WILLIAM HENRY SHEARIN
25 September 1870–22 February 1934

Left image: Clockwise from upper left: Gussie Shearin, Wm Henry Shearin, Annie Brown Shearin, and Alexander Moore Shearin. Probably from 1904, Annie’s birth year.17.

Middle image: Shearin home c. 1922. Almost certainly 1010 Fayetteville St.14.

Right image: Wm Henry Shearin, center, standing. His arm is around Wm Shearin, Jr. (later Wm Gaston), and front center is Haywood Beverly Shearin. The woman at the upper right may be Gussie’s older sister Julia, or perhaps Amanda Beverly herself. The other two persons are unknown.43
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Images and narrative sourced from: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Geer Cemetery, Historic Landmark | Durham, NC.
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William Henry Shearin, who went by “Henry,” was born in Sixpound Township, in Warren County, NC.1 Sixpound Township includes the small town of Macon, which was the home of the Shearin plantation that gave his family their name.2

His parents were Haywood Shearin (b. 1842) and the former Betsy Twitty (b. 1852).3 Haywood’s father was said to be the slaveholder Daniel Shearin, though we have no hard evidence yet to prove it.4

Henry was the oldest of Haywood’s seven children with Betsy.5 He moved to Durham between 1880 and 1892.6 In 1897 he married Augusta “Gussie” Beverly, daughter of Haywood and Amanda Beverly.7

Career as Butler
By the 1900 Federal Census, Henry had begun to list his occupation as butler.8 He seems to have worked for various families until 1910, when he took a position with Durham entrepreneur George W. Watts.9

Watts left Henry $1000 upon his death in 1921, as well as, apparently, a strong recommendation.10 Henry went on to work for the Duke family until 1929, when the death of his employer left Henry without a job.11

(Henry’s employer may have been Benjamin Newton Duke, brother of James Buchanan Duke and friend of George W. Watts. Ben maintained two households—one in Durham and the other in a mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York.12)

During his most successful days, Henry made a number of land deals and was able to afford a much-admired home at 1010 Fayetteville Street.13

Wilberforce University
He and Gussie had seven children. As was typical of the era, Henry’s focus was on his sons, and he was determined to send them to Wilberforce University in Ohio, “the nation’s oldest private, historically black University owned and operated by African Americans.”15

Henry’s oldest son, Alexander “Alex” Moore Shearin, also known as “Jack,” “never wanted for anything” while at Wilberforce because of his father’s income and connections. His second son, William Jr., was 13 years younger, and by the time he reached college age, the family fortunes had turned. William graduated from Wilberforce by living frugally, but his youngest brother, Haywood Beverly Shearin, never got the chance to attend.16

Aurelia Lanier
On 3 February 1922, Gussie died of influenza.18 Henry married Aurelia Lanier of Hillsborough on 17 August of that same year.19

Aurelia was born in Washington DC in April of 1898, the daughter of William A. and Aurelia O. Lanier.20

According to family history, William Jr. did not get along with Aurelia, resulting in a break between William and his father. At some point, to further distance himself, William Jr. changed his middle name from “Henry” to “Gaston.”21

In Aurelia’s defense, she held several prestigious jobs, clerking for Masonic Benefit Mutual, the Royal Knights of King David, and NC Mutual, while raising the three daughters she had with Henry.22
She died in Durham in 1984.23

Place in Society
By the mid-1920s Henry’s social standing had peaked. His neighbors included, at one time or another, William Jesse Kennedy Jr., who would later replace C. C. Spaulding as president and chairman of the board of North Carolina Mutual at 1008 Fayetteville Street; Spaulding himself at 1006, and William Gaston Pearson at 808.

Pearson was an educator and entrepreneur who was involved with NC Mutual, started the Bankers Fire Insurance company, and, in 1926, started the Southern Fidelity Mutual Insurance Co.24

(William Shearin Jr. clearly chose “Gaston” as his new middle name because of William Gaston Pearson.)

Alex Finds Success
In December of 1926, Alex married Margaret Spaulding.25 Margaret was the daughter of Durham titan C. C. Spaulding, who lived at nearby 1006 Fayetteville Street.

At the time of his marriage, Alex was an agent for Spaulding’s National Negro Finance Corporation.26

Alex went on to form a close business and personal relationship with another neighbor, William Gaston Pearson. Among their business ventures were Southern Fidelity Mutual Insurance Co, and Krexine Laboratories, Inc.27

County Property records show dozens of transactions with Alex as Grantor or Grantee.28 By the time of his accidental death in 1946, Alex had added Director of Mechanics and Farmers Bank to his accomplishments.29

William Gaston’s Later Life
William graduated from Wilberforce University in the mid-1930s.31

The 1940 Federal Census shows him living in a boarding house in Washington, DC, where he worked as a waiter for the railroad.32

By October of that year he was working in a hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, though he kept a PO box in Durham as his permanent address.33

He served in World War II and remained in the Army until 1947.34 He married the former Roberta Brooks on 21 July 1947, and moved back to the greater Washington, DC, area, where he worked for the US Postal Service until retirement.35
He died there on 16 April 1989.36

Youngest Son Haywood
Haywood Beverly Shearin was born on 8 October 1917 in Durham, and died on 5 October 1951 in Roanoke, VA.37

Like his brother William, he was in the military in World War II.38 He was working as a waiter in a hotel in Williamsburg at the time of his death.

He left a widow, the former Inell Slade Halcomb, and two children: Haywood Beverly Shearin Jr., who died in 2020, and another child, still living.39

Reversal of Fortune
By 1929, nearing age 60, Henry apparently found it increasingly difficult to find or keep work as a butler.

In 1933 he was working as a janitor; in 1934 he was working “odd jobs.”41

He started his own business, driving a coal wagon, and it was a fall from that wagon that killed him in February of 1934.42

The fall was symbolic as well as literal; after a lifetime of service to others, he was left struggling to support himself and his family.

Source: https://friendsofgeercemetery.org/.../04/02/henry-shearin/
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AUGUSTA “GUSSIE” BEVERLY SHEARIN
28 May 1879–3 February 1922

Augusta “Gussie” Beverly Shearin was the fifth of the six children of Haywood Beverly and Amanda Graham Beverly. She was born in Hillsborough Township, where her father was a prosperous tanner.1

After her father’s death in 1891, she and her mother moved to Durham, where the 1897 City Directory shows the two of them living together at 161 Fayetteville St.2

In March of that year, Gussie married Henry Shearin.3

Gussie and Henry had seven children. For the lives and careers of the male children, see Henry Shearin’s life story.

If the family’s sons were their fortune, their daughters were haunted by misfortune. Their first child, Elizabeth, was born in December 1898, and died at the age of 5 on 2 June 1904.4

A second daughter, Annie Brown Shearin, born in 1905, was epileptic. She died at the age of 20 at the Goldsboro State Hospital, where she’d lived for nearly 12 years.5

The extent of her disability is hinted at in the 1910 census, where, at age 6, she is listed as unable to speak English.6 Twins, Roseanna and Rosetta, were born on 14 Jan 1906, but do not seem to have survived.7

They are not shown in the 1910 Federal Census, nor in any other historical record that we can find.

Gussie herself died of influenza on 3 February, 1922, age 42. 8

Despite the social and financial success of her husband and her son Alex, the loss of all four of her daughters at such young ages must have weighed heavily on her. She left two young sons behind: William Jr. (10) and Haywood Beverly (4).

Concern for those two boys may have been part of the reason that Henry remarried in August of that same year.

Source: https://friendsofgeercemetery.org/.../04/08/gussie-shearin/