Addie C. Morris (1855-1907)

Addie C. Morris’ short memoir is one of the earliest autobiographical non-Moravian accounts of African American life near Waughtown. She was born a slave on a Forsyth County farm about ten miles from Salem in 1855 to Charles and Jane Morris. Following emancipation, her father agreed to remain on the farm as a sharecropper with the family living in a log cabin with no floor.

Barely surviving that first year, they moved into Waughtown near John and Mary Fries (who would help organize Baptist meetings in their home). Addie worked odd jobs till eighteen when a northern woman, who had been educating Salem’s African American residents, offered her a job as her cook in Philadelphia.

Having lost her mother and six siblings, Addie then raised her three remaining sisters and brother in Philadelphia. Morris returned to North Carolina in 1886, enrolling in Shaw University’s Missionary Department. She completed two terms, but was forced to leave due to illness although she still eventually served as a missionary in Africa.

Hoping to establish a mission school in Winston, she managed to raise almost $1300 from Philadelphia and Winston donors. (For context, The George E. Nissen Wagon Works in Waughtown had an annual income of $1300 in 1876.) The school was built with permission of First Baptist Church (under Rev. George W. Holland) in 1891 on the church’s lot on Sixth Street. Morris herself “drew the plan and superintended the work of the building”, a 50-by-32-foot structure.

Addie was also instrumental in the founding of the Colored Baptist Orphanage. As a trustee, she helped initiate the purchase of the Manley acreage and the Sides’ farm. (Incidentally, both property owners were White. Belview has historically been a mixed race neighborhood.)

The Black First Baptist Church provided support, including materials salvaged from the demolished Sixth Street missionary school building that were recycled as an addition to the orphanage. Addie died in 1907 and was buried in the Belview Cemetery - which was unearthed and moved during the construction of Interstate 40 behind Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Walkertown, NC.

Source: Created by Preservation Forsyth
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More Information About Miss Addie C. Morris

Miss Addie C. Morris, a native of Forsyth County, returned to Winston after graduating from Shaw University in Raleigh and serving as a missionary in Africa. Morris, a member of First Baptist Church, came back as a home missionary under the auspices of the Baptist Woman’s Missionary Society in Chicago.

In the 1890s, she received permission to build a mission house on the western edge of First Baptist’s lot, facing north onto Sixth Street. The two-story, wooden mission house served as a school for traditional and religious education and a hub of charitable activity.

Morris also helped organize the Colored Baptist Orphanage Home in the Belview neighborhood, where she had grown up. She managed the mission house until her death on April 10, 1907. The mission house was demolished before April 1912, but lumber from it was reportedly used to construct an addition to the Orphanage Home.

Source: Forsyth County Historic Resources Commission