Here's an article from a cousin. We believe it is from around 1941. Not sure of the newspaper
but Hester Pearsall was in Duplin at the time.
Webmaster note: This article was run in the Duplin Times and/or in Footnotes in 1957. I found an article in the Sampson Independent that mentions this article and that it was written in 1957.
That would put Hester's birth year as 1851. According to census records her birth year was 1853-1854.
Comments from Maude Smith in email on August 8, 2007: There are typos in the article. The year was suppose to be 1844 that
Hester was born. I interviewed her in 1951 and she passed away in 1953. I cannot be absolutely
sure of her age. All I have to go on is what she told me. She said she was about twenty years old
when the war ended and she was the only slave that stayed with the John A. Parrotts until her
grandmother found her and brought her to Magnolia. I do not know what year this was. I could only
speculate from her being twenty years old when the war ended as to when she was born. She
believed that 1844 or 1845 was accurate. I checked at the Register of Deeds office to learn when
she married and would you believe the page that would have had her name on it was missing. The
census does state she was born in 1853. Aunt Hester was with my mother and the doctor when I
was born and I knew her family.
In the 1880 Census it showed Hester and Essex had a child Eliza who was 14 years old. That
would have made Hester if born in 1853 only 14 years old. I just can't figure it all out according to
dates and ages, etc. I don't believe there is any way we can be sure. She would have been in
Magnolia when she married and the children would have been born here. The only thing I can do is go
by what Aunt Hester told me. As you know the census on the slaves are not always correct.