iss Mary dress
me up en de Lord knows, I ain' never quit givin her de praise yet.

"Yes'um, de Yankees, I hear my daddy talk bout when dey come through old
Massa's plantation en everything what dey do. Say, dere was a old woman
dat was de cook to de big house en when dem Yankees come dere dat
mornin, white folks had her down side de cider press just a whippin her.
Say, de Yankees took de old woman en dressed her up en hitched up a
buggy en made her set up in dere. Wouldn' let de white folks touch her
no more neither. Oh, de place was just took wid dem, he say. What dey
never destroy, dey carried off wid dem. Oh, Lord a mercy, hear talk dere
was a swarm of dem en while some of dem was in de house a tearin up,
dere was a lot of dem in de stables takin de horses out. Yes'um, some
was doin one thing en some another. En Pa tell bout dey had de most
sense he ever did see. Hitched up a cart en kept de path right straight
down in de woods en carted de corn up what de white folks been hide down
dere in de canebrake. Den some went in de garden en dug up a whole lot
of dresses en clothes. En dere was a lady in de house sick while all dis
was gwine on. Oh, dey was de worst people dere ever was, Pa say. Took
all de hams en shoulders out de smokehouse en like I tell you, what dey
never carried off, dey made a scaffold en burned it up. Lord, have
mercy, I hopes I ain' gwine never have to meet no Yankees."

Source: Heddie Davis, colored, age 72, Marion, S. C.
Personal interview by Annie Ruth Davis, Jan., 1938.

Project #1655
W. W. Dixon
Winnsboro, S. C.

HENRY DAVIS
EX-SLAVE 80 YEARS OLD.

Henry Davis is an old Negro, a bright mulatto, who lives in a two-room
frame house on the farm of Mr. Amos E. Davis, about two miles southwest
of Winnsboro, S. C.

In the house with him, are his wife, Rosa, and his grown children,
Roosevelt, Utopia, and Rose. They are day laborers on the farm. At this
period, Henry picks about seventy-five pounds of cotton a day. His
children average one hundred and fifty pounds each. The four together
are thus enabled to gather about five hundred and twenty-five pounds per
day, at the rate of sixty-five cents per hundred. This brings to the
family, a daily support of $3.41. This is seasonal employment, however;
and, as they are not a provident household, hard times come to Henry and
his folks in the winter and early summer.

"I was born on de old Richard Winn plantation