ctors at that time had not been schooled
to a great extent and carried medicine bags around to the sick room
which contained pills and a very few other kinds of medicines which they
had made from herbs and roots. Some of them are used to-day but Willis
said most of their medicines were pills.

Ten years after the Civil War Willis Williams had advanced in his
studies to the extent that he passed the government examination and
became a railway mail clerk. He ran from Tallahassee to Palatka and
River Junction on the Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad. There was
no other railroad going into Tallahassee then.

The first Negro railway mail clerk according to Willis' knowledge
running from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, was Benjamin F. Cox. The first
colored mail clerk in the Jacksonville Post Office was Camp Hughes. He
was sent to prison for rifling the mail. Willis Myers succeeded Hughes
and Willis Williams succeeded Myers. Willis received a telegram to come
to Jacksonville to take Myers' place and when he came expected to stay
three or four days, but, after getting here was retained permanently and
remained in the service until his retirement.

His first run from Tallahassee to Palatka and River Junction began in
1875 and lasted until 1879. In 1879 he was called to Jacksonville to
succeed Myers and when he retired forty years later, had filled the
position creditably, therefore was retired on a pension which he will
receive until his death.

Willis Williams is in good health, attends Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal
Church of which he is a member. He possesses all of his faculties and is
able to carry on an intelligent conversation on his fifty years in
Jacksonville.

FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT
American Guide, (Negro Writers' Unit)

James Johnson, Field Worker
Lake City, Florida
November 6, 1936

CLAUDE AUGUSTA WILSON

In 1857 on the plantation of Tom Dexter in Lake City, Columbia County,
Florida, was born a Negro, Claude Augusta Wilson, of slave parents. His
master Tom Dexter was very kind to his slaves, and was said to have been
a Yankee. His wife Mary Ann Dexter, a southerner, was the direct
opposite, she was very mean. Claude was eight years old when
Emancipation came.

The Dexter plantation was quite a large place, covering 100 or more
acres. There were about 100 slaves, including children. They had regular
one room quarters built of logs which was quite insignificant in
comparison with the palatial