Ministers and preachers of Township 5: 1870 - 1880: Sylvester Brown Gaskill

In 1870 there were still no black ministers in the post-Emancipation churches of Township 5, Craven County, NC. That is not to say that there were no sermons delivered by black exhorters or preachers, but the occupations of the majority of men in the township were related to an agrarian society.

In 1870, James Walker Hood was living with his wife and three children in Raleigh, NC.

By 1880, however, one black preacher 

emerges in Township 5: 

Sylvester Brown Gaskill. 

1880: Township 5, Craven, NC:
Roll: 959; FHF: 1254959; Page 190B;
Enumeration District 37; Image: 0548.

In 1900 he was enumerated as a Minister in Township 5. By 1910 he was deceased, his family had moved to Beaufort (Carteret County), and his name sake -- the son of David E. and Lessie (Davis) Gaskill -- was born (about January 1910).

One interesting note: after the 1860 Census, no more white Methodist Episcopal Ministers nor Free Baptist Ministers were enumerated in Township 5.