Echoes of the Sandhills

Series 4 – Echoes in Action

Echo 11 - They Had Names

History often remembers the names of landowners, soldiers, ministers, and politicians. Their stories were written into deeds, wills, court records, and family histories. But for many of the people who lived, labored, loved, and suffered in the Sandhills of North Carolina, history preserved little more than a first name.

In the records of the McNeill family, whose lands stretched across portions of Lower Little River, Anderson Creek, Jones Creek, Black River, Thornton's Creek, and the area that would later become Manchester and Spring Lake, we find a different kind of record. Not a census. Not a family Bible. Not a birth certificate.

A will.

In 1801, Archibald "Scribbling Archie" McNeill divided his estate among his children and grandchildren. Included among the land, livestock, and household goods were human beings.

Tilla.

Nell.

Will.

Bacchus.

Leanor.

Bett.

Virgil.

Angus.

Charles.

Cupid.

Judith.

Nan.

Fanny.

Flora.

Abith.

Their names appear in the will, not as sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, or neighbors, but as property to be distributed among heirs.

Some were grown men.

Some were grown women.

Some were children.

Some were mothers whose children would automatically follow them into bondage.

One passage directed that Tilla and Nell be given to a son and his wife during their lifetimes, and only after their deaths, if the women survived, they were to be passed on again to another heir. Their own wishes were never considered. Their futures were decided with the stroke of a pen.

Other enslaved men—Will, Bacchus, Virgil, Angus, Charles, and Cupid—were assigned to different family members as part of an inheritance. They were valued, accounted for, and transferred alongside acreage, livestock, and furnishings.

Twenty-seven years later, in 1828, Margaret McNeill prepared her own will. Once again, human beings were listed among the possessions to be distributed.

Jane and her child Caesar.

Jack.

Meredith.

Candace.

Nelson.

Charity.

Mary.

Maria.

Sharper.

Duane.

David.

Ferrah.

Again, their names survived because they were counted as property.

Not one of these records tells us where they were born.

Not one tells us who their parents were.

Not one tells us who they loved.

Not one tells us whether they had dreams of freedom, whether they sang while working in the fields, or whether they lay awake at night wondering if their children would be sold away.

We do not know whether Tilla was a mother.

We do not know whether Charles had brothers.

We do not know whether Charity ever married.

We do not know whether Cupid lived long enough to see freedom.

We do not know whether Abith was a little girl or a young woman.

We only know their names.

And perhaps that is where remembrance begins.

For descendants of families from Anderson Creek, Lower Little River, Manchester, Spring Lake, Jones Creek, Black River, and the surrounding Sandhills communities, these names deserve our attention. One of these individuals could very well be an ancestor of someone living today. One of their children may have taken a new surname after emancipation. One may have become a farmer, a church founder, a teacher, a soldier, or a parent whose descendants still call this place home.

The records do not tell us.

But the possibility remains.

Too often, enslaved people appear in history only as numbers. A plantation had twenty slaves. An estate listed ten enslaved people. A census recorded forty-two. Their humanity disappears behind statistics.

Here, however, the records left us something more.

Names.

Tilla.

Nell.

Will.

Bacchus.

Leanor.

Bett.

Virgil.

Angus.

Charles.

Cupid.

Judith.

Nan.

Fanny.

Flora.

Abith.

Jane.

Caesar.

Jack.

Meredith.

Candace.

Nelson.

Charity.

Mary.

Maria.

Sharper.

Duane.

David.

Ferrah.

We may never know their full stories.

We may never know where they came from or where they were laid to rest.

We may never know who among us descends from them.

But they lived.

They worked.

They endured.

They mattered.

And for at least this moment, more than two centuries later, we speak their names.

Echoes from the Sandhills

Echoes in Action: Lives that Shaped the Sandhills and the World

Series 4 - Echo 10: Building Opportunity — The Legacy of John Green Phillips

Some people leave behind a single accomplishment. Others leave a trail of enterprises, institutions, and community investments that continue to echo long after they are gone.

John Green "J.G." Phillips was one of those people.

Born near Cameron, North Carolina, around 1868, Phillips entered a world still adjusting to the end of slavery. The Civil War had concluded only three years earlier, and freedom, while long awaited, did not guarantee opportunity. African Americans throughout the South faced the daunting task of building lives, businesses, and communities in a society that often sought to limit their advancement.

Yet amid those challenges emerged men and women who refused to let circumstances define their future.

John Green Phillips was among them.

By 1910, census records show Phillips living in Sanford and operating his own barber shop. While a barber shop provided a livelihood, it also served as a gathering place where relationships were formed, news was exchanged, and community ties were strengthened. For many Black entrepreneurs of the era, business ownership represented not only economic independence but also a pathway toward community leadership.

Phillips was not content to stop there.

As Sanford grew, so did his ambitions. In September 1915, newspapers announced that a charter had been issued for the Phillips-Boykin Drug Company. The newly formed corporation was authorized with capital of $5,000, a significant investment at the time. Along with his business partners, Phillips helped establish what would become one of the most enduring Black-owned businesses in Sanford.

The significance of that achievement should not be overlooked.

During the Jim Crow era, access to capital, property, and business opportunities was often restricted for African Americans. Yet Phillips and his associates built a formal corporation that would serve the community for decades. The Phillips-Boykin Drug Company was more than a store—it was an institution.

Evidence of its growth continued to appear throughout the years. By 1920, Phillips was listed in the census not as a barber, but as a merchant, reflecting his expanding role in Sanford's business community.

In 1930, newspaper accounts reported that the Phillips-Boykin Drug Company had moved to a new location on Steele Street. The relocation suggests a thriving enterprise with an established customer base and growing presence within Sanford's African American commercial district.

Over time, the drug store became so well known that local writers used it as a landmark when describing other locations in town. One historical article referred to an earlier tobacco manufacturing site as being located "near the present site of Phillips-Boykin colored drug store." Businesses become landmarks only when they become woven into the fabric of community life.

The Phillips-Boykin Drug Store was clearly one of those places.

The store was also more than a pharmacy. Newspaper accounts reveal a business that sold a variety of goods and served as a neighborhood gathering place. In 1933, Phillips-Boykin received one of Lee County's newly issued beer licenses following the repeal of Prohibition, demonstrating the company's ability to adapt to changing times and economic conditions.

Seven years later, a burglary at the store made local news. Though unfortunate, the article offers a glimpse into daily life at Phillips-Boykin. Among the items stolen were cash, cigarettes, candy, and assorted merchandise, evidence that the establishment served customers seeking a wide range of everyday necessities.

Yet J.G. Phillips' entrepreneurial vision extended beyond the drug store.

Among his most notable ventures was the Phillips Hotel, located near the intersection of Pearl and Moore Streets in Sanford. During the era of segregation, the hotel served African American travelers who often faced discrimination and exclusion when seeking accommodations.

Between 1938 and 1941, the Phillips Hotel appeared in the Negro Motorist Green Book, the guide that helped Black travelers find safe lodging, meals, and services throughout the United States.

Its inclusion was no small matter.

For African Americans traveling during the Jim Crow era, establishments listed in the Green Book provided something far more important than convenience. They provided dignity, safety, and welcome. Families could travel with greater confidence knowing there was a place where they would be treated with respect.

Through the Phillips Hotel, J.G. Phillips became part of a larger network of Black-owned businesses that made travel possible for countless Americans.

His influence was not limited to commerce.

Newspaper accounts described Phillips as both a businessman and a churchman. He supported the work of Blandonia Presbyterian Church and participated in community fundraising efforts. One report from 1937 noted that a representative of "Mr. John G. Phillips' Store" helped raise funds for church initiatives, reflecting his continued investment in the institutions that strengthened community life.

By the time of his death in 1940, Phillips had become one of Sanford's most respected citizens. Newspaper accounts noted that he had accumulated substantial property and was widely recognized as a prominent businessman and community leader. His funeral was held at Blandonia Presbyterian Church before he was laid to rest near Cameron, the community where his journey had begun.

But perhaps the greatest testament to his legacy came after his passing.

A 1946 advertisement for Fairview Ice Cream listed the Phillips-Boykin Drug Store among the select businesses in Sanford where customers could purchase the popular product. Six years after John Green Phillips' death, the store that bore his name was still serving the community.

Children likely stopped by for treats.

Families purchased everyday necessities.

Neighbors gathered, talked, and shared news.

The business endured because the foundation he built endured.

Today, the barber shop is gone. The drug store no longer stands. The hotel has disappeared from the landscape. Yet the story of John Green Phillips remains.

His life reminds us that history is not shaped solely by politicians, famous figures, or national events. It is also shaped by local entrepreneurs who create opportunities where few exist, invest in their communities, support their churches, and build institutions that outlive them.

From a barber shop to a drug company.

From a grocery business to a Green Book hotel.

From merchant to community leader.

John Green Phillips spent a lifetime building more than businesses.

He was building opportunity.

And the echoes of that work can still be heard across the Sandhills today.

Echoes from the Sandhills

Echoes in Action: Lives that Shaped the Sandhills and the World

Series 4 - Echo 9: Echoes of Determination: C. D. Waddell and the Power of the Printed Word

History often remembers the loudest voices.

But some of the most important figures are those who worked quietly — armed not with wealth or political power, but with intellect, perseverance, and a belief that their people deserved the opportunity to learn, grow, and be heard.

Such was the case with Cornelius D. Waddell.

Though only fragments of his story survive today, the pieces that remain reveal a man deeply committed to education, literacy, civic engagement, and the advancement of African Americans during one of the most uncertain periods in Southern history.

Born in 1858 (some records cite 1855) to John Waddell and Mary Ann Waddell, Cornelius entered the world just before the Civil War transformed the nation. His childhood unfolded during years of upheaval as slavery ended and newly emancipated families began the difficult work of building lives in freedom.

By the time Waddell reached young adulthood, African Americans across North Carolina were establishing schools, churches, businesses, newspapers, and civic organizations while also confronting growing resistance to Black political and educational advancement during Reconstruction.

It was within this environment that Waddell emerged as a young intellectual voice in Fayetteville.

In 1874, while still remarkably young, he co-founded The Educator alongside William Caswell Smith. The newspaper became one of the earliest African American-owned and edited newspapers in North Carolina.

At the time, publishing a newspaper as a young Black man in the South required extraordinary determination.

A newspaper demanded literacy, funding, printing access, subscribers, public confidence, and courage. More than anything, it required belief — belief that Black voices deserved to be preserved in print and that African American communities had the right to shape their own intellectual future.

Waddell clearly believed they did.

The Educator declared its purpose was the “intellectual and moral” development of African American youth in North Carolina. Those words reflected a broader movement among Black educators, ministers, journalists, and civic leaders who understood that literacy was inseparable from freedom itself.

For men like Waddell, education was not merely about reading books. It was about citizenship.

Opportunity.

Dignity.

Self-definition.

The newspaper also connected Waddell to influential African American leadership networks of the Reconstruction era. Bishop James Walker Hood of the AME Zion Church reportedly supported the publication and encouraged subscriptions among church members. Hood was among the most influential Black leaders in North Carolina at the time — an educator, minister, political organizer, and advocate for civil rights.

Surviving newspaper accounts reveal that Waddell’s role extended beyond journalism.

A February 17, 1876 article from the North Carolina Gazette referenced “Cornelius Waddell” in the midst of political commentary surrounding Republican appointments and racial tensions in North Carolina. The article also mentioned Congressman Hyman and Bishop Hood, placing Waddell within a broader network of African American civic and political leadership during Reconstruction.

Though written through the hostile racial lens common in many newspapers of the era, the article reveals something important:

C. D. Waddell was publicly known.

He was not simply a teacher or editor working in obscurity. He was connected to the political and intellectual currents shaping Black advancement in postwar North Carolina.

Yet like many early African American newspapers, The Educator struggled financially.

After roughly a year of publication, the paper ceased operations in 1875. The publishers openly acknowledged the challenge, writing that a lack of patronage forced them to stop publication.

Even so, the newspaper’s short life mattered.

Its pages documented a generation determined to move from bondage toward education, citizenship, and self-determination.

Waddell’s commitment to education did not end when the presses stopped.

In October 1880, he married Ann Eliza Williston, daughter of Frank and Henrietta Williston. Together they established a family during an era when African American households across the South were striving to build stability and opportunity despite persistent inequality and racial barriers.

By 1910, census records show Cornelius D. Waddell working as a public school teacher. Living in the household were his wife, Ann Eliza, and their daughter, Etta.

That small census entry speaks volumes.

The young man who once helped publish a newspaper devoted to intellectual uplift had devoted his later years to teaching children directly.

The transition feels fitting.

Both professions centered on the same enduring belief:that knowledge could transform lives.

One can imagine Waddell standing before students who represented a generation unimaginable only decades before — Black children openly attending school during a time when many of their parents or grandparents had once been denied the right to read at all.

There is something profoundly moving about that continuity.

He wrote.

He taught.

He encouraged.

He documented.

He believed.

And sometimes belief itself becomes a form of resistance.

When Cornelius D. Waddell died in 1911, he was laid to rest in Brookside Cemetery in Fayetteville — the same city where he had worked to advance education, literacy, and civic thought among African Americans during the fragile years following the Civil War.

Today, no grand monument marks his legacy.

Few photographs survive.

His name rarely appears in broader historical narratives.

And yet, men like C. D. Waddell helped lay the intellectual foundation upon which future generations would stand.

Through newspapers.

Through classrooms.

Through community leadership.

Through the simple but powerful act of believing that Black minds mattered.

Echoes Remain

The story of Cornelius D. Waddell reminds us that history is often carried forward not only by famous national figures, but also by teachers, writers, publishers, and quiet builders of community. Though much of his life has faded into the shadows of time, the surviving record reveals a man devoted to education, literacy, and the advancement of his people during one of the most pivotal periods in American history. His echoes remain in the printed words he helped preserve and in the generations who continued the work after him.