The service continued with a long prayer, going into a song led by the pastor. The membership was made up of all blacks and the women far outnumbered the men. For example, the services started with the pastor greeting the congregation. “Although the fellowship of the church grounds was a vital part of this Big August Meeting, what transpired inside was the thing that had us traumatized. London Baptist Church was a primitive church I never understood that term. People ate, greeted each other with big hugs and the preacher did his share of hugging the sisters. This was the first time I had ever seen anybody eat only cake and fried chicken together. There were also several kinds of pies and cakes. There was fried chicken, roast beef, roast pork, potato salad, slaw and several tin tubs with iced cold lemonade. “I had never seen so much food any place before. Each table was covered with a sheet then a white table cloth. The church grounds, as they were called, were set up with long wooden tables with benches to sit on. This was the annual ‘Big August Meeting,’ I used to hear Aunt Lydia say, lots of preparation occurred during the year to cleanse the heart, soul and the mind in order to be able to receive communion. A great deal of time was spent inside the church during the service. Once a year, usually early spring, the church had its annual meeting. “… Aunt Lydia, Uncle Lovette, and Julius were members. Here’s the inspirational excerpt from Mary Freeman-Ellis’ memoir: A hoped-for benefactor had not materialized, and the building was beginning to break down. London Church twelve years after it was moved from its original location on Herring Avenue. My thanks to Patricia Freeman for the invitation to the Lillian Freeman Barbee family for sharing their table with me and to all who welcomed me so warmly. As genealogy is brought to life, so to speak, by an understanding of the contexts of our ancestors’ lives, I decided to talk about the history of the church that was so central to the lives of Eliza Daniels Freeman and several of her children. As I considered topics, I remembered a passage in Mary Freeman-Ellis’ fantastic The Way It Was in which she vividly described attending services at London’s Primitive Baptist Church. The family is fortunate to have richly documented genealogical knowledge, so I knew I couldn’t just show up and tell the Freemans about the Freemans. I was honored to be asked to speak at the Freeman-Hagans reunion last night - the first family reunion I’ve addressed beyond my own. Leave a comment Thank you, Freeman-Hagans family. Posted in 1880s, Crime, Free People of Color, Newspapers, Violence, Wilson County, Women and tagged free people of color, Hagans, homicide, violent crime on Augby Lisa Y. ![]() In the 1880 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: laborer Mordicia Hagins, about 50, and wife Cherry, about 45. In the 1870 census of Upper Town Creek township, Edgecombe County: farm laborer Mordecai Hagans, 37, and wife Cherry, 45. In the 1860 census of Nahunta township, Wayne County: Mordecai Hagans, 23, farm laborer, living alone. ![]() Frank Eatmon, primarily via inferences from the testimony of Hagans’ “old, half-idiotic” unnamed wife, who had been severely beaten the night her husband was killed. The Advance‘s follow-up was devoted almost exclusively to the exculpation of J. He tells us nothing of Hagans’ family, his occupation, his history - but we know this.) (Josephus Daniels was editor of the Advance at the time, so it’s no surprise he thought it paramount to note that Hagans faithfully voted the white supremacist Democratic ticket. ![]() We first met Mordecai Hagans, born a free man of color, here, as an employee of Wilson’s Confederate hospital.įifteen or so years later, Hagans was murdered.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |