| |
|
Caswell County Genealogy
|
 |
|
 1848 - 1922 (~ 73 years)
-
| Name |
Bigelow, Albert [1] |
| Birth |
Aug 1848 |
Caswell County, North Carolina  [1] |
| Gender |
Male |
| Occupation |
1900 [1] |
| Farmer and School Teacher |
| Reference Number |
30217 |
| Death |
18 Jun 1922 |
Greensboro, Guilford County, North Carolina |
| Burial |
Poplar Grove, North Carolina |
| Person ID |
I29609 |
Caswell County |
| Last Modified |
23 Sep 2023 |
| Family |
Leath, Henrietta Delia, b. 1 Aug 1852, Yanceyville, Caswell County, North Carolina d. 13 Nov 1941, Greensboro, Guilford County, North Carolina (Age 89 years) |
| Marriage |
Abt 1876 [1] |
| Reference Number |
425966 |
| Children |
| | 1. Bigelow, Addie Maud, b. 30 Nov 1878, Caswell County, North Carolina d. 2 Mar 1942, Durham, Durham County, North Carolina (Age 63 years) [Father: natural] [Mother: natural] |
| + | 2. Bigelow, Ressie M., b. Jan 1882, North Carolina [Father: natural] [Mother: natural] |
| + | 3. Bigelow, Orvid Hughes, b. 24 Oct 1886, Caswell County, North Carolina [Father: natural] [Mother: natural] |
| | 4. Bigelow, Hubert Epps, b. 3 May 1889, Caswell County, North Carolina [Father: natural] [Mother: natural] |
| + | 5. Bigelow, Herman Leo, b. 25 Aug 1896, Brown's Summit, Guilford County, North Carolina [Father: natural] [Mother: natural] |
|
| Family ID |
F11834 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
23 Sep 2023 |
-
-
-
| Notes |
- Albert Bigelow (1848-1922)
(for larger image, click on photograph)
_______________
Shaw University 1875
_______________
Thomas Pattillo Bigelow provided for the education of at least six of his children at Shaw University (according to records from archivist at Shaw on matriculation). Shaw University Catalogues 1876-1877 and 1878-1879: lists the Bigelow children: Saluda Bigelow, Mary E. Bigelow, Laura Bigelow, James T. Bigelow, John Henry, and Albert Bigelow - all from Yanceyville. Also, it may be that Albert and Lewis Bigelow helped start the Yanceyville School for Coloreds in 1897.
"So begins the history that subsequently leads to CCTS (Caswell County Training School). Church schools for Negroes that were organized just after the Civil War and met for an hour or two a day are reported to have been the earliest Negro schools in the county. The first documented forerunner to CCTS, however, was the Yanceyville Colored School, chartered in the North Carolina Session Laws of 1897. Remembered in contemporary accounts as the Stephens House, this school represents the first evidence of the role parents and community leaders played in the education of Negro children."
Source: Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South, Vanessa Siddle Walker (1996) at 14.
_______________
Purportedly buried at "Poplar Grove," but that location is unknown.
_______________
"The North Carolina Session Laws of 1897 incorporated the Yanceyville Colored Graded School 'for the education of colored people.' The charter provided that W. H. Burwell, W. L. Malone, G. A. Currie, L. Bigelow, A. Bigelow, R. R. Graves, Clem. Williamson, John L. Hill, F. R. Terry, and R. C. Covington might make whatever rules and regulations were necessary. They also might 'confer all such Degrees as are usually conferred in academies of like character.'"
Source: When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County North Carolina 1777-1977, William S. Powell (1977) at 387.
At the time of the 1870 US Federal Census (Yanceyville Township, Caswell County, North Carolina) he was living in the household of his older brother George Bigelow (and wife Mary). Albert Bigelow is shown as twenty-three, mulatto, farm laborer, born in North Carolina.
The 1920 US Federal Census (Monroe Township, Guilford County, North Carolina) lists Albert Bigelow and wife Henrietta, aged 60 and 58 respectively, mulatto, married, literate, and owner of a 63-acre farm. All were shown as born in North Carolina except the mother of Albert Bigelow, who was shown as born in Virginia.
The 1880 US Federal Census (Yanceyville Township, Caswell County, North Carolina) gives his occupation as "School Teacher."
Note that an "A. Bigelow" was shown as a Member of the North Carolina General Assembly (House of Representatives, Caswell County) in 1881, serving with Thomas S. Harrison. Source: Historical Abstracts of Minutes of Caswell County, North Carolina 1777-1877, Katharine Kerr Kendall (1976) at 132.
The following saying was found beside a photograph of Albert Bigelow that hung on a wall in the home of his daughter Ressie Bigelow Redden in western Pennsylvania:
"I shall pass through this world but once,
Any good, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being.
Let me do it NOW;
Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
Oddly, this same motto was ascribed to a brother of Albert Bigelow, James Thomas Bigelow, in a history written by the wife of James Thomas Bigelow, Mertie Rorebeck Bigelow.
_______________
Born on August 1, 1848, in Caswell County, North Carolina, Albert Bigelow died in Guilford County, North Carolina, on June 18, 1922. Bigelow served one term as a Republican member of the N. C. House of Representatives (1881). A co-founder of the Yanceyville Colored Graded School, Bigelow also served for two years as Yanceyville’s postmaster, appointed to that post under the Grant administration in 1873.
Son of a slave of Cherokee Indian ancestry named Betsy Bigelow [Cherokee Indian ancestry not confirmed], and her white owner, wealthy plantation owner Thomas Pattillo Bigelow, Albert Bigelow and his siblings were raised essentially as free children by their father, who publicly acknowledged them. Educated in the common schools of Caswell County, Albert worked initially as a farmer. In October 1873, he was appointed by President Ulysses Grant as postmaster at Yanceyville, a position he held until June 1875. In that year, he resigned to pursue a classical education at Shaw University, a private Baptist school for African Americans in Raleigh, after the death of his father. As many as six of Betsy Bigelow’s children attended Shaw in the 1870s, all having received significant bequests in their father’s 1873 will. Albert Bigelow received approximately 100 acres of land in the Yanceyville area. He farmed there for many years. His sister Saluda Bigelow Hunt, later a well-known Virginia educator, served as an assistant teacher at Shaw, and began her career teaching at the old Hunt Town School in Yanceyville.
After completing his studies at Shaw, Albert Bigelow returned to Yanceyville to teach, and married Henrietta Delia Leath of Caswell County in 1876. Their first daughter, Addie, was born in 1878, followed by four more children over the next 20 years: Ressie, Orvid, Hubert, and Herman. Meanwhile he also entered politics as a Republican. Caswell County’s population was predominantly African American, and the Republican Party largely dominated county politics during Reconstruction and for much of the remaining nineteenth century. Despite Democratic intimidation and violence, the county regularly elected black legislators until the 1890s. In 1880, Bigelow was the Republican nominee for one of Caswell’s two seats in the N.C. House of Representatives, and won election over his Democratic opponent, along with white Republican Thomas S. Harrison.
Bigelow was one of 18 African Americans to serve in the 1881 General Assembly, which met from January to March of that year. It was his only attempt at public office; however, he remained active in Republican politics for the rest of his life. He served as chairman of the party’s Caswell County executive committee as late as 1900. In 1897 he and his brother Lewis were among a number of incorporators of the Yanceyville Colored Graded School, granted a charter by that year’s General Assembly. Bigelow taught there until at least 1910. The school, later renamed the Caswell County Training School, remained in operation well into the mid-20th century.
Bigelow died at his home in Brown’s Summit, Guilford County, in 1922.
Sources:
Catalogue of the Shaw University, Raleigh, N.C., 1876-1877 (Raleigh, Edwards, Broughton, & Co, 1877); William S. Powell, When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County North Carolina 1777-1977 (1977); The North Carolina Yearbook, 1900 (Raleigh: The News and Observer, 1901).
By Benjamin R. Justesen
North Carolina History Project.
_______________
North Carolina Death Certificates, 1909-1975
Name: Albert Biglow
Gender: Male
Race: Black
Age: 78
Birth Date: abt 1844
Birth Place: Yanceyville, North Carolina, United States
Death Date: 18 Jun 1922
Death Location: Greenboro, Guilford
Spouse's Name: Henretta Biglow
Father's Name: Dontknow
Death Certificates of Albert Bigelow and Henrietta Delia Leath Bigelow
_______________
1880 US Federal Census
Name: Albert Bigelow
Age: 33
Birth Year: abt 1847
Birthplace: North Carolina
Home in 1880: Yanceyville, Caswell, North Carolina
Race: Mulatto
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Self (Head)
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Henrietta Bigelow
Father's Birthplace: North Carolina
Mother's Birthplace: North Carolina
Occupation: School Teacher
Household Members:
Name Age
Albert Bigelow 33
Henrietta Bigelow 25
Addie Maude Bigelow 6m
The 1900 US Federal Census (Yanceyville Township, Caswell County, North Carolina), shows an Eliza Willis as part of the Albert Bigelow household and described as a sister-in-law. However, as this Eliza Willis is a widow, Willis could be her married surname.
1900 United States Federal Census
Name: Albert Bigelow
Home in 1900: Yanceyville, Caswell, North Carolina
Age: 51
Birth Date: Aug 1848
Birthplace: North Carolina
Race: Black
Ethnicity: American
Relationship to head-of-house: Head
Father's Birthplace: North Carolina
Mother's Birthplace: Virginia
Spouse's Name: Henretta D
Marriage Year: 1876
Marital Status: Married
Years Married: 24
Residence : Yanceyville Township, Caswell, North Carolina
Occupation: Farmer and School Teacher
Household Members: Name Age
Albert Bigelow 51
Henretta D Bigelow 45
Ressie M Bigelow 18
Orvid H Bigelow 13
Hubert E Bigelow 11
Harmon L Bigelow 7
Eliza Willis 54
|
-
| Sources |
- Details: 1900 US Federal Census (Yanceyville Township, Caswell County, North Carolina).
|
|
|
|
: Address
: Location
: City/Town
: County/Shire
: State/Province
: Country
: Not Set