More tales of North Carolina's 19th-century African American legislators
Part 1: The Reconstruction-era General Assemblies
Earlier this year, I began introducing readers to a handful of African American legislators elected to the North Carolina General Assembly during the nineteenth century, among more than 125 black state legislators, all Republicans, who held office between 1868 and 1900.
This week, I continue my occasional series on North Carolina’s black public servants during the period, many of whom I have written about in previous articles for the North Carolina Historical Review and in other publications. Today’s post explores the lives of some of the legislators who served in the sessions of the General Assembly chosen during the last years of Reconstruction, from 1870 until 1877:
Israel Braddock Abbott (1843-1887) of New Bern, served one term in the N.C. House from Craven County as a Republican, elected in 1872. Abbott was born in New Bern in 1843 of free black parents. His father, Nelson Brown, died shortly after his birth; his mother, Grace Maria Rue, sister of a well-known pastor, Rev. George A. Rue, then married Joseph Green. At four years of age, he entered a school taught by Mrs. Jane Stevens, with tuition paid for by his grandmother. At age 10, he was apprenticed to the carpenter trade for two years before completing his training with his stepfather.
During the early days of the Civil War in 1861, Abbott became a free servant to a Confederate officer, but soon escaped to New Bern by forging a pass for himself and hiding there until the town fell to Union Forces in the spring of 1862. He remained there for the next 25 years.
Abbott became active in the Craven County Republican Party soon after the War ended in the spring of 1865. In 1867, he was appointed as a member of the State republican executive committee, and assisted in the canvass for the constitutional convention and on the adoption of the new 1868 constitution. When the first General Assembly elected under that constitution convened, in June 1868, Abbott was elected assistant door keeper of the House of Representatives.
A deputy sheriff for Craven County, he also served as Superior Court crier. In 1872, he was chosen as one of the county’s Republican nominees for seats in the N.C. House of Representatives. Elected in August 1872, he served in the 1873 General Assembly.
After leaving the legislature, Abbott helped organize the Young Men’s Intelligent and Enterprising Association in 1873, and was elected to the New Bern City Council, but resigned in protest from that body in 1875. An active labor leader, he helped organize an unsuccessful strike by Craven County’s black laborers in 1881. Mason, he served as president of the state’s Good Samaritans in 1881 and as co-editor of the New Bern Good Samaritan lodge’s newspaper with his close friend, New Bern lawyer George Henry White.
Abbott served as a delegate from the Second Congressional District to the Republican national convention in 1880, which nominated James A. Garfield for the U.S. presidency, and in 1884 as an alternate delegate from that district to the GOP national convention. An unsuccessful candidate for the Second District Congressional nomination in 1882 and 1886, he ran as an independent Republican candidate against incumbent Congressman James E. O’Hara in 1886, helping to defeat O’Hara in that year’s general election.
Abbott and his wife, Susan, were the parents of at least seven children, including James E., Ann M., Lora, Grace, and three unnamed sons. According to the U.S. Census of 1870, he owned real estate valued at $300 and personal property worth another $400.
He died in New Bern on May 6, 1887, from Bright’s disease, and is buried at Greenwood Cemetery.
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John R. Bryant (1849-1899?). of Enfield, served two terms in the N.C. House from Halifax County as a Republican, elected in 1870, 1872; and two terms in the N.C. Senate from the 4th District (Halifax County), elected in 1874 and 1876. Bryant was born in North Carolina in 1849, the son of Washington and Mary Bryant. Little else is known about his early life or education.
Bryant became active in the Halifax County Republican Party in the late 1860s, and was elected to the Halifax County Board of Commissioners at just age 19, in 1868.
In 1870, he was nominated for one of the county’s seats in the N.C. House of Representatives; elected later that year, he became the youngest Republican member of the House, in the 1870-1872 General Assembly session, and was reelected in 1872. In 1874, he was nominated by his party for the Fourth District seat in the N.C. Senate, and despite his youth, still aged just 25, elected. He was then reelected to the N.C. Senate, serving in the 1876-1877 General Assembly.
He may have served as the Halifax County jailer in 1880, and continued to be active as a juror in the county in the early 1880s. He appears to have been married to Della Arrington Bryant, as indicated in the 1880 census, but there were no recorded children.
Bryant’s death date and place of interment are unknown. He is presumed to have died in Halifax County sometime before 1900.
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Hawkins Wesley Carter (1842-1927) of Warrenton, served three terms in the N.C. House from Warren County as a Republican, elected in 1874, 1876, and 1878; he then served two terms in the N.C. Senate from the 19th District (Warren County) as a Republican, elected in 1880 and 1882. Carter was born in Warren County on March 23, 1842, of free parents, Plummer Carter and Amy Hawkins. Little is known of his early life or education, but he was literate; he was a farmer and shoemaker.
During the Civil War, Carter served as attendant for Captain Jones, Confederate 46th Regiment. After the War ended, he became active in the Warren County Republican Party. In 1870, he owned $140 in real estate and $360 in personal property, according to that year’s U.S. census.
In the spring of 1874, he was selected as the party’s nominee for its seat in the N.C. House of Representatives, and was elected to serve in the 1874-1875 session of the General Assembly, where he served on the House Education Committee.
Hawkins W. Carter served in NCGA between 1874 and 1883. Public domain photo
Reelected by a narrow margin in 1876, Carter served in the 1876-1877 General Assembly, and was elected again in 1878, serving in the 1879 General Assembly session. In 1880, he was nominated for and elected to the N.C. Senate, representing the 19th District in the 1881 General Assembly session, and was reelected in 1882. In the 1883 General Assembly, he served on the Senate Committees on Agriculture; and Deaf, Dumb, and Blind.
He retired from legislative service in 1883, bur remained active in local politics until the end of the 19th century. There is some evidence that he supported the Populist party in the 1892 election.
His first wife, Thomas E. Toney, died about 1870; Carter was next married to Nannie Boyd on February 17, 1872. They had three daughters—Maria, Helen, and Mary—and three sons: Hawkins, Alex, and Stephen.
Hawkins Carter died in Durham, N.C., on August 21, 1927. His widow died there in 1928. Their places of interment are unknown, but they are both presumed to be buried in either Durham or Warren Counties.
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Edward R. Dudley (1840/1841-1913) of New Bern, served two terms in the N.C. House of Representatives from Craven County as a Republican, elected in 1870 and 1872. He was born, apparently free, on June 10, 1840 (or 1841). He was the son of a former slave, Sarah Pasteur; after his father’s death, three-year-old Edward and his mother were sold into slavery, and freed again only after Union troops occupied New Bern in early 1862. Little else is known of his early life, except that he may have been privately educated by his mother.
In 1870, Dudley owned $600 in real estate, $300 in property. A cooper, he was elected to the New Bern common council in 1869, and later served as warden of the poor, justice of the peace (1873) and magistrate, appointed in 1877.
In 1870, he was selected as the party’s nominee for one of Craven County’s seats in the N.C. House of Representatives, and was then elected to serve in the 1870-1872 session of the General Assembly. In December 1870, he was one of 17 black legislators to sign a public defense—published in Raleigh Sentinel—of Republican Gov. William W. Holden, who was impeached by the General Assembly and removed from office in early 1871. He was reelected to the House in 1872, serving in the 1872-1874 session of the General Assembly.
He was a leading temperance advocate, president of the Grand Lodge of Colored Good Templars, and Methodist Church official. Dudley was also appointed as deputy U.S. collector of internal revenue (at the behest of Rep. J. E. O’Hara) after 1883.
He was married twice. His first wife was Caroline E. Dudley died before 1891. They had at least six children, including George Physic Dudley, Jane Elizabeth Dudley Avant, and Catherine Dudley Moore. His second wife, whom he married in 1892, was Susan V. Blackwell of Durham, N.C.
Dudley died in New Bern on May 18, 1913, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery there.
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Stewart Ellison (1832-1899), of Raleigh, served three terms in the N.C. House from Wake County as a Republican, elected in 1870, 1872, and 1878. He was born a slave on March 8, 1832, in Beaufort County, near Washington, N.C. He was self-educated but literate, working as a carpenter, storekeeper, grocer, and contractor.
He moved to Raleigh briefly in 1852, and returned there after the Civil War ended. He remained there for the rest of his life, becoming became active in Wake County Republican politics.
In 1870, he was nominated by the party for one of the county’s seats in the N.C. House of Representatives, and elected later that year to serve in the 1870-1872 session of the General Assembly. He was among 17 legislators who signed the “Address to the Colored People of North Carolina” opposing the impeachment of Gov. William W. Holden, dated December 19, 1870, and published in the Raleigh Sentinel on December 30, 1870.
Ellison was reelected to the House in 1872, serving in the 1872-1874 session, and in 1878, serving on the House Committees on Education; Deaf, Dumb, and Blind; and Public Buildings in the 1879 session of the General Assembly. He declined to seek reelection in 1880.
Ellison also served as a Raleigh city councilman between 1869 and 1876, again from 1877 to 1879, and from 1880 to 1884. He was a delegate from the Fourth Congressional District to the G.O.P. national convention of 1880, which nominated James A. Garfield for the U.S. presidency.
He was State Grand Master of Colored Masons during the 1880s and 1890s. He was a member of St. Paul’s A.M.E. Church in Raleigh. In his later years, Ellison worked as county jailor and janitor at the U.S. courthouse and post office in Raleigh, and during the Republican administration of Gov. Daniel Russell, briefly served as director of the state penitentiary.
He was first married to Miss Mary Davis, of Beaufort County, by whom he had three daughters. His second wife was Miss Narcissa Lucas. His daughter Bettie Ellison was married to James Hunter Young.
He died in apparent poverty in Raleigh on October 24, 1899, and is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Raleigh.
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Robert Fletcher (1815-1885), of Rockingham, served two terms in the N.C. House of Representatives from Richmond County as a Republican, elected in 1870 and 1872. Fletcher was born about 1815, perhaps in Pitt County. Little else is known of his early life or education, except that he was a farmer.
Fletcher reportedly served on the Pitt County Board of Assessors in 1869. By mid-1870, he appears to have moved to his wife’s native Richmond County, where he was then elected to the Richmond County board of commissioners, according to that year’s U.S. census.
He was then nominated by Richmond County Republicans for the county’s seat in the N.C. House of Representatives. First elected in 1870, he served in the 1870-1872 session of the General Assembly, and was reelected to serve in the 1872-1874 session.
He was one of 17 black legislators who signed the “Address to the Colored People of North Carolina,” defending Gov. Holden against impeachment, dated December 19, 1870, and published in the Raleigh Sentinel, December 30, 1870.
He married his wife Susan Covington in Pitt County on August 25, 1866; they had cohabited as man and wife since at least 1856, according to their marriage certificate. They had three sons: Robert , George, and Columbus.
Fletcher died in 1885 in Richmond County. His place of interment is not known. His widow was still alive as late as the time of the 1900 census, when she was recorded as living in Rockingham with a granddaughter and grandson.
Next time: More tales of North Carolina’s 19th-century African American legislators