Henry Eppes facts for kids
Henry Eppes (September 16, 1830 or 1831 - February 6, 1903 or 1917) was a brick mason, plasterer, minister, and state legislator in North Carolina. He served in the North Carolina Senate in 1868, 1870, 1872, 1878, and 1887 representing Halifax County. He was a Republican. He served as a delegate for Halifax County to North Carolina's 1868 Constitutional Convention.
He was enslaved and never attended school. He was one of about 111 African Americans to serve in North Carolina's state legislature between 1868 to 1900. None followed until 1968 when civil rights were restored.
Halifax County is in eastern North Carolina. Part of the area known as the "black belt", it had a majority African American population.
He attended the 1866 Freedmen's Convention. He was a delegate at the 1872 Republican Party National Convention held in Philadelphia. He also served as a justice of the peace. He proposed state legislation for equal access to public conveyances. He was married to Lavinia Knight and had 13 children of whom seven survived to adulthood. He was an elder and minister in the Methodist Church.
He served as a pastor at the St. Paul A. M. E. Church in Raleigh. He was an organizer of the People’s Perpetual Building and Loan Association and invested in real estate. His fortunes took a turn for the worse after the 1898 Wilmington massacre.
He was listed on a document of the North Carolina Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands listing registrars.
Educator Charles Montgomery Eppes, for whom the C. M. Eppes school in Greenville is named, was one of his sons.
See also
