The Good Reverend
Henry Wayland Norris was born in March of 1847 to parents Samuel and Delia “Dilly” Olive-Norris. The Norris family farm was located in the area known as Buckhorn in rural southern Wake County. Henry’s grandfather, Needham Norris, had bequeathed five slaves in his Last Will and Testament in 1852 to his son Samuel. We know from records that much of the land along Avent Ferry, Cass Holt (then known as Rollins Mill), and the Rex Road area belonged to the Norris family as part of the land grants of John Norris, Jr. who had divided the land up among his many children, so it is difficult to say where the farm of Samuel and Dilly Norris was exactly located.
The Samuel Norris family, according to federal census records, were farmers, and Samuel served as the minister of the Holly Springs Baptist Church, located on the west side of the Leslie-Alford-Mims House. The Civil War took a heavy toll on the Norris home, losing elder sons George and William to disease and injury. According to Weymouth T. Jordan Jr.’s book, North Carolina Troops 1861-1865, “Norris, George Gaston, Private was born in Wake County where he resided prior to enlisting in Wake County in Co. D, 26th NC Regiment at age 21, August 19, 1861. Present or accounted for until he died ‘at home’ or at Carolina City on December 5-6, 1861 of disease,” and, “Norris, William Benton, Corporal. Was by occupation a farmer prior to enlisting at Bogue Island in the 26th NC Regiment at age 19, September 10, 1861. Mustered in as a Private. Present or accounted for until captured at New Bern on March 14, 1862. Confined at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. Exchanged at Aiken’s Landing James River, Virginia August 5, 1862. Returned to duty prior to August 16, 1862. Promoted to Corporal in September 1863. Present or accounted for until hospitalized at Richmond Virginia March 20, 1864 with a gunshot wound of the left leg. Place and date wounded not reported. Returned to duty prior to July 1, 1864. Present or accounted for through February 1865.”
Samuel and his wife Dilly would bury their two older sons, their only daughter Mary Jane who died at six years of age, and a three-day-old son they named Joseph, all in the Samuel Norris Cemetery located at 6421 Cass Holt Road in rural Wake County. When they passed, Henry buried his parents in the same family plot as his brothers and sister.
Henry himself heard the calling to serve the Lord and attended Trinity College, now Duke University, to become a minister in the fall of 1863. He left his studies at Trinity in September of 1864 and enlisted with a Salisbury company and remained in service until the end of the war in April 1865. He returned to Trinity in 1866, graduating in 1871.
He was ordained in 1879 and served the Collins Grove Baptist Church from 1881-1884. Henry served in the role of minister in several other Baptist churches until he retired in 1900.
Wedding bells rang on the 9th of December 1880 when Henry and Blanche Esther Banks, daughter of Thomas and Heresila Rand-Banks, were united in holy matrimony. Sadly, Blanche died two years after her wedding leaving an infant son. Henry then married the younger sister of his deceased wife, Heresila Rand-Banks, on the 28th of February 1886. Heresila was twenty years younger than her ex-brother-in-law, now husband.
Besides farming and his ministry, Henry served as the Postmaster of the Holly Springs Post Office from May 23, 1908 until April of 1914. He also was elected to the State Senate on the Populist ticket in 1894, serving one term before his election as the School Supervisor.
Elizabeth Reid Murray wrote in her book, WAKE, Capital County of North Carolina, “In 1896, as one of the incorporators of the Holly Springs Land and Improvement Company along with George Benton Alford, Nathan Burns, H. Burt, Thomas B. Holt, William Q. Maynard, Herbert E. Norris, Henry W. Norris, C. S. Page, C.C. and J.A. Peace, Britton Utley, J.L. Vaughan and one woman, Helen Cross, their charter permitted them to build factories or mills, to open quarries, or to engage in almost any legitimate business, including banking,” to which Henry availed himself of the opportunity of serving as President of the Bank of Holly Springs, which opened in 1910. We know that Henry was still serving in the capacity of president of the Bank of Holly Springs in 1922 as his signature is affixed to a stock certificate in the collection of the resident Jerry Holland Family. The Bank of Holly Springs failed in 1924. It was the first bank to do so in North Carolina before the Depression. The life savings of many people were lost forever. Local speculation has it that an unwise stock investment or a misappropriation of funds was the cause of the collapse. The old bank building sat on the current site of Mims Towne Square, corner of Center and Main Streets.
Henry was active in the religious, civic and educational portions of community life in Holly Springs. He was an active member of the Holly Springs Masonic Lodge #115 where he served in various positions of membership and held a seat on the board of trustees for the Holly Springs Institute in its reconstruction. Upon Henry’s death in 1935, he was buried in the Holly Springs Town Cemetery on Earp Street.
Henry’s legacy lives on in the written history of our town, state and local churches. His home, built in the 1880s and expanded in the early 1900s, still stands today. The next time you drive down Avent Ferry Road, across from Rex Hospital, look for this stately home which has been lovingly preserved by Ken and Jane Jarvis.
