A Farmer, Soldier, Husband, Father, and Minister: The Story of Edward W. Wooten

Submitted by Patricia Wooten Loyer; vetted and edited by Cheri Todd Molter and Kobe Brown

Edward W. Wooten was born on August 19, 1838, in Columbus County, North Carolina, to Richard Lafayette Wooten and Eliza Jane Wooten. Edward was a twin, and his brother ‘s name was Francis M. Wooten. According to census records, Edward was married at age 21 to Lanie M. Croom. They eventually had 3 children, Richard A. Wooten, Edward Croom Wooten, and Frank Thomas Wooten. When the war started, then twenty-four-year-old Edward joined the Confederate army, serving in Company K of the 3rd Light Artillery, 40^th Regiment, NCT. Enlisting on May 6, 1862, in Elizabethtown, Bladen County North Carolina, Edward was commissioned as First Sergeant. On Dec. 14, 1863, he was promoted to Second Lieutenant.

After the war, Edward returned to his farm. As stated by the 1870 census, Edward and Lanie lived on their farm at Whiteville, North Carolina, with their three children. In 1880 Edward living with Lanie, two children, his mother-in- law Martha Rouse, and a sixty-year-old Black servant named Clara Bright. By that point in his life, Edward was doing more than farming his land: He had become a minister, and according to the U.S. Appointments of U.S. Postmasters, Edward had been appointed as a postmaster on January 18, 1886. Edward was also a delegate to a Baptist Convention in Wilmington, North Carolina on November 18, 1886. In October 1887, Reverend Edward W. Wooten was the minister at Piney Forest Congregation. By 1900, according to census records, Edward and Lanie had hired a farm laborer to help tend the farm.

On December 14, 1900, sixty-two-year-old Edward W. Wooten died at 1 o’clock after several weeks of battling typhoid fever. According to his obituary, Edward had preached for 24 years upon his death. Edward W. Wooten was buried with Masonic honors at Western Prong Baptist Church Cemetery, Whiteville, North Carolina. Lanie M. Croom Wooten passed away on September 7, 1913. She was also buried at Western Prong Baptist Church Cemetery. Frank Thomas Wooten followed in his father’s footsteps and became a reverend.