Benjamin Dargan was Wadesboro’s first African-American funeral home director, as reported in Page 3 of the Messenger-Intelligencer of Wadesboro’s Tuesday, Aug. 9, 1955 edition.
Benjamin Jameson Dargan, son of the late Scott and Frances Dargan, was born in Anson County in 1874. He became a Christian in his youth and the periods of life only strengthened his belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. He attended the public schools in Wadesboro and later supplemented his academic training at Shaw University in Raleigh.
He was married to Miss Gertrude Crawford and to this union, three children were born — Pauline, Benjamin Jr. and Gertrude. Both the deceased and his late wife were loyal members of Kesler’s Chapel AME Zion Church of Wadesboro. He served in many church auxiliaries as chairman of the trustee board, preacher’s steward and Sunday school teacher, and he also organized and taught the Baraca Class of Kesler Chapel for years.
He established the first Negro funeral home on Rutherford Street in February of 1917 in the building that once housed the Thrift Loan Finance office. He was a licensed embalmer and his training for this work was received in New York. His tenure as mortician was highly successful and many prospective morticians received inspiration under his guidance. He also established the first mutual burial association for Negroes in this section of North Carolina.
He was in business in Wadesboro until 1940 when he moved to New York City and immediately joined Mother Zion Methodist Church. He served there on the trustee and usher boards and was a class leader as well as a member of various committees.
He organized a Kesler’s Chapel Club in New York City, which was composed of former members of Kesler’s Chapel Church in this city, and this group sent a sizable contribution to the building fund during the pastorate of Reverend Cannady.
Mr. Dargan worked at the La Guardia Airport during his residence in New York City and upon retirement there, he returned home and established himself on Salisbury Street. He was married to Mrs. Jennie Edwards in July of 1954.
As a citizen of both North Carolina and New York, he was popular and highly respected.
His rendezvous with the inevitable came Friday July 29, 1955, and he left to mourn his passing his wife, Mrs. Jennie Dargan of the home and three children, Mrs. Gertrude Austin of Baltimore, Maryland, Mrs. Pauline D. Tillman of Wadesboro and Benjamin Dargan Jr. of Bamberg, South Carolina; one sister, Mrs. Mary Thomas of New York City; two grandchildren, Miss Marian Tillman of Brooklyn, New York and Benjamin D. Tillman of the U.S. Navy of Great Lakes, Illinois; and one great-grandson, Ronald Tillman of Wadesboro, along with numerous relatives and friends.
Steve Bailey is employed with the Anson County Historical Society and has specialized in local African-American family history for 20 years.