here were schools for Negroes. There were
no laws against schools for free colored people until the agitation
that brought on the war.

At Nashville, Franklin college graduated three colored men; that is
the school gave them graduation papers. They were prepared for the
ministry in the Christian church (Disciples). These men were Samuel
Lowery, Daniel Watkins and James T. Rapier. Lowery, Rapier and Watkins
were all free men. Rapier served a term or two from Florence, Ala., in
Congress during the Reconstruction Period. He was a man of some
wealth, was very active and traveled a good deal. Lowery's father was
also a minister, before him, in the Christian Church. He had a farm as
well as city property. Franklin College was a Campbellite Institution
or what is now known as the Christian Church Institution.

When the agitation came about preceding the Civil War they closed all
of the colored schools.

Mr. Napier's father and mother with some other colored people had a
man named Rufus Conrad come down from Cincinnati, Ohio, to teach their
children. This was in 1859. Both free and slave children went to this
school. The school had been open two or three months when one day,
while the class was spelling the word baker, an abrupt knock on the
door interrupted the class and then a man entered without waiting to
be admitted. He said to the teacher, "What is your name?" The teacher
answered, "Rufus Conrad." "Where did you come from?" was the next
question. The teacher answered, "From Cincinnati, Ohio." The man said,
"I have been authorized by the powers that be in Nashville to send
these children home, to close the doors of this school and give you
just 24 hours to leave this town." This ended this school.

There were three or four schools in Nashville, before the war. One was
taught by Samuel Watkins. He taught school in an old church right over
a branch. It was built up on stilts, and was a place of worship built
for the slaves by their owners. Another one was taught by a Mrs. Tate,
who was of a very excellent family. Mrs. Sallie Player, a most
delightful teacher taught another one of these schools. Mrs. Player
was a free woman but her husband was a slave. He belonged to a very
excellent family of white people, whose slaves enjoyed every privilege
that free people enjoyed. They were protected by their owner. She was
a woman of some education. Her husband also had some education,
although a slave. There was another school taug