Uncle Nick Clemens Has Gone to the Great Beyond—Died at Bentonville
Uncle Nick Clemens, one of the old-time [men] of Fayetteville, who has been making his home with his daughter, the wife of Andrew Black, died suddenly this morning from heart failure. The remains were prepared and shipped to Fayetteville on this afternoon’s train for interment.
—Bentonville Sun.
Uncle Nick was a Fayetteville landmark and was a quiet, inoffensive, honest old [man]. He had lived here for 50 years and was known by all our people. Three years ago Jack Walker took him, Charley Richardson, Sam Van Winkle and Willis Pettigrew to Grabill’s photograph gallery and had their pictures taken. The youngest of the quartette must have been over 90 and all were perfect specimens of the ante-bellum negro and under it was printed the word, “The Old South.” The picture was a most striking one and the demand became so great that Mr. Grabill made thousands of them, on orders coming from all sections of the country. The other three are still living but Uncle Sam Van Winkle is too badly crippled up with rheumatism to walk. It has always been the understanding that Uncle Nick was a native of Africa — a genuine African — and he looked it. The older people of Fayetteville, who have known him so long, will be sorry to hear that this good old [man] is no more. The body was brought down from Bentonville yesterday and interred in the negro cemetery a mile south of town.
—Fayetteville Daily, Saturday, June, 1911, page 1.