The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.
Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!
The fantastic Wilson Arts Center now occupies the footprint of New Briggs Hotel. Paragon Shaving Parlor opened in a storefront space of the hotel at what was then 213 East Nash Street. The barbershop was located in the area of the “short,” far-left section of the arts center’s facade.
After apprenticing with barber John A. Gaston, Walter S. Hines joined with Noah J. Tate and Joshua L. Tabron to open Paragon Shaving Parlor in a storefront at the New Briggs Hotel circa 1903. (Not 1912, as my little sign says.) In 1906, Tate, Hines, and Tabron sold the shop’s furnishings to another barber, Richard Renfrow, suggesting a complete upgrade of Paragon’s interior.
Tabron died before 1907, and Hines and Tate continued the business, which was described this way in the 1912 Wilson, North Carolina, Industrial & Commercial Directory: “The Paragon Shaving Parlor is located at 213 East Nash street in Briggs Hotel Block, and it can truthfully be said that it is the most popular Tonsorial parlor in the city of Wilson. It is owned and managed by N.J. Tate and W.S. Hines, both of whom are skilled barbers of long experience. Their genial manner and high class work have won for them the liberal share of the best patronage of the city. Their shop is fully equipped with all the latest appurtenances, and a short visit to this establishment will after passing through their hands, convince you of what the modern, up-to-date barber shops can do to put a man in good humor with himself and the rest of mankind. The shop is equipped with five chairs, each in charge of a professional barber. Go there for your next shave.”
By 1916, the business was known as Tate & Hines.
Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory (1916).
About 1920, Tate and Hines parted company, and Walter S. Hines assumed sole ownership of the barbershop. He briefly reverted to the Paragon Shaving Parlor name, but soon settled on Walter S. Hines Barbershop. His shop and that of his brother, the William Hines Barbershop, were friendly competitors for white custom until the 1970s.
Wilson Chamber of Commerce’s Facts About Wilson, North Carolina, published in 1934, featured a full-page for New Briggs with a photo of the hotel’s street-facing exterior. At lower left, Hines Barbershop is identifiable by its barber pole.
A close-up reveals two African-American men standing in front of the shop’s large window.
Walter S. Hines Barber Shop, early 1940s. Left to right: David H. Coley, Joe Knolly Zachary, Edgar H. Diggs, Roderick Taylor, and Sidney Boatwright.
Contrary to the passage below, which was lifted from the nomination form the Central Business-Tobacco Warehouse Historic District, Hines himself did not move the barbershop from the Briggs Hotel in 1955. Walter Hines died in 1941, and his family continued running the business for nearly 40 more years.
Barbers and bootblacks who worked for Walter S. Hines included Hiram A. Faulk,Walter Mainer, Roderick Taylor, David Barnes, Herman N. Grissom, Floyd Pender, Hubert Mitchner,Lonnie Barnes, Charles C. Chick, Edgar H. Diggs, Mancie Gaston, Elmer Gordon, Golden Robinson, James Smalls, Alonzo Barnes, David H. Coley, Sidney Boatwright, and Joe Knolly Zachary.
The 1872 map of Wilson shows Jack Williamson‘s blacksmith shop on Tarboro Street, west of Barnes Street. The approximate location is now a parking lot.
Williamson, born enslaved in the Rock Ridge area, came to Wilson shortly after Emancipation. His wife, Ann Jackson Williamson, learned blacksmithing and horseshoeing from him and worked alongside him and their son Charles Williamson.
Jack Williamson died in 1899.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2024.
The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.
Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!
Of more than a dozen cleaning and pressing clubs operating in Wilson in the first few decades of the twentieth century, only a few set up business west of the tracks. Alonzo Taylor‘s Citizens Pressing Club at 124 South Goldsboro Street (and later 213 South Goldsboro) was one.
1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory.
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On 20 November 1907, Alonzo Taylor, 23, son of Jane Taylor, married Annie Henry, 21, daughter of George Hines and Mary Henry, in Wilson. Rev. N.D. King performed the ceremony in the presence of Henry Tart, Samuel Plummer, and Leroy Brown.
In the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Taylor Alonzo propr Citizens Pressing Club h 547 E Nash
On 5 November 1912, Alonzo Taylor, 23, son of Jordan and Jane Taylor, married Maggie McRae, 20, daughter of Samuel and Diana McRae, in Wilson.
In the 1916 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Taylor Alonzo cleaning and pressing 213 S Goldsboro h Hotel Union
Alonzo Taylor died 15 April 1917 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 17 February 1889 in Wilson County to Jordan Taylor and Mary Lane; was married; worked in “close cleaning”; and was born in Wilson [likely, Masonic, Vick, or Odd Fellows Cemeteries.] Mary Jane Sutzer [his mother] was informant.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2024.
The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.
Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!
Lemon Taborn (later spelled Tabron) was born free about 1834 in Nash County, North Carolina, to Celia Taborn. He moved to the town of Wilson before 1860 and soon established a barbershop — the earliest known Black-owned business in Wilson.
E.B. Mayo noted Taborn’s shop into his 1872 map of Wilson on Tarboro Street just north of Vance Street. Taborn owned a large parcel of land in this block. (The house above was built after the family sold the lot.)
The Wilson Advance, 24 September 1880.
His barbershop also is drawn into the 1882 map of the city.
Taborn died in 1893, and his wife Edmonia Barnes Taborn and daughter Carrie Taborn continued his business until his sons Joshua, Jacob Astor,and Thomas Henry Taborn established Tabron Brothers Barbershop.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2024.
The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.
Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!
Of a photograph taken about 1920, my grandmother said: “Yep, that’s me standing up there, and [my sister] Mamie sitting in the chair. And that little arm [of the chair] off there, it was Picture-Taking Barnes, they called him then. You were gon have your pictures made, you went to Picture-Taking Barnes.”
Mamie Henderson (1907-2000, seated) and Hattie Mae Henderson (1910-2001).
I have seen that telltale chair in photo after photo – a light-colored wicker chair with a high rounded back and just one arm rest, the one on the left.
Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver (1876-1938).
Per Stephen E. Massingill’s Photographers in North Carolina (2004), George W. Barnes was perhaps the first of three African-American photographers operating in Wilson in the early part of the twentieth century and, in the 1908 city of directory of Wilson, he is working with white photographer Orren W. Turner in a studio at 105 West Nash.
Arthur Thompson (1895-1915).
By 1916, Barnes had his own studio. On the second floor of what was then 113 1/2 [later 114] East Barnes and is the site of a parking lot adjacent to P.L. Woodard Hardware, Barnes settled his clients into his one-armed chair.
Picture-Taking Barnes’ Barnes Street studio, Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson, N.C. (1922).
Lonnie Bagley (1891-??).
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In the 1880 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: south of the Plank Road, farmer George Barnes, 41; wife Anna, 34; and children Hardy, 19, Reny, 17, Jessee, 12, Edmonia, 11, George, 9, Minnie Adeline, 6, Joshua and General, 3, and William, 1 month.
In the 1900 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: George A. Barnes, 60, farmer; wife Annie, 53; children George, 23, teacher, Joshaway, 22, farmer, and Jenerl, 22, teacher; grandson Paul, 11; son Harda, 32, and daughter-in-law Nancy, 30.
On 30 January 1905, George Barnes, 29, of Wilson, son of George and Annie Barnes, married Mary Jane Green, 23, of Wilson, daughter of Nelson [Neverson] and Isabella Green, at Neverson Green’s residence in Wilson. Baptist minister Fred Davis performed the ceremony in the presence of A.J.C. Moore.
In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Barnes Geo W (c) photographer O W Turner h e Green nr Vick
In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: George W. Barnes, photographer-home gallery; wife Mary J., 29; and children Jessie, 4, Lala Rook, 2, and Isabella A., 6 months.
George W. Barnes’ occupation in the 1910 census.
In the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Barnes Geo W (c) photo Orren V Foust r 654 E Green
In the 1916 and 1920 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directories: Barnes George W (c) photo 113 1/2 e Barnes r 702 e Green
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 702 East Green, George Barnes, 49, photographer in own shop; wife 38; and children Jessie, 14, Alma Gray, 10, Elizabeth, 6, and Lila Rook, 2 [named for her elder sister?].
In the 1922 and 1925 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directories: Barnes George W (c) photographer 114 e Barnes r 803 e Green
1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory.
In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Barnes Geo W (c) photo 114 E Barnes r 803 E Green
In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Barnes Geo W (c) photog r 803 E Green
George Washington Barnes died 13 April 1936 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was 65 years old; was married to Mary Barnes; was born in Wilson County to George A. Barnes and Annie Battle; lived at 803 East Green Street; and was a photographer.
The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.
Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!
Hardy & Holland’s livery stable was wedged, improbably, between a wholesale grocery and a garage with a second floor print shop.
1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., City Directory.
In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: livery stable laborer Jim Hardy, 32; wife Lizzie, 31; sons James, 8, and Lovelace, 6; and boarders Lincoln Sellers, 29, widower and brick yard laborer, and [blank] Batts, 37, water works laborer.
Wilson Daily Times, 13 May 1910.
Per the Wilson, North Carolina, , published in 1912, “JAMES HARDY, SUCCESSOR TO HARDY BROS. — Feed and Livery Stables. This business is located on South Goldsboro street between Nash and Barnes streets and the business has been established for the last four years. The proprietor has succeeded in building up a good patronage. He is very prompt in answering calls and his prices for Livery are very reasonable. Telephone Number 9. Hack and Dray work solicited. The proprietor wants your patronage and guarantees the right sort of treatment. He is a colored man and has the good wishes of all.”
Hardy’s business partner was Thomas Holland, a Wake County, North Carolina, native. The brother with whom James Hardy did business earlier may have been John Hardy, who is listed in the 1908 city directory as a livery worker and was a witness to Jim Hardy’s 1901 marriage to Lizzie McCullen in Wilson.
Thomas Holland died 4 January 1914 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 23 November 1882 in Wake County to Benjamin Holland and Charity Jones; lived on Goldsboro Street, Wilson; was single; and worked as a livery stable day laborer. Charity Parker was informant, and he was buried in Wilson [likely, Oakdale, Rountree, Odd Fellows or Vick Cemetery.
James P. Hardy died 20 April 1914 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 27 April 1879 in Greene County to Petter Hardy and Jane Foreman; was married; lived at 508 Vance Street; and was a livery stable employer. Lizzie Hardy was informant.
Both Holland and Hardy died of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Today, the site of Hardy & Holland has been transformed into Bankers Plaza.
The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.
Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!
Edgecombe County native William Hargrove arrived in Wilson in the late 1880s. By 1897, he was shoeing horses in Wilson “back of Wiggins’ Prize House.” (J.T. Wiggins’ Tobacco Prize House stood at the southeast corner of Goldsboro and Barnes Streets. It is not clear if Hargrove had his own shop behind the prize house, or he shoed horses in a space belonging to James T. Wiggins and on Wiggins’ property. The 1897 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson shows a wagon shed and an unidentified outbuilding near the prize house.) By 1900, Hargrove was describing himself as blacksmith and, in the 1908 city directory, lists his workshop address as 206 South Goldsboro.
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In the 1870 census of co*key township, Edgecombe County: Jerry Hargrove, 29; wife Sarah, 29; and children Anna, 9, Gordon, 6, William, 4, and Marcus, 1.
In the 1880 census of Cocoa township, Edgecombe County: Gerry Hargrove, 39; wife Sarah, 38; and children Gordon, 15, William, 13, Marcus, 11, Farrar, 8, Matthew, 6, Frank, 6, and Henry, 10 months.
On 30 December 1890, William Hargrove, 23, of Wilson, son of Jerry and Sarah Hargrove, and Louvenia Hines, 21, of Edgecombe, daughter of Joshua Bulluck and Harriet Hines, were married at Joshua Bulluck’s in Township #14, Edgecombe County. Hilliard Reid and Bush Dew of Wilson were witnesses.
Wilson Daily Times, 6 August 1897.
In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: blacksmith William Hargrove, 32; wife Leuvenia, 30, washing; daughtersBessie, 6, and Lillie, 3; widowed sister Mary Boddie, 25, cooking; and cousin Julious Heat, 20, farm hand.
In the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Hargrove Wm blksmith 206 E Goldsboro h 606 E Green
Detail, 1908 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson, N.C.
In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 606 Green, blacksmith William Hargrove, 43; wife Louvenia, 40; daughters Bessie, 17, and Willie L., 13; and boarder John Howard, 18. But also, in the 1910 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: farmer Henry Joyner, 51; wife Annie, 51; and boarder William Hargrove, 40, horse sho*r in own shop. Did Hargrove maintain shops in both Wilson and Elm City?
In the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Hargrove Wm blksmith h 606 E Green
William Hargrove died 4 January 1914.
The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.
Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series.
Annie V. Collins Hunt was one of the earliest documented Black businesswomen in Wilson. By 1897 she had opened a grocery store on Goldsboro Street, most likely in the 100 block south of Nash Street.
The Gazette (Raleigh, N.C.), 19 June 1897.
Hunt did not stint in outfitting her shop. In August 1897, she placed an order with an Ohio company for a sixty-dollar safe with her name painted on its side.
This detail from the 1897 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson shows two groceries in the block of South Goldsboro just below Nash Street. Either might have been A.V.C. Hunt’s business.
The following spring, Hunt placed an ad in The Great Sunny South, a newspaper published in neighboring Greene County. “Go to Mrs. A.V.C. Hunt WILSON, N.C.,” it exhorted. “The first colored merchant to open a cheap grocery store uptown. She will sell you a pound box of baking powder, worth 10c, for 5 cents. Tobacco at 25 cents per pound. Soap at 3 1/2 cents per cake, ginger snaps at 5 cents per pound, coffee from 10 cts to 20 cts per pound, sugar from 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 cts per pound and many other things too numerous to mention. All good as cheap as can be bought. Call and examine her goods before buying elsewhere. All goods delivered in the city. Be convinced by calling to see Mrs. A.V.C. HUNT. Dealer in a first-class and reliable line of heavy and fancy groceries, Wilson, N.C., on Goldsboro street, next door to A. Katz’ market.”
The Great Sunny South (Snow Hill, N.C.), 29 April 1898.
Unfortunately, Annie Hunt’s mercantile success uptown was brief. Tragedy struck in 1899. First, her grocery was destroyed by fire — a crime her husband James Hunt was accused, and acquitted, of committing. Then, James Hunt was murdered, shot down in the street by the man who owned the grocery store building. Annie V.C. Hunt never recovered and died impoverished in 1903.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2023.
The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.
Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!
More than a hundred years before Larema Coffee House set up shop on the bottom level of Gig East Exchange, Moses Brandon ran an eating house in a livery business whose building occupied roughly the same footprint. Like other downtown eateries in the early 1900s, Brandon would have catered largely to people working in nearby tobacco warehouses and factories. Most likely, his clientele were white.
Detail from Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson, N.C., 1908.
Moses Brandon, son of Frances Terry of Virginia, married Amie Hilliard on 22 May 1895 in Wilson. A.M.E. Zion minister L.B. Williams performed the ceremony, and Charles H. Darden, Braswell R. Winstead and L.A. Moore served as witnesses.
In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Virginia-born Moses Brandon, 50, day laborer; wife Emmie, 45, washerwoman; and son Marvin, 12.
In the 1908 Wilson city directory, Moses Brandon’s listing shows his “eating house” at 127 South Goldsboro Street and his home at 125 Ashe Street.
In 1909, Branson was also operating an “ice cream joint” on the East Side, i.e. east of the railroad tracks. In May of that year, he was brought up on charges of selling ice cream made from the milk of a tubercular cow.
News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 16 May 1909.
It’s not clear how long Brandon operated at 127 South Goldsboro. In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County, Moses Brandon, 55, is listed as the proprietor of boarding house, with wife Amy, 51, as laundress.
In 1912, the city directory shows that Brandon had moved his eating house to 411 East Nash, across the street from the Atlantic Coast Line railroad station.
TheWilson Daily Times reported Moses Brandon’s death on 4 March 1914, noting that he “had conducted a restaurant in this city for a great many years and is one of Wilson’s best known colored citizens.”
