An Old Negro Dead
“Uncle” Sam Van Winkle died yesterday at his home in this city at a great age. He was an old negro and had probably lived one hundred years or more. No one knew his exact age but he had been a resident of Fayetteville longer than any living person. For a year he has been unable to come up town and his strength has gradually ebbed away until no vitality was left. He was a typical “before the war” negro and could tell about the early settlers of Washington County. There are very few left of his kind.
— Fayetteville Daily, February 27, 1913, Page 1
The 1910 Census showed Van Winkle boarding with Millie Robinson, who worked as a cook and lived on Sutton Street. The census taker listed Van Winkle as age 106, but included a note at the bottom of the page: “He really claims to be older, but white people think this is near correct.”
— Fayetteville History