books as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and songs like "Nellie Gray," that
awakened the nation's conscience and brought about the bloody "Civil
War" which resulted in the race being set free.

Just before the war, George Davis, a mulatto, son of his master and a
black servant girl, was in Cincinnati and was accosted by two white men
who offered to use the good offices of the "Underground Railroad" to
help him to get away to Canada. Being well treated, as a trusted servant
of his white father and master, he did not avail himself of this
opportunity to escape and stayed on as a slave until Freed by the war,
after which he went to Ohio and settled and prospered until his death.

Another slave, Asberry Parker, did escape, and traveling by night hiding
by day, reached safety in Canada where he worked and saved until he
became wealthy. After the war, when he could safely return to the United
States, he moved to Ironton, Ohio, where he made his home for the rest
of his life. He belonged in his days of slavery, to a Williams family,
in Carter County, Kentucky.

Another slave, George McVodie, belonging to the Poage family, of Boyd
Co., escaped and went to Canada, no [TR: missing word?] as to whether he
ever came back later.

A sister of George Davis was sold to a planter in Louisiana where she
lived until 1877, when she returned to Boyd County as a free woman.

As negroes, in slavery days, were regarded as beasts of burden not much
interest was taken in the welfare of their souls. Some kind hearted
masters would allow them the privilege of meeting in religious service,
where some one of their race in spite of the conditions of the times,
could read and explain the Bible, would preach. Other masters would not
allow this to be done. A negro would become, in character much like the
family who owned him, i.e., an honest, moral and kindly master would
have slaves of like qualities, while a cruel, dishonest master would
usually affect his slaves so that they would be tricky and unreliable.

Where the master did not personally supervise his slaves and left them
to the mercies of a hired "over-seer," their lot was usually much worse,
as these task-masters were almost always tyranical and were not
restrained by a sense of ownership from abusing the helpless creatures
under their authority as were the master's, whose money was invested in
them.

On one occasion, a young negro saw his own sister stripped naked and
unmercifully whipped by one