This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: Callis, Taylor, Wingfield, Gaines, Greene
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/HSH.2ACIB/92
Message Board Post:
From James Solomon Russell Autobiography, “An Adventure in Faith” An
Autobiographical Story of St Paul Normal and Industrial School, Lawrenceville, Virginia
Published in 1936 Morehouse Publishing
Most of the property owners lived in Powelton District, which then, and for several years
afterwards was the only section of Brunswick and Mecklenburg Counties where Negroes owned
land in considerable proportions. Ephraim Gaines of Brunswick began to buy land in the
early seventies when it was cheap and by 1902 had become the owner of more than one
thousand acres. The next and largest land holder in the district was William Bowers of
Mecklenburg, who owned one thousand acres. These were followed by Ruffin Callis, whose
estate grew to include six hundred acres; James Anderson Greene, five hundred and
twenty-seven acres; J. A. Travis, Sr., and Wiley Taylor. Three hundred acres each, and
Osborne Wingfield, prominent figure of Reconstruction days, 250 acres. One thousand seems
to be the limit to the number of acres which a Negro could safely and conveniently own.