for sure about the photo is that the female, who has an "x" marked under her likeness, is said to be "Blonnie Green", according to the penciled notation on the back of the photo. (Okay, I know I said there was nothing on the back, but I was trying to get viewers to understand that there was no information that would help us to know more about the when/where/how the photo was taken. I didn't want to give the name, because I didn't want folks to set off researching my grandaunt - my grandmother's oldest sister - which is who Blonnie Green was. My goal here was to try to determine who the man in the photo was, what the relationship was between him and Blonnie, and what the circumstances of the photo may have been. So, to those folks who asked, in one way or the other, if I knew anything about the photo, I apologize for not sharing that I did, indeed, have a name and that I knew exactly who the female was said to be. 

So, here's the big "reveal" of the back of the photo. Other than some stains, it only has my great-aunt's name - Blonnie Green.

As I've said, Blonnie Green was my grandmother's oldest sister. She was born in 1887, probably in Wake County (Rolesville), NC to my great-grandparents, John Wesley GREEN and Susan DUNSTON. I know that Blonnie existed because she's shown in the 1900 Census with the family, who then lived in Franklin County - Harris Township.

In 1900, John, Susan, and the children

I find the family, again, in 1910, and I'm very sure it's them, even though the enumeration details are way off. Blonnie is listed as a male, "Lonnie", and all of the children's ages are wrong. Still, in all my years of searching, I've never found another family that even comes close to matching theirs; all of the children's names are listed, and in the correct order. Also, John is reported to have been married for 20 years, but is now widowed, which is exactly in line with my research. (I'm thinking that someone else probably gave the info to the enumerator.) The family is now living in Rolesville, which is where, according to family tradition, all of the children were born.  The whole family is noted to be white, for which I have no explanation. I'm told that Great-grandpa John looked white, and I've always assumed that Susan was darker, since some of their children had a bit more melanin than others.

Here we see John (widowed) with all of the children - Blonnie ("Lonnie"), Mabel, Annie, William, and John. (Notice that Joseph is no longer there. I don't know what happened to him, but I'm assuming he died. This was before NC began mandated death certificates. I haven't been able to find any other mention of Joseph in almost 20 years of research, and there is no family knowledge of him.

There are a lot of reasons why this photo has raised my curiosity so, and why it's really important for me to attempt to positively identify the male in the photo. What I really want to know is this: Is the man in the photo my great-grandfather, John Wesley Green? (And if not, who could he be?)

To help determine if the male subject could be my ggf, I put out the query (above) to get opinions about the type, time period, and content of the photo. I wanted to see if the observations of others would support, or deflate my suspicion that this man might be John W. Green. Right away, those who chose to comment began to suggest an approximate timeline for the photo. Everyone was in agreement that it was most likely taken at the very end of the 19th century, or the first decade or so of the 20th. Most people also thought the female looked to be in her early to mid 20's. Since Blonnie Green was born in 1887, both of those observations are in line with her age, and helped to confirm that she was the female subject, as noted (by someone) on the back of the photo.

Once I established that I believed the female was Blonnie, it was time to figure out who the man was. Readers of the post seemed just as baffled as I about some of the observations. Was this a wedding photo? What was going on with the man's tie? Did these two sit for the photo together, or were two photos put together somehow. And then came the ringer that I came up with on the second day of the post -- Was this a postmortem photo, taken after Blonnie died???? In trying to answer some of these questions (with the help of my readers), I hoped to come to a conclusion about whether or not I was looking at my great-grandfather.

Obviously, I've never seen a photo of my great-grandfather before, but I have been told by two family members that he was said to have "looked white", and that he had white hair and blue eyes. Having carried that description in my mind for at least 20 years, it was hard for me to immediately accept this younger, dark-haired man (with undetermined eye color) as John Green. So, what clues might there be? I asked my Facebook community to suggest ages for the pair, and most respondents indicated that they thought he was in his 40s. Well, John was born in 1864, so he would have been in his forties in the period 1904-1914. Since there is no death certificate for Blonnie, but she was enumerated in the 1910 census, I've ascertained that she died sometime between 1910-1913, probably between ages 23 to 26, since the 1913 is the year NC began mandated use of death certificates. During that time, John would have been "in his forties", and certainly, if my suspicion of this being a postmortem (for Blonnie) photo turns out to be correct, the timing seems right. (More on that, in a future post. This one is already going to be long!)

So, we know that the man is about the right age to be John W. Green, and the woman is his daughter, Blonnie. What other clues could help to determine if this is my ggf?  Well, the gentleman is wearing a pin of some type, and all of us seem to agree that it's probably a Masonic pin (although someone did suggest a church pin). This was actually the first thing that stood out and made me wonder if I was finally looking into the eyes of my great-grandfather, because I'd uncovered his Masonic membership years ago. John (along with my other paternal great-grandfather and a great uncle) was a member of "The Pride of Louisburg", a fraternal lodge that was part of the F.A.A.M.

I found this document many years ago in the record of the Proceedings of the fifty--fifth communication of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge, F.A.A.M., showing several of my ancestors as members.

In addition to knowing that John Green was a Mason, I remembered that in the one picture I have of my paternal grandfather, Calvin Yarborough, he is wearing a similar pin, which I'd always assumed to be a Masonic emblem. This helped to further support the idea that John's pin is a masonic one.

This is my grandfather (my father's father), Calvin R. Yarborough (C.R. Yarboro in the document above). I've always believed that my ggf John's relationship as a lodge brother to the younger Calvin, was how he ended up marrying my grandmother (John's daughter). But, that's another story for another post. :)

Okay. So, now we have ages (check), time period (check), Masonic connection (check). What else could help me to confirm, 100 years later, the probability that this man is most likely Blonnie's father, my great-grandfather, John Wesley Green?

Well, there was one little detail that no one (except me) seemed to notice on the photo. If you look verrrrry closely at the top of the man's necktie, you will see a letter. For two days, I thought the letter was a "C", and because of that, I was leaning away from thinking this could be John Wesley, since he had no C in his name. But, late last night (Monday), while looking at the photo again, and discussing it with my cousin, Betsy, it hit me. What if it's not a C???? I blew up the photo, and looked closely at the letter. And, then I had it. (And, I hollered it in her ear.) "IT'S A G!!!!!!! G is for GREEN!!!! 

With that final observation, I made a decision. 

This man has to be my great-grandfather, John Wesley Green, son of Nathaniel Hawkins and Anna Green! Perhaps someday I'll find a later photo, showing him with white hair and blue eyes, but for now, I'm glad to "meet" this dark-haired offspring of my 2x great-grandparents, and to gaze into his (likely grieving) eyes, saying, "Hello, 'Papa John'!" :)

To learn more about John Wesley Green, please visit this post I wrote about him, back in December 2015.

I hope I'm right. For now, I'm going with it, but unless/until I find a confirming photo I know I'll always have that little wisp of doubt. This photo invites so many more questions, many of which were brought out in the Facebook comments, but I'll have to save that subject matter for future posts.

Three of the children of John Wesley Green and Susie Dunston
(L-R: Anna (my grandmother), William, and Mabel)

Before I close, I want to sincerely thank my cousin, Gail Fain Tyler, who is also John Green's great-granddaughter, Blonnie's great-niece, and granddaughter of Mabel Green (pictured above), for sharing this photo with me, and for now allowing me to keep it. I believe this is our ancestor, and I am eternally grateful to you for entrusting me with this photo, and the many others that you allowed me to bring home to digitize and research. 

Update 4/24/2020 - I'm second-guessing myself on this, again. I think what bothers me about this the most is the man's nose. No one in my family line has had that thin, narrow nose. Yep. That's the problem...lol. This photo is driving me nuts!

The photos in the post are the property of Renate Yarborough Sanders, and are not to be used, apart from the sharing of this post, without express permission of the owner.

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Finding Precilla - Uncovering the Life of My Formerly-Enslaved Great-Grandmother

I’ve been working to uncover the details of the life of my formerly-enslaved great-grandparents, Calvin and Precilla YARBOROUGH, since I "officially" began my research, in 1997. It took some time, but after numerous visits to courthouses, libraries, and the NC State Archives, I was finally able to first determine their status as formerly enslaved (2007), and then to piece together some of the data to create a timeline of Calvin's life. In the course of doing this work, I’ve been on the lookout for any information about the origins of, my great grandmother, Precilla, but it’s been tough to track her down, because I’ve never found any definitive records of her existence, before the 1866 Cohabitation Record, which is the document that confirmed for me that she and Calvin had, indeed, been enslaved.

Click here to read an earlier post about my search for Precilla.

Click here to view the timeline (created in 2009) for the life of my great-grandfather, Calvin YARBOROUGH, Sr.

Today, while doing some cleaning, I ran across an old legal pad filled with notes from a July 23, 2008 visit to the NC State Archives. It’s was fun to flip through the pages of the pad, reading my plan for the research trip, and recalling the celebratory moments when I was able to confirm, strike off, or add information to my growing body of research. (This was also when I found my great-grandfather’s last owner!)

Yep -- This is what my research used to look like!

Anyway, after I’d read all the way through the pages of the pad, I decided to go back and make some notations, just in case there was something I needed to review on my next visit to the Archives (which will be in three days!).  While reading this paragraph on the second page of the notepad, I had an “ah-ha” moment.

Several years ago, after I’d gathered a significant amount of information about Great-Grandpa Calvin’s former owners (and a little about whom I suspected Precilla’s to be), I noticed that perhaps my great-grandparents had purposefully left clues about their time of enslavement, in the names they chose for their children. (See notes about this on the timeline.) 

I’d long-since interpreted the middle name of their son, Henry King Yarborough, to be a clue that Priscilla was once owned by the prominent (wealthy) KING family of Franklin County, NC, but I hadn’t found any connection for his first name. (I did, however, note that there was a “Henry” in the lot of slaves that my grandfather was bestowed to his last owner with.) Well, today, I realized that in the paragraph, above, I’d noted that William Richmond KING owned a slave named “Priciller”, and I’d jotted this question to myself, back in 2008: “What year did W.R. King die?” Realizing that I’d never answered my own question, I set out, today, to do so.

Upon searching for William Richmond King (on ancestry.com), I found my answer, right away. He died on March 6, 1888, well after the Civil War and the end of slavery. Knowing that, I can surmise that, unless there was a reason for him to have sold Precilla, it’s probable that she remained with (or connected to in some way) the King family until emancipation.

I’d also posed another question in this section of my notes: “Did Joel King leave her (Precilla) to Sarah?  I think what I meant to ask was if William, Jr. ended up leaving Priscilla to (his sister) Sarah, but the point is, I was trying to figure out if my ancestor had eventually ended up belonging to Sarah.

But, who is Sarah, you might ask? Well, Sarah is Sarah Helen King, who married Robert John SHAW, thus making her Sarah Helen SHAW. 

And, why was I asking if perhaps Joel William had left (or given) my great-grandmother to this Sarah? Well, because if you take a look at what Priscilla named her first daughter – BOO-YAH! Sarah H. Yarborough. (I presume the H to be Helen.) 

Oh! And, what surname did Pricilla give to the clerk, in 1866, when she and Calvin went to register their cohabitation as man and wife? Precilla SHAW, that’s what!

Cohabitation Records, Franklin County, 1866: North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC

Sooooo…. long ago in the days before errr-thang was on the internet, I began to put these findings together, and I deduced that there was a high degree of likelihood that my great-grandmother, Precilla, had been owned by the KING family of Franklin County, and that perhaps she had somehow ended up with the daughter of that family, Sarah Helen King Shaw, at some point prior to emancipation. Even if Precilla was never actually owned by Mrs. Shaw, it’s possible to imagine that perhaps there was an admiration for this daughter of her owner, which led Precilla to want to honor her by naming her first daughter after her.

This very worn and scribbled upon page is from the front of the reunion booklet from the first-ever YARBOROUGH Family Reunion (descendants of Calvin and Precilla), held in 1993. This was where my interest in family history began. I do have a photo of an actual page in the family bible (shown) has all of these names written, but I can't find it at this time.

An additional finding which strengthens my hunch that Precilla must’ve been close to (or owned by) Sarah King is this: Sarah’s first child – a daughter- is named Josephine. Little Josephine and my great-grandmother, Precilla, were born within a year of each other (1838-1839), which makes me suspect that they must’ve grown up, adoring (?)playmates, which would make total sense of the fact that my great-grandmother named her fourth daughter, Josephine. 

This brings me back to today…

Since I know that Sarah Shaw’s daughter, Josephine, and my great-grandmother, Precilla, were close in age, and may have grown up together, I needed to see if the two girls lived in close enough proximity for that to be true. Well, I struck gold, again, as hit after hit continued to support my theories about Precilla’s pre-emancipation background.

As it turns out, Robert John Shaw (Sarah’s husband) died in June, 1847, leaving her a widow, with six children. Three years later, in the 1850 Census, we find Sarah and her children enumerated in the household just after her father's, with her five children, including Josephine (who is recorded as being 14, but according to all other records found, she should have been 11). And, right next door (most likely on the same property), is her brother, Dr. William R. King, who is shown on the 1850 Slave Census as being the owner of a 12 year old girl, who is (quite likely) Precilla. (Sarah, herself, owns 13 and 9 year old girls. This group of girls probably all worked and played together.)

This 1850 Census shows Sarah living next door to what looks like her brother, William, age 35. However, in the image, below, it appears to be her father, William, Sr. (age 65) in the same location.  Either way, Sarah is back home on her family's property, with her children.

Ancestry.com. 1850 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.

If my thinking is on track (and I believe it is), this research gives a LOT of support to my theory that the Pricilla who was willed to William Richmond King, by his father, Joel King, in 1853 is my great-grandmother, Precilla Shaw Yarborough. What remains to be determined/explored/proven is why she ended up giving the SHAW surname on her cohabitation record, in 1866. However, since we know that the formerly-enslaved were allowed to use any surname they chose, my guess is that even if she was never owned by Sarah Shaw, my great-grandmother had a certain affection and respect for her, and because of that, she chose to give SHAW as her surname. This would, perhaps, further support what I was told by a descendant of the SHAW family, many years ago, when I first began to formulate these ideas. I’d reached out to this fellow researcher to see if he had anything that might lead me to my Precilla. He didn’t, but he did tell me that it was passed down in their family lore that "Sarah Shaw felt a lot of affection for her slaves, and they for her".  At that time, I wasn’t really trying to hear that, but now, it kind of makes sense that it may have been true, since it seems that my great-grandmother thought enough of Sarah and her daughter to name her own children after them.

Whew! I'm going to pause here, but I will be back with a Part II. My next steps will be to see if I can put Precilla and Calvin in proximity to one another in 1860 and/or the period just before that. I already have some documentation, showing a "Sylla" belonging to Calvin's last owner, but I'll need to find proof of some kind of transaction before and can know for sure that she's the right one.

So, for now.... That's all folks! 

Thanks for reading, and please share, widely, so that perhaps some of the Shaw and/or King descendants might see this, and come forth with more info!  And, if you have comments and/or suggestions as to how I might further explore this, please leave them below. Thanks!

Renate